| | Quicklinks MSA Home Page School Calendar Athletics Schedule Parent Volunteer Assn Current News Upcoming Events SUNDAY, MARCH 8 » Daylight Saving Time - Set clocks forward one hour TUESDAY, MARCH 10 » PVA Meeting - 8:30am, Administration Conf Rm » Baseball - 3:15pm, vs. Cottage @ Roswell Park » Golf - 3:15pm, vs. Brandon Hall @ River Pines » Tennis - 4:00pm, vs. La Grange @ MSA THURSDAY, MARCH 12 » Early Dismissal - 12:15p-L/M Carpool; 12:30p PU/CA/U Carpool; 12:45p Buses Depart FRIDAY, MARCH 13 » Mid-Winter Break - SCHOOL CLOSED SATURDAY, MARCH 14 » Pi Day MONDAY, MARCH 16 » Board Meeting TUESDAY, MARCH 17 » St. Patrick's Day WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 » Public Open House - 9:00am, SAC, theater
Social Media   
| | Artwork of the Week  Props for the Play Lower School students Porter Heskett, Gito Nunez and Zachary Burns add the final details to their props for Dragon Tales.
A Note of Thanks 
Thank you to ... Frances Connor! All of us at MSA would like to thank you with great sincerity for being our Open House Parent Speaker. to begin with, you are an excellent speaker, a very admirable skill. You tell a story that is inspirational - not only to prospective parents and students, but to those of us who work at MSA. You remind us of why we are here, and we need to hear that as much as prospective parents need to hear your story and your parent perspective. At a most basic level, you are our best marketing tool. But, it seems so trite and just wrong to put all you do in those simple practical terms. At the most meaningful level, you help parents in their journey to find the best school for their children; you let prospective parents know why Mill Springs might be the best school for their children; and you reaffirm the importance of what we do at Mill Springs. Thank you so much for giving so freely of your time, energy, speaking ability, and dedication to MSA. Sue Swanson - Asst. Principal Upper School
Daylight Saving Time 
DON'T FORGET! This weekend begins Daylight Saving Time. Don't forget to set your clocks FORWARD one hour before you go to bed on Saturday night.
Support MSA PVA with Amazon
 Support Mill Springs Academy by shopping at Amazon Smile. When you shop at Amazon they will donate to Mill Springs Academy every time you shop. All you have to do is remember to select MSA as your charity the next time you shop at Amazon Smile. CLICK HERE to do that now!
You shop. Amazon gives. It's that simple!
Dragon Tale  A knight, singing, a castle, and an EIGHT FOOT DRAGON! Lower School is working hard on their Spring Musical Dragon Tale to be presented for family and friends at 1:30pm in the theater on Friday, March 20th. They have been rehearsing lines, singing, and dancing in drama and music class and making their props in art class all semester. Come out and support our youngest thespians. No admission charge. Pictured: Jack Jenkins as the Dragon and senior Levi Smith assisting in the background.
Mid-Winter Break
 EARLY DISMISSAL
Thursday, March 12
SCHOOL CLOSED
Friday, March 13
The Pendulum Project  This semester Vaidehi decided to up the ante on the fun factor in physics. She has introduced quite a few new and fun projects and maybe the most exciting one so far this semester is the Pendulum Wave project. We learned about properties of waves and the effects of mass and string length on the amplitude of the wave. We had to apply the understanding of the concepts by doing the pendulum project. In class Vaidehi showed the students YouTube videos on pendulum wave and boy were they swell. Soon after Vaidehi assigned the students a project to make their own Wave Pendulums. Making the pendulums was a BLAST. Students all around talked about the fun they were having. Finally the project was due: the competition was fierce and the fun was real. All the students joined in laughter and fun watching their fellow peers present their projects.
Public Open House Mill Springs Academy is holding an Open House! Wednesday, March 18 9:00am Student Activity Center  Did you know that Word of Mouth is by far the largest way families find their way to a Public Open House at Mill Springs Academy? So if you know someone with a child that might benefit from attending MSA, please invite them to our Open House or better yet bring them. If you haven’t attended one, an Open House provides potential parents with an overview of the school, a Fine Arts presentation, a parent perspective and a student perspective, a tour of the school and a chance to speak with the principal. It’s a great opportunity for them to get a feel for what we are all about.
THANK YOU for sharing MSA!
 HELP NEEDED!
The BBQ Barn Bash (formerly known as The Polo Party) will be held on September 26th in the evening this year. Here is the party website for more information: www.bbqbarnbash.com Thank you to Patti Phillips for once again designing this gorgeous website for us. This will be Kim Site and Liz Parks' fourth and FINAL party! Please join us in planning and organizing this fun and important fundraiser. We strongly encourage anyone who might be interested in taking over this event in 2016 to participate now so that we can have a smooth transition. If interested please the PVA at lizwparks@gmail.com.
Diversity Day  Our Diversity Day was a huge success! We think this was a fantastic, growing experience for everybody. Students began to see the benefits of learning about diversity immediately, but it will definitely be extremely useful for their college experience, and their future jobs. Each one of them made this day a special day for everyone else. For the adults supervising the activities, it was very satisfactory to see the students so engaged in deep conversations. We would like to thank you for letting your student attend the activities on Saturday and helping us make a difference!
MSA's Annual Report 2013-2014  The Mill Springs 2013-2014 Annual Giving Report is complete! To view or download a copy, just CLICK HERE.
The Annual Report is published by our Development Office to express gratitude to those who have made a financial contribution to the school and/or have volunteered for various fundraising efforts during the 2013-2014 school year. Every effort is made to ensure that each contributor and volunteer's name is properly listed. We apologize if your name was wrongly omitted, listed incorrectly, or misspelled. If you find an error, please advise our Development Office by calling Leila Smith at 678-893-7777.
Reading Week!  The Lower School students had a wonderful READING week! We began Monday with Read Across America Day, and then the rest of the week was dedicated to fun Dr. Seuss activities. The teachers read Dr. Seuss stories each morning to begin the day, there were fun activities in class, they made their own hat in the library (pictured Porter Heskett, Zach Burns, Gito Nunez, Sahara DiClemente, and Ryan Zant), and our Fab Friday this week was Dr. Seuss themed. The students even had a special visit from The Cat in the Hat thanks to Donna DePaul Moore!!
Read at Home? Why?  Nagy, W. E., R. C. Anderson, and P. A. Herman. 1987. Learning word meanings from context during normal reading. American Educational Research Journal 24: 237–70 - See more at: http://schenkgr4.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-read-20-minutes-pinterest-inspired.html#sthash.0OEzgeRW.dpuf
 As you may know, Mill Springs Academy uses a resource called Bookshare (www.bookshare.org) to get accessible digital books and reading tools for school. This service is free through an award from the Office of Special Education Programs, US Department of Education. Members can also use Bookshare at home for free, getting access to hundreds of thousands of titles and free reading tools to assist with homework or independent pleasure reading.
This year we are enabling individual student memberships to Bookshare for all students. As virtually all our students are minors, parents are required to apply online or via mail and accept provisions of the membership. If you want to sign your child up for their own Bookshare account email Claire Christerson, cchristerson@millsprings.org, and she will send you an individualized form with activation ID for your student. For other questions, contact Paul Barkley, 770.360.1336 or pbarkley@millsprings.org.
Spread the Word  We want to spread the word - by that I mean the MSA Weekly News! If there is someone in your extended family that might be interested in receiving the Weekly News, I would love to add them to the distribution list. Grandparents love to see their grandchild "in the News". Or maybe Aunt Jane wants to know what her niece does at school. It could be a conversation starter for them. Possibly someone has a vested interest in MSA? If you send me their name and email address I will be glad to add them to the distribution list. Let's spread the word!
Check out Our Summer Programs  This summer we are offering Summer School (for high schoolers), Sport Camps, and Mark Trail Camp. All of our programs are open to the general public and advertised outside of school as well. So don't wait to get your spot secured.
If you need or know someone that needs Summer School (rising 9-12 grades), come to MSA this summer. We are offering core classes and certain electives under our Forward Thinking program. Look for SUMMER SCHOOL INFO HERE. We are offering a different sport camp each week over the course of the summer where students can practice or learn new skills. You can find the SUMMER SPORTS INFO HERE. Information on the MARK TRAIL CAMP is HERE. MTC is an activity based camp for 6-14 year olds. Any questions? Contact:
Community Cares & Concerns
Please keep the following from our Community in your thoughts and prayers. The Carr Family Unemployed Families Please email me at any time with individuals you would like to include on our list as their needs arise. For privacy, I will only list names and claim ignorance if you ask me for details.
Quote of the Week 
Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read. Write and count. Childhood is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace which is right for each individual child. --Magda Gerber | |
One Hour Less
