Dear Murchison Matadors,

We recently mailed a preliminary listing of the courses your child requested for the upcoming school year. This is not your child’s schedule, only the requested courses.

Please remember, each student is required to take Math, Science, English, History, and a World Language. Murchison offers French, German, Latin, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese as options to fulfill the World Language requirement. Successful completion of World Language courses may earn High School credit and apply to graduation requirements. Students who are not ready for the challenge and discipline of a high school credit course will receive middle school foreign language course credit.Students must also have a Physical Education course and a semester of a fine arts course. If you notice your child is missing any of these required courses, please contact us.

Please carefully review your course selections for 2016-17 and make revisions by marking through the course(s) you want to drop and write in the new course selection(s). Please return this information to us at Murchison via fax 512-414-4570, e-mail to , or US Mail to Murchison MS 3700 North Hills Dr. Austin, TX 78731. You may also drop it by the Main Office between 8am-4pm (Monday-Thursday). We need your responseno later than August 5th, 2016.

Additional resources to assist you can be found online. Copies of the 2016-2017 Choice Sheets, showing which courses are eligible for your student to take at Murchison, are posted on the Murchison Middle School Home page. Align the course number to the choice sheet online in order to better understand the course selections. For example, Course # 018427R appears as TECH CAREERS 2 and on the choice sheet it is listed as AFTER SCHOOL ROBOTICS. In addition, you can access detailed course descriptions and more information in the Secondary School Information Guide found on the AISD website, at ausitnisd.org. From the AISD home page, click on Quicklinks, select Curriculum, click Resources, and select Secondary School Guide. There is a version of all course offerings available in both English and Spanish. Pages 19-26 address middle school course offerings in more detail.

It is crucial that we have accurate and updated course selections from every student to build a master schedule driven by student needs and interests. In addition, we ask that families commit to the courses they have chosen for the 2016-2017 school year. Staffing decisions are made upon student course requests. Please remember we do our best to accommodate all requests. Your feedback is essential in this process. If you have questions or concerns, please contact the main office at 512-414-3254. In order to avoid confusion, please do not contact your grade level counselor before August 5th. Counselors do not return until August 9th and will work through scheduling issues as quickly as they are able, while also welcoming our newest Matadors at Transition Camp.

We are looking forward to a great school year as we partner with our families to ensure the best for our students.

Best Wishes,

Murchison Middle School Admin Team