This week’s Athletes of the Week were 6th grader Lilly Graham who plays on the softball team and 7th grader Ayden Smith who plays on the football team. Lilly Graham deserves recognition for showing up every day ready to get better. She always has a good attitude and brings out the best in her teammates. Although she is a 6th grader, she is a leader on the field, and the tone setter for our team. Lilly’s teachers also report that she is an excellent student who maintains a positive attitude in the classroom. Ayden Smith has been a bright spot this football season. During our game against Commerce, Ayden was huge in stopping the Commerce offense. He had multiple individual tackles: 4 tackles for a loss and 2 quarterback sacks. Ayden has also been a great student this semester maintaining high marks in all of his classes.

8th grade math introduced the FUNCTIONS unit with a scavenger hunt this past week. Students were given clues they had to decode in order to find items at a certain location. All students were actively engaged and will use the concepts of decoding to further understand functions.

Friday’s Color Run to celebrate our PTO Boosterthon participants was a SMASHING SUCCESS!  The kids who attended HAD A BLAST!!! This has been our most successful fundraiser ever with an estimated $9,500 in donations.  THANK YOU! We met our goal, resulting in a faculty member being chosen to Kiss A Pig.  We met a stretch goal, resulting in the principal getting turned into an ice cream sundae.  If we can meet one more goal to surpass $10,000 by Wednesday morning, we’ll have a drawing to give away a $100 Amazon gift card to a student who earns donations in his/her name between this text and Tuesday at midnight.  Our donation site at www.mybooster.com remains open until next Friday night. THANKS AGAIN to our PTO parents, OCMS faculty & staff, & our parents/students/donors for helping reach this year’s fundraising goals! *See Facebook for more pics. Post 1 of 2

Here's our drawing winners from students AND teachers who have had PERFECT ATTENDANCE so far this year. Kudos to Trader Joes's-Athens, GA for their donation of mini bouquets to help us celebrate teachers who show up every day! 💕

Congratulations to these awesome students who were selected by their teachers for the Patriot Pride luncheon for the month of September for being examples of well rounded students in & out of the classroom.

Way to go, OCMS! We met our fundraising goal and can’t wait to celebrate at the Color Run tomorrow! Due to a lag in the reporting platform and the need to prepare for a safe event, THE CUTOFF FOR COLOR RUN PARTICIPANTS IS TODAY AT 6pm! Friends and families are welcome to continue donating, but our final list of Color Run Participants will close at 6pm tonight. We appreciate your continued support!

Our OCMS Football season came to an end Wednesday night with an 18-6 win over East Jackson. We recognize the efforts of this year's 8th graders and wish them well at the high school level next year. Special thanks to out football coaches, cheerleading coaches, & to the many parents that volunteered or provided for the team throughout the season to make it a success.

Congrats to our Football players, cheerleaders, & coaches on their 18-6 win over East Jackson to finish the season! We are just $600 away from our stretch goal of $8,000 for the fundraiser! Keep working hard and let’s turn a faculty member into a HUMAN SUNDAE! The student with the most donations received between the time of this message and 8am Thursday can pick the faculty member if we reach our goal! Remember, the student with the highest TOTAL donation in his/her name will select which staff member KISSES A PIG Friday! Be sure your student has at least $10 in donations if he/she wants to participate in the Color Run this Friday, and $30 in donations will get them a t-shirt.

🎃October's Menu is Served🎃

Breakfast and lunch are FREE for every student, every day!

We’ve met our first goal of $6000! The student with the most donations in their name gets to name the faculty member that has to KISS A PIG at Friday’s Color Run. Keep going strong! Now it’s time to strive for our stretch goal of $8000. If we meet that, a faculty member will get turned into a HUMAN SUNDAE! All students earning $200 or more in donations by midnight tonight get a gift card! There is still time to help. Only those who have at least $10 in their name by midnight Thursday can participate in Friday’s Color Run. Go to www.mybooster.com to sign up or donate!

Some of last week's BELL RINGERS! #RingtheBell

We’re sooo close to reaching our school goal of $6,000! If you haven’t registered yet, do it tonight at www.mybooster.com & have just $10 donated in your child’s name so that they can participate in this Friday’s Color Run! $30 donated in their name gets them a Color Run t-shirt to wear to the event. $50 donated in their name by 8:00 AM Tuesday morning allows them to get in on Tuesday’s Ice Cream Picnic!

This week’s Athletes of the Week are 8th grader Kyra Todd who plays on the volleyball team and 7th grader Reeves Harrison who is a Cross Country runner. Kyra is a team player with the best attitude. She is always willing to put the team first and play any position she’s thrown into. Kyra continues to work hard to improve in all aspects of the game. Her positive attitude not only shows up on the court, but in the classroom as well! Reeves Harrison is an excellent example of a student athlete. Reeves is Involved in multiple sports in addition to academic bowl, Beta Club, and other academic pursuits. He is a leader on the Cross Country team who often leads his teammates through stretches or runs and brings a great attitude to all of the Cross Country practices and events.

We had an AWESOME dance Friday night at OCMS! We're thankful for our OCMS student body who we can trust to have a fun & safe time at events like these. And it's refreshing to see kids being kids having fun with each other & without their faces buried in their cell phones. We're also thankful to our volunteer faculty members that serves as chaperones, our parents that showed up to help monitor, & especially our PTO team (Mrs. Peterman & Mrs. Turner) who helped us set up & have concessions ready among many other dance-related tasks! And congratulations to our 6th, 7th, & 8th grader who won a free dance ticket thanks to their fundraiser participation as well as another student drawn from those with perfect attendance so far this year! Don't forget to help us keep pricing fun events like this by supporting OCMS at www.mybooster.com!

Mrs. Barnes’ 8th grade career class is getting ready for their upcoming mock job interviews! Students participated in peer interviews earlier this week to practice answering questions, communicating confidently, and making a great first impression. We’re excited to see them put these skills into action next week!

Want your OCMS dance ticket paid for? A student from each grade will be pulled from a drawing from those with $20+ donated in their name by 8:00 AM Friday morning for a FREE DANCE TICKET to Friday nights OCMS dance. Get a donation by 8:00 AM tomorrow morning to get to wear a hat Friday, 9/25. We’re still working together to reach our fundraising goal of $6,000, and so far, we’ve raised $4,200! Amazing progress! Remember, if we hit our goal, we’ll earn the chance for an OCMS staff member to KISS A PIG! The student that earns the most donations gets to pick which staff member!

Something else new we’re doing at OCMS this year—We’ll be featuring a male and female Athlete of the Week each week. Our first Athletes of the Week were 8th graders Ellie Klaire Huff who plays softball and Joseph Bailey who plays on the football team. EK (as she’s called by her fans, friends, and teammates) is a leader on and off the field. She’s known for her positive attitude and the way that she controls the things that she can control. EK is a natural encourager and builds up everyone around her. She also has a great work ethic in and out of the classroom. Joseph Bailey is an excellent student-athlete. He maintains an A average in his honors-level classes and performs well as a starting offensive lineman for the football team. Jospeh is a leader on the team and looks for ways to help other players to play to the best of their abilities.

Great Job, OCMS! We’re already half way to our goal of $6,000! Get registered if you haven’t yet. And share some contacts to get the word out to get us to our goal. Those that have donations in their name by 8:00 AM Friday morning will be eligible for a HAT DAY this Friday! And those that have $50 or more raised in their name by next Tuesday morning will get an ice cream picnic at lunch. ICYMI—OCMS was recognized as a Title I Reward School, an honor that places OCMS among the top 5% of Title I schools in Georgia making the most progress in improving student achievement. Much of those accomplishment lies on the efforts of our students and teachers. But much of their motivation comes from rewards, events, & motivational initiatives paid for from funds gained through our PTO fundraiser. So, keep it up! Let’s make the money meant to spend on the fun stuff!

OCMS is off to a great start this Wednesday morning with "See You at the Pole" sponsored & led by students from the FCA. Students joined others nationally to participate.