Greetings Corkran Families,

We are incredibly excited about starting the new school year. We look forward to welcoming our new sixth graders to Corkran, and we are excited to continue our journey with our rising seventh and eighth graders. Personally, I am looking forward to working with my first promoting class here at Corkran. It’s hard to imagine our rising 8th graders and I started at Corkran just two short years ago.

I wanted to provide some important updates as we approach the beginning of the year.

Contact Information and Who’s Who?

Principal - Mike McCann, mfmccann@aacps.org 

Assistant Principal 6th and 8th Grades - Tripp Murphy, aemurphy2@aacps.org

Assistant Principal 6th and 7th Grades - Kerri Messer, klmesser@aacps.org 

Mrs. Messer and Mr. Murphy will each supervise a specific team of sixth grade students and teachers. Previously, we divided the 6th grade role alphabetically.

6th Grade Counselor - Nathalie Shaw (Department Chair), nshaw@aacps.org 

7th Grade Counselor - Kimberly Holmes, kmholmes@aacps.org

8th Grade Counselor - Benjamin Taddei, btaddei@aacps.org 

We are incredibly excited to welcome Ms. Shaw to Corkran Middle. 8th Grade families, your students will recognize Mr. Taddei. He was most recently the counselor for last year’s 8th grade students. Counselors will continue to loop with their students following this school year.

Corkran Front Office: 410-787-6350

Principal’s Secretary - Heather Morrison

Registrar - Bonnie Woody

Financial Secretary - Stephanie Donaldson

Attendance Secretary - Alexis Smith

Assistant Principal and Discipline Secretary - Kathy Blocker

Save the Date

Back to School Night Block Party - Wednesday, August 23 from 5-7 pm

Bubba’s Fundraiser - September 16

Chromebooks

All students have been issued Chromebooks through AACPS. We continue to use Chromebooks regularly, and we want to start off the school year with the good habit of bringing our Chromebooks every day. Please remind your students over the first few weeks of school to bring their Chromebooks each day.

If your child does not have a Chromebook or has a damaged Chromebook, please contact the Corkran front office at 410-787-6350.

Backpacks and Lockers

This school year, our students will not use lockers. Students will carry their belongings from class to class, and we will allow them to use backpacks to help hold their items.

All students will need to bring from class to class is their binder and Chromebook.

I know many students already do not use a backpack. A few things to consider if purchasing a backpack or other bag for your student to carry:

• If purchasing a backpack, look for something smaller to make it easier for your student to carry it around over the course of the day

• Consider a string bag for personal items. Unfortunately, a binder tends not to fit in a string bag, but a student should be able to carry their binder and store their chromebook and other personal items in a string bag.

• Many students have utilized tote bags or oversized handbags, and they both seem to work well.

If your student needs a backpack or any other additional materials to start the school year, please reach out to our counseling office.

Start and End Times

School will begin promptly at 9:15 and end each day at 3:55. 

Students will enter the building between 9:05 and 9:10. All students will report directly to homeroom.

We will start our morning supervision at 8:50. We ask that you do not drop off students earlier than 8:50 since we cannot ensure supervision before that time. 

Parent Portal

If you already have established a Parent Portal Account, you will need to re-download the app for the upcoming school year. Please be sure that when you enter your credentials, you use our district code LTDJ.

If you are not a Parent Portal user and need help getting started, please contact the Corkran front office. Parent Portal allows you to keep track of your student’s grades and assignments. 

Breakfast and Lunch

We are pleased to be able to offer every student free breakfast each morning. 

Unlike during the 2021-2022 school year, lunch is not automatically free for every student. 

Please fill out the application for free or reduced lunch. Even if you do not think your family will qualify, simply filling out the application helps Corkran in a number of ways.

Many students ended  the school year with significant bills for school lunch. Unfortunately, Corkran was accountable for those debts. We had to take over $3000 from our school budget to pay the balances.

Our cafeteria will not deny food to a student under any circumstances, so the balances will continue to grow if your student does not receive free lunch or does not have funds in their account. 

Please fill this application out early. We greatly appreciate it.

Food, Drinks, etc

A friendly reminder: Corkran does not permit students to eat during classes. We like to keep the building as clean as possible and want to avoid bugs and rodents. We also realize that snacks during instructional time also often present a distraction. Students eating during class will have their snack confiscated.

However, students are of course permitted to eat breakfast during homeroom. 

We prefer that the only food students eat during homeroom breakfast time is the school-provided items. We encourage students who do not want school breakfast to eat at home or to finish any purchased items before arriving to Corkran.

The only drink permitted in classrooms is water. We encourage all students to bring a reusable water bottles to school. (We’re getting a new bottle filling station for one of our water fountains!) The only exception this drink policy is during homeroom. 

We know that many families stop for breakfast before dropping students off to Corkran. We ask that, as much as possible, our students finish their breakfast and drinks prior to entering Corkran. Outside food is often a distraction for our other students. All students will finish breakfast by 9:30 every morning. If a student arrives to school with breakfast and/or a drink such as an orange juice or coffee, they will have to finish or discard it by that 9:30 cutoff.

Please note that energy drinks such as Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar, etc are banned at Corkran and will be confiscated and disposed of without exception. 

Please note that, per AACPS policy, students should never share food. We ask that when you pack lunches, you don’t send students with large bags of chips or candy because it encourages distribution of the snack and often causes conflicts or hurt feelings. 

Dress Code

Below is the dress code as established by the county. As you are purchasing clothes for your students, please avoid any sleeveless shirts or tank-tops, any shirts that expose a bare midriff, or any shorts that are inappropriate for school.

Please note, we will not permit students to wear slides or other open-toed shoes. Crocs are permitted, but we encourage all students to wear sneakers or tennis shoes since they will be regularly participating in PE and other outdoor physical activities. We have had students injure themselves because of slides, so we need to avoid wearing them to school. It’s a busy hallway, and they’re not the safest choice.

Please note there is no uniform required for PE. Please plan to wear appropriate clothes on P.E. days (every other day). We encourage students to wear athletic shoes every day, but students can also bring a pair to change into.

Dress Code

According to the Anne Arundel County Code of Conduct:

• Student Attire: Students are to dress in clothes that promote a safe and respectful learning environment. 

• Clothes that create a disruptive environment, cause a health or safety hazard, or that do not align with the rules established by the respective school are not appropriate and not acceptable at school. 

• School personnel will consistently enforce this dress code.

  • Headwear - Only for health, safety, or religious reasons. At Corkran, we strictly enforce no hats or hoods in the building. 

  • Shoes - As appropriate and required. At Corkran, we ask that students do not wear slides for safety reasons. 

  • Masks - As appropriate, required, or by choice. At Corkran, no student will be mocked or teased for wearing or not wearing a mask. 

  • Clothing - Cannot show profanity, obscenity, violence, or symbols of hate. Cannot promote alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or look-alike drugs.Cannot promote gang colors, gang affiliation, gang initiation, or gang-related signs.  Cannot show underwear, midriff, bare chests or backs.  Cannot show bare skin between upper chest and mid-thigh. At Corkran, students may be asked to change clothes based on dress code violations.