By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

Mont Harmon Middle School Principal Keith Palmer joined the KOAL newsroom for this week’s Carbon School District Update. On the docket for the conversation were discussions about the transition from elementary to middle school, a reflection on the first quarter and goals for the remainder of the school year.

Speaking first on his switch from elementary to middle school, Principal Palmer shared,” There’s been a lot to learn, but I’ve also really enjoyed what middle school brings that elementary didn’t. The activity side is a lot different in secondary schools than in elementary school, and that’s been a fun way to get to know the kids and just bring school spirit into the school. And so that’s been a lot of fun, but it has been a lot of work and a lot to learn for me.”

Looking at the academic side of things, Palmer shared the emphasis from the first quarter of the year,” Our theme for this year has been ‘Rise Up’. And so we’ve been talking about that a lot about what that means. We’ve tried to raise expectations for behavior and for academics. We’ve had some challenges with integrating a bunch of new people; we have new aides and a new administrator, and we have new teachers, but we’re working through all of those, and we’re just going to do what’s right by kids.”

Examining activities from the first portion of the year, Palmer shared some of the fun that Mont Harmon has undergone,” So we did a spirit week this week to really just try to capture that we needed all of them. We did it in conjunction with sports. We had some really awesome things that happened. Our band played their pep music during a tailgate party we had, and we had a successful pep rally, competitions, and things, and kids were really participating in their dress-up days and coming out to games. And the cheerleaders were thrilled, they had a real Student Section to cheer for.”

He continued,” We have Red Ribbon Week coming up next week to give them another chance to participate in school activities, but we’ve had a busy start with the three sports that go on with cheer on top of it and clubs and things. But it’s been fun.”

Looking ahead to the future, Palmer spoke on the groundwork the staff has laid for future success at the school,” I think that we’ve got a lot of the basic structure in place so that we can really start to see the changes that we need to affect student learning. The first step is to reestablish some expectations with behavior, and we’ve worked really hard on that. I think we’ve made a lot of ground, and that lays a good groundwork for a classroom setting to be ready and to get kids to really meet our academic expectations.

The Principal added,” We expect every student to be able to learn at least the most important standards, and we’re going to really be working hard on that over the rest of the year to provide the support teachers need and the motivation for kids and whatever we need to do to make that happen.”

Closing our conversation, Palmer shared,” I’ve just been excited to be here. It’s been hard for me to learn all their names. But I’ve enjoyed getting to know a lot of the kids and just being back where I started teaching. It’s just been a good experience, and I look forward to many great things.”

To stay up to date with Mont Harmon Middle School, you can visit the school’s website or Facebook page.