Be at your BEST

• Believe in yourself – be your best advocate.
• Enthusiasm is required. Approach everything with vim and vigor!
• Sacrifice – You must give something up when striving to be your best. Usually this means more time studying.
• Trust – Strive to be the person that your friends, parents, teachers and school can depend on.

Expectations | The Marshall Springs Way

In general terms, student expectations at Marshall Springs fall into three areas:

Character 

• Taking initiative for his/her own learning
• Treating others with respect and compassion
• Taking responsibility for his/her actions

Citizenship 

• Contributing to creating a positive school community
• Behaving in a kind, friendly and inclusive manner 
• Voluntarily participating in classroom activities
• Respecting individual concerns and the rights and needs of others.
• Respecting and embracing diversity
• Treating everyone fairly
• Considering others’ feelings perspectives and opinions
• Working and communicating effectively with others
• Sharing ideas in a clear, concise manner.
• Demonstrating enthusiasm and eagerness in group work.

Personal Development 

• Demonstrating self-awareness and an ability to set goals
• Setting personal learning goals based on structured teacher supported self-monitoring
• Demonstrating an ability to self-evaluate
• Identifying personal strengths and areas of growth
• Demonstrating traits of a confident and autonomous learner
• Reflecting on personal progress and applying this knowledge to his/her learning

In addition be aware that overly romantic displays of affection make others around you uncomfortable, so you should refrain from such behaviour.

Discipline 

Discipline is the acquisition and demonstration of acceptable behaviors.  Occasionally, students do not respond to day-to-day methods of developing acceptable behaviors.  For these cases the administration of the school will inform the parents concerned. The administration may decide that a suspension from school is warranted.  There are two types of suspensions: An informal suspension is usually a result of a serious incident, which may have had previous warnings about conduct that results in the student being sent home for a maximum of five days.  The parents and student must then meet with school administration to resolve the problem before readmission to the school.

A formal suspension usually results after a very serious incident or series of incidents, bringing about a referral of the student and his parents to the Superintendent or Board delegated person for placement in another junior high.

Bullying, NOT the Marshall Springs Way!

Marshall Springs is committed to providing a caring, friendly and safe environment.  Bullying of any kind is against the Marshall Springs Way and is unacceptable. Bullying is the act of intentionally intimidating others using the real or threatened infliction of physical, verbal, written, electronically transmitted or emotional use.

Specific examples of bullying may include:

• Physical:  pushing, kicking, hitting, punching
• Verbal and/or written name calling: put downs, sarcasm, rumour spreading, teasing, graffiti, racial taunts, ethnic or sexual orientation slurs
• Electronically transmitted: teasing, putdowns, all forms of electronic information, such as chat room, SMS, text messages, Facebook, telephone calls, abusive web pages or groups, or photo imaging/tagging when inappropriate.
• Emotional exclusion: using relationships as a weapon, tormenting, hiding others belongings, threatening gestures, building coalitions that deny an individual from healthy relationships with others
• Attacks on the property of another person or extortion of money or possessions
• Aggressive body language: nonverbal gesturing, eye rolling, mean looks, silent treatment, noises
• Sexually oriented comments or behaviour.

How can we as members of the Marshall Springs community ensure there is no bullying?

By agreeing:

• To not bully others
• To help other students who are being bullied
• To include students who are being left out by inviting them to join groups or activities
• To let an adult at the school know if someone is being bullied (we keep all conversations confidential)
• To not use hurtful humour.  It is not okay to hurt someone and simply say it was a joke. 
• To be careful of electronic comments.  Use respect. If you would not say it to their face, then don’t hit send!

How will the adults help?

• Unless the situation was severe, the adult will help by educating both the bully and the victim.  The bully needs to stop, and the victim needs help to not give their power away. This is often handled by our counselor or a teacher.
• In the rare cases of severe or continued bullying the incidents would be referred to the Assistant Principal or Principal. Increased support and ensuring safety would be the priority.
• If an individual student has bullied someone parent contact will be made. There may be additional consequences which could include: community service, detention, making amends, and possibly school suspension.
• In serious cases, a home supported leave, or expulsion will be considered by administration.

School Bus

We want you to have a safe and respectful experience on your rides to and from Marshall Springs.  You are expected to model the Marshall Springs Way when on the bus. Modeling our values will make the bus ride easy and comfortable for everyone.  Your bus driver has an important job of supervising the bus, while driving a busload of energetic students from home to school and back. We need you to help your driver by:

• Please stay in your seat at all times.
• Understand that there are many people on the bus, use appropriate voice levels and classroom appropriate language.
• Model the Marshall Springs way – be courteous to the driver and other riders.  Respect is important.
• Help the bus stay clean by not eating or drinking at any time.
• You must ride your assigned bus.  If any changes need to be made you need to get permission at the office in the morning or at lunch. There will be no permissions granted after school.
• Students, who do not normally ride the bus, cannot ride at any time.

When students do not follow expectations, they may be suspended from riding the bus. 

Students involved with extracurricular activities (ex. sports, band) outside of regular school hours will need to arrange for transportation to and from the building. Students need to be picked up from these activities immediately once they end.