O.W. Best Middle School Home

Welcome!!!

 

As the principal, I welcome you to O. W. Best Middle School!   We are proud to have you as part of our school community. The staff works hard to help your child succeed and we take tremendous pride in the relationships that we have developed with our school community. We are a close-knit staff and community, here at D7 and O.W. Best.

School safety is very important to the district as well as our school building.  Our system has been greatly enhanced with the addition of our SMARTBOOT system. This system allows for state-of -the art procedures during school lockdowns. Students and staff have been trained on this system. We have been implementing training and drills since the beginning of the year.

 

This school year is unique, in that we have added many supports for students. O.W. Best has added a 3rd counselor, a behavioral interventionist, and 2 social workers. It is our goal to meet the mental health needs of our students. We have also created a safe space/ closed conference room to implement TRAILs lessons with groups of students.  Our counselors have worked hard to dedicate the last few years to this vision.  We believe in creating a structured and safe space for students where they can share out thoughts, feelings, emotions, and the like.

Providing a high-quality education is our top priority.  Our district has adopted iReady for math and reading intervention.  This personalized program allows students to develop skills and proficiency in many areas of both contents.  Students will complete the diagnostic 3 times this school year. The district is also working on piloting a math curriculum for our middle schoolers. We are hopeful and confident that we will find a great curriculum to utilize with our daily math instruction.

 

We are committed to working together as a team to educate, empower, and inspire our students to become productive and successful members of our society, both academically and personally. We work hard to ensure that we are providing a rigorous and stimulating academic environment, where students are challenged to achieve and excel. Developing the whole student is very important to us, and we strive to create a supportive and enriching environment where we work on developing academic as well as social and emotional growth.  As noted previously, we are proud of our commitment to our students.

 

Middle school is a time of change. It is an exciting time, but it can also be challenging with the increase in workloads, the social adjustments, as well as having multiple teachers throughout the course of the day. We must teach the students how to successfully approach stressful situations that may arise at school, home or social settings.  With everyone’s support; our students and teachers will be able to work in an environment that encourages learning and academic growth. 

 

We thank you for your support and effort to ensure our students’ safety and well-being.  We are looking forward to a wonderful year at O. W. Best Middle School. I encourage you to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have throughout the year. Let’s make this our BEST year ever!!!

 

Educationally Yours,

Ariel Brown M.A., M. Ed.

Principal
O.W. Best Middle School