• To our amazing SRO Officer Blakely, especially during SRO appreciation week. She is great with our students and families, even making Valentines Day bags for the entire school! Thank you Officer Blakely!!

• To everyone battling the viruses and flu bugs going around, it has swept though Mark Bills and we hope everyone feels better soon so we can get our family back on track.

• To our our Mark Bills Family for winning the attendance challenge last week vs Liberty, hopefully we won against Rolling Acres this week too :)

• To all parents, students, and staff working on our chronic absences. Focusing on students with 10.5-11 absences this month ahead. Key days ahead:

   

       

• February 17, 2025 - 113th day of school (Those with 11.0 absences drop off)

Monday 2/17/25- No School Presidents Day

Little Caesar's Fundraiser starts Monday for our Mark Bills PTC

Tuesday 2/18/25- Volleyball Practice JV 2:40-4:00pm Var 3:30-5, Homework Help Glasper, Barnes, Card Collector Club in Library

Wednesday 2/19/25- Volleyball Practice Both 2:40-4:00pm Craft Club, Future Teacher Club, Homework help, Homework help-Macuse

Thursday 2/20/25- Volleyball Practice JV 2:40-4:00pm Var 3:30-5:00pm, Homework help Glasper, Barnes-2:45, Science Fair Club Mrs. Dawson and Ms. Smith 2:45 News Club 2:30-4:00 Rm 202

Friday 2/21/25- Volleyball Practice Both 2:40-4:00pm Chess Practice w/ Mrs. Dawson and Special Guest Chess Master James Neal 2:45

Saturday 2/22/25- Volleyball Jamboree @ Manual JV 8:45 & 9:30 Var 1:15 & 2:00pm

Feb 28th The Golden Event II: Celebrating Black History Month 8:00am-9:30am

Little Caesar's PTC Fundraiser runs 2/10-3/11. Its an online order everyone can share and it's quick and easy. More information to come this week.

Chess Lesson with a local Chess Master, Mike Leali Sunday 3-4:30 in Mrs. Dawson's room for those going to Super Nationals XII.  (FREE Lesson)

Sundays for those lessons will be.

2-23, 3-2, 3-16, 3-23, 3-30, 4-6, 4-27, 5-4

2-21 Chess Practice/Lesson with National Master James Neal 2:30-4pm

2-21 Open Chess 4-6pm MBS Cafeteria

2-22 Peoria County and Woodford County Chess Championship at Mark Bills. Check in by 8:30am.

The days of January and February can seem like they drag on ...but we have some valuable days ahead of us. Homework being completed has been down, across the board, over the last couple weeks. As we tell the students, the few homework problems that we have are like going to the gym..we don't want to go, but the reps and work make us stronger and better when it's time to perform. We have a huge performance coming up in March that compares us to every school in the state and we want to show off what our Eagles can do!!

If students need help, we have homework help afterschool Monday thru Thursday 2:30-4, so if they need the extra support an hour of extra help can make a huge difference.

• Attendance matters: we are shooting for 95+% attendance daily.

• Just 2 absences a month makes students fall into a chronic truancy category

• We are working with students to keep absences under 18 for the year to prevent the Chronic Truancy designation. Please focus on being at school every day possible, we have a number of students close to going over the 18 abs for the year.

• Our Make your Marq program, which is a boost our Social Emotional Learning programs and 7 Mindsets SEL program, kicks off in the weeks ahead. Students will earn membership to the program and recognition for showing personal growth in our Mark Bills character areas. Students don't have to be a "perfect student", they just have to be committed to personal growth as we develop into future leaders in our community.

• We are leveling up, GOAL IS 1% better everyday. The challenge is for everyone in our building- staff and students, to do something to be 1% better each day making our school community the best it can be.

We are in a new attendance challenge with our other area middle schools

It is a year long challenge and we are going head to head vs. another school each week. The winner gets the attendance trophy for the week and a win on the season total. There will be incentives, prizes, and activities for the winning schools. We will have a mid year and year long champion crowned. More news on Mark Bills weekly incentives ..So LETS GO EAGLES and bring home the title!!!