Crabapple MS Staff-Update
Jan. 5
January 6 1st day of 2nd Semester
January 8-9 6th Grade JA Biztown Field Trips
January 12-16 Required School Safety Drills (Fire, Medical, Shelter, Soft and Hard Lockdown)
January 12-February 26 ACCESS Testing Window
District AVID visit, Wednesday, 2/4- Classroom visits wanted!
Our AVID district director and zone superintendent will be visiting CMS on 2/4 for an AVID site visit. They would love to visit classrooms and see AVID strategies in action. The visit will be from 11:30 AM-1:00 PM. If you will have students during this time and would like to showcase the great AVID work you are doing in your class, please email Maggie at nelmsmr@fultonschools.org by Friday, 1/16. You can also nominate a teacher who you know if teaching college and career readiness skills and may not volunteer themselves. Thank you!
We are excited to share an update on the Best Buddies program at our school!
We are continuing to build student interest and plan to host a “soft opening” during the second semester to support recruitment and engagement. While we were unable to meet the requirements to launch this year officially, we are committed to opening a full Best Buddies chapter next school year.
Additional information will be shared in the spring as we complete preliminary steps and plan events to ensure a strong launch at the beginning of the next school year. Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm. We look forward to sharing more soon.
- Salvatore Absent 1/7 and 1/8: We should have coverage, but if anything changes, we will let everyone know that morning. Just be cognizant that I will be out and be thoughtful about sending students to the Media Center. Thanks!
- January Media Center Programming:
- Contest for Students and Teachers: January 2026 meme contest.docx
The CMS Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Awards are coming soon. We need you to vote! If you know of a student, staff member, or community member that gives unselfishly of their time and energy to make our world and school a better place, please nominate them for this award. All nominations are due by Friday, January 9th and must include your reasons for choosing this person. Please take a moment to vote
The 6th grade Field Trip to Junior Achievement BizTown will be Thursday, January 8th and Friday, January 9th. Students will attend on just one of the two days, depending on their Social Studies classes. Teachers, in your classes you can plan to teach the same lesson on each of those two days for students on their day to stay at CMS. Questions? Contact Angelique Hayes at hayesac@fultonschools.org
Digital Accessibility: Why It Matters (Week 1)
Every student, staff member, and family in Fulton County Schools deserves equal access to information and learning opportunities. For individuals with disabilities, inaccessible digital content can create significant barriers—like missing key details in a video without captions, being unable to read low-contrast text, or struggling to navigate a page without clear structure.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) now requires all public-school digital content to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards. This includes websites, learning management systems, videos, and documents created by teachers and administrators. Ensuring accessibility isn’t just about compliance; it’s about inclusion and equitable access for everyone in our community.
To help all staff create accessible digital content, we’re launching an 8-week series on 7 Pillars of Accessibility - simple, practical habits that make content usable for everyone. Each week we will share more in-depth information about one of the pillars below.
The 7 Pillars of Accessibility
- Headings – Organize content using proper heading styles
- Alternative Text (Alt Text) – Describe images for users who can’t see them
- Descriptive Links – Write links that clearly describe their destination
- Color and Contrast – Use readable color combinations and avoid relying on color alone
- Lists – Format related items or steps as bulleted or numbered lists
- Tables – Structure tables with headers so they’re accessible to screen readers
- Captions and Transcripts – Provide captions for videos and transcripts for audio recordings
The University of Minnesota’s Office for Digital Accessibility has put together a great resource to help educators learn more about these 7 Core Accessibility Skills.
Action: Please share this information with teachers and administrators in your building to begin socializing this new expectation that will impact all of us as we move toward compliance with these guidelines.
For more information, please contact Shannon N. Kersey at Kersey@fultonschools.org.
January 12 - February 26 Wida ACCESS Testing (Daily Schedules & List of Students participating will be provided)
Teachers, as we prepare for ACCESS testing, please know that we will be calling in the students listed below to complete a device readiness check. They will report to Mrs. Escobar’s room (611) at 9:00am on the day listed below. We will be calling into your HR to request the student but wanted you to have this information ahead of time. 😊
6th Grade (Wednesday, January 7th, 2026)
Carlos Borda Escalante
Santiago Cabrera Ochoa
Anthony Hernandez
Bruno Justo
John Olvera-Vargas
Belen Rebollo
7th Grade (Thursday, January 8th, 2026)
Niharika Sannapareddy
8th Grade (Thursday, January 8th, 2026)
Logan Da Luz
Brittany De La Luz
Jose Mejia Duran
Sebastian Mendoza
Christian Nunez-Ramirez
Jesus Zuniga Zuniga
December 15- Grades and Staff Digital Accessibility
December 8- Holiday Concerts, POTY/TOTY Nominations, MLK Awards Nominations
December 1- Holiday Countdown Calendar and Underground Spirit Week
November 17- Student Attendance Update and Facilities Reminder
November 10- Building Events Procedure and Grading Reminder
November 3- Bookkeeper News and Veterans Day Reminder
October 27-PBIS Halloween Celebration and 504 Need to Know
October 20-Parent and Student Payment Directions and School Pictures
October 6- PBIS Staff Assessment Survey and Canvas Support Update
September 29- Revised Morning Help Session Process and Q1 Grading Update
September 22- TKES Goals and COPPA Update
September 15- Extended Learning and RTI Update
September 8- TKES Reminder and Student Attendance Update
September 1-Clubs and Teacher Mini Grant Update
August 25- Grading and AM/PM Procedure Update
August 18- PBIS, Centegix Badge, and BOY Media Center Update
August 11- Vanguard, Yearbook, Handling Medical Emergencies Follow-up.
July 30 -Important Dates for the Year, PBIS resources, Staff Handbook, Duty Schedules, Master Schedule, and Substitute Information
July 25 - Summer Need to Know Information