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Upcoming Events SATURDAY, MARCH 19
» MSA's Got Talent
5:00pm, SAC MONDAY, MARCH 21 » Varsity Tennis
4:00pm, @ LaGrange Academy » Varsity Boys Golf
4:00pm, vs. Brandon Hall » Varsity Boys Baseball
4:00pm, vs. Old Swanee Christian » MSA Board Meeting
TUESDAY, MARCH 22
» Senior Presentations
All Day, Upper Great Room » Varsity Boys Baseball
@ Holy Spirit Prep
» Studio Art Gallery & Reception
6:30pm, SAC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23
» Senior Presentations
All Day, Upper Great Room » Varsity Boys Golf
4:00pm, vs. Brandon Hall @ River Pines » Varsity Coed Track
@ Allatoona
THURSDAY, MARCH 24
» Early Dismissal
12:15pm L/M Carpool; 12:30pm PU/CA/U Carpool; 12:45pm Bus Departs
FRIDAY, MARCH 25
» SCHOOL CLOSED
Good Friday
SUNDAY, MARCH 27
» Easter WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30
» Senior Presentations
All Day, Upper Great Room THURSDAY, MARCH 31
» Senior Presentations
All Day, Upper Great Room » Lower School Performs
1:30pm, Parent Audience, Theater
Social Media   
 
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| Art of the Week 
This beautiful painting on canvas was created by a 10th grader in the Upper School - Matthew Haverland.
Ronald Lanzo
Who's a Super Hero? Ronald Lanzo that's who. He took the time at carpool last week to stop and assist a student with a flat tire on his vehicle. Thank you so much for caring for our students and their safety.
Cindy Thorne, Lower/Middle Technology Teacher
 Musician of the Week
Meet 7th grade PreUpper student Donte Noel-Miguel! Donte plays baritone in Band, and also enjoys drawing and playing video games. His hard work and improvement this semester have earned him a spot as our Musician of the Week. Congratulations, Donte!
Senior Presentation Time  Senior Presentations are a capstone project that every senior completes at Mill Springs Academy as a part of their Senior Research and Composition class. In the fall, students choose a topic of interest, a passion project, issue of social import or one of investigatory significance to examine, define, research and then compose a research paper. In the spring, they take their fall research and break it down into components to discuss, illuminate and present.
Speeches can range from five to twenty-five minutes, and each student works at their skill level, meeting hard deadlines to work with our Technology Department and other professionals, as well as developing organization and planning skills. We hope you will take a look at the list of topics and plan to come and hear several of them on any of the days.
Illustrator Visits MSA - 1 of 3  On Wednesday, children's book illustrator Michael P. White visited MSA for a half-day celebration of stories and art! Lower, Middle and a Fine Arts Class were given a unique opportunity to watch an artist create in our library using spontaneous ideas and lots of jokes! Mr. White left us with 13 original pieces of art, including Middle School's puppy mascot Gus' first portrait! We are so thankful for Mr. White and his passion for sharing creativity and laughter with our students. Be sure to check out the two other entries in this week's MSA Weekly News.
6th Annual Spring Break Survey  The results are in and it looks like many of us are planning a vacation - lots of Mustangs will be on the beach.
Here are the stats: - Vacation - 69% (75%)
- Staycation - 24% (17%)
- Do Nothing - 7% (8%)
The numbers in parentheses are from last year's survey. Everyone has a different idea of what and where relaxation is, so there are a variety of places we will visit. For those of us going away we will be jet setting to the following destinations: Kauai, Tampa, Williamsburg, New Orleans, Ft. Myers, Panama City, Eastern Caribbean, Mickey Mouse, Roatan, Callaway Gardens, Washington DC, Tybee Island and Amelia Island (I wanna vaca with this family based on the description of the trip). Those of us staying around home will do fun things like Six Flags, the Atlanta Zoo and redoing a bedroom. Whatever you end up doing I hope it goes well and you have some fun. Spring Break begins with Early Dismissal on April 1 and the school will be closed through April 8th.
Region AND State Winners
 Fine Arts has been very busy, not just in the classroom, but all around Georgia as well. First the Literary Festival Regional competition was held at the University of West Georgia last Friday. Team Mustang came away with 2nd Runner Up Overall. There were some terrific individual awards as well (listed below)! Everyone that earned a first or second place (pictured) in the individual awards, earned the opportunity to go to State on Wednesday of this week, which was held at Valdosta State University. All I can say is, "WOW!" You guys are awesome. CLICK HERE to see the awards and find out who are our STATE CHAMPIONS!
United Nations Assemble
From March 6 to the 8, six Upper School students participated in the Georgia United Nations Assembly sponsored by the YMCA. Carolina Ayerbe served as advisor, while Michael Smith attended as a chaperone and advisor. Jack Abram and Matthew Dalluge represented Germany, Caroline Holmes and Matthew Boyer represented Somalia, and Kiyah Sherman and Lindsay Lopp represented Japan. They had to write resolutions that were later on presented to the other participating nations. The assembly gathered schools from all over the state of Georgia and it was student-led, with several nations presiding over the committees. Every country had to create a tri-fold (global village) with facts and information about it. Students also had the opportunity to visit the Jimmy Carter National Library and enjoy a delicious lunch at The Varsity. Mr. Dalluge mentioned that this was a frequent topic of discussion in their family. The response from the students was just as positive. They are already encouraging other students to participate, as they look forward to next year's event.
Dominos Pizza Fundraiser
Nikki Kametz from Domino's will come out on Monday, March 21st to speak to the students about the Domino's Pizza Fundraiser. They will meet Lower/Middle Schools at 12:15pm and PreUpper/CommArts/Upper at 12:45pm. Taniah will deliver forms to to all advisories on Tuesday, March 22nd. All forms and monies will be collected on April 11th. If you have any questions you may contact Taniah Jones at tjones@millsprings.org.
Illustrator Visits MSA - 2 of 3
Here is Middle School in the library holding up their pencils to show they are ready to draw as the Illustrator, Michael P. White gives direction.
Technology Spring Cleaning
 Your home isn’t the only place where you can do some spring cleaning.Now is the perfect time for you to do some digital tidying to optimize your laptop as well.
Viruses: It’s always a good idea to scan your laptop periodically to ensure there are no viruses or malware lurking and infecting your machine.To do this, launch Kaspersky, (our school’s firewall/filter), run updates (to ensure you have the most current filters available), and remove whatever is found.Need help with this? Just come by tech and we’ll give you a hand. Email: Digital hoarding is a real thing and now is a great time to weed through old or junk emails. CLICK HERE for some tips and tricks to help keep that inbox under control. Operating System Upgrade: Mill Springs’ students may also have their school-purchased laptops upgraded to Windows 10 at any time. READ MORE
Don't Miss This!
PVA Family Fun Night event, "MSA's Got Talent" is being held on Saturday, March 19th, 5-8pm in the gym! This event was designed to bring the MSA Community together. We all share in raising children with differences. This is a great opportunity to meet the parents of the kids your child talks about and form relationships. Tickets can be purchased at the door the night of the event, tickets will be $8/person. This will include dinner, dessert, and the talent show.
As an incentive to attend the event, the advisory class with most tickets sold will receive an ice cream social and the advisor will receive a $50 gift card. We believe this will be a fun school-wide event as we get a chance to see and appreciate some of the hidden talents within our student body! If you should have any questions, please call Lauren Murray at 770.289.6599 or her email Llmurrga@gmail.com. See You There!
New Traffic Pattern SOON
 Keep your eyes open for a new traffic pattern on campus after Spring Break. The roundabout at the entrance will be fully open and fully operational. That means two lanes of traffic flowing counter-clockwise. For those of you dropping off and picking up at the PU/CA/U buildings, this will be a bit of a change. We will send out more information just before the break with a good map/picture, but I wanted to make sure you were aware and paid attention.
Illustrator Visits MSA - 3 of 3
Lower School students had such a wonderful time with our special visitor Michael P. White. They were very entertained, and thought he was hilarious! In first grader Sam Lesser’s words, he was so “witty”! In addition to showing us how he illustrates children’s books such as The Library Dragon, he drew with the kids and had them make their own pictures. They had a really great time. Below and pictured (from Alec Robinson) are a couple of the letters that students wrote to Mr. White:
Dear Mr. White, You are so cool and witty. I love so many of your pictures. I love you and your books. Your books are so so funny I will love to see you again. Nathaniel (Henderson)
Early Dismissal/School Closed
 Thursday, March 24
12:15pm – L/M Carpool 12:30pm – PU/CA/U Carpool 12:45pm Bus Departs SCHOOL CLOSED: Good Friday, March 25
We Need Fractions
It’s always funny how students will connect a topic. When introduced to the concept of reducing fractions, one of our class comedians and movie connoisseur quoted a joke from the clever movie Peabody and Sherman. Sherman turns to a friend and says, “I could bring my new model! It’s a hydrogen atom.” His friend says, “You’ve only got one, huh? Guess we’ll have to split it.” With the help of visuals, BrainPop, and understanding the importance of turning the math problems in our assignments into everyday math situations, students understand the relevance as to why we need to master this unit. Fortunately, it doesn’t feel at all as though we’re attempting to split atoms in Middle One’s math class, as students are doing a terrific job grasping the concept of fractions. Pictured: Jeremiah Jones, Aaron Breitkopf, Nicholas Robson, and Ryan Lanzo --Kelli King
Human Evolution Presentation
Guest Journalist - Grace Shelton, 9th Grade, Upper School 
Our Biology class was given the honor of being introduced to the interesting topic of Human Evolution by Vaidehi’s daughter, Monisha. Through a series of PowerPoint slides, Monisha took us on a journey through time starting with the first life – a cell – all the way to the modern Homo sapiens we have evolved into today. Everybody in the class was intrigued by her presentation, as our class had many insightful discussions regarding the material in addition to the myriad of interesting questions we had to ask. One piece of information that really caught my eye during her presentation was the fact that our wisdom teeth no longer have any function. The initial purpose of wisdom teeth was that our human ancestors needed them to chew hard roots and raw meat, but ever since our ancestors discovered cooking, we have had no reason for those teeth. READ MORE
Spring Musical T-Shirts
 Congratulations goes out to two artists, Marshall Stoddart and Cameron Schrader (pictured) whose designs were chosen for our MSA Spring Musical t-shirts. Thank you both for your creative and thoughtful designs. These awesome long sleeve t-shirts are now on sale for $25. Please see Janet Ford, Brenda Smith or Kate McElliott to purchase one.
Check this Out!
You can sign up NOW for any of our Summer Programs. We have several different Summer Sports Camps that will be available this summer and are lead by our own coaches. Find that registration HERE. As usual Mark Trail Camp is bound to be a lot of fun so choose your activities now before they fill up. You can REGISTER for that HERE. If you need or know someone that needs Summer School (rising 9-12 grades) we are offering core classes and certain electives under our Forward Thinking program. Look for those offerings HERE. Any questions? Here is who to contact:
Community Cares & Concerns 
If there is ever a care or concern you would like to share with the community, please just email me at any time, I will be glad to include either names or situations. For privacy, I will only list names and claim ignorance if anyone asks me for details. Cheri
Quote of the Week There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
--Albert Einstein
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Just like you we are all working on an hour less, for some reason it takes forever to get over that. But life goes on and drags us along with it. So this week we had some really cool stuff happen: Middle took a trip to the Alliance Theater, our librarian, Brittany Emge, arranged for an illustrator to visit, then there was the Literary Festival (make sure you read about that!), and of course we had St. Patrick's Day. 
