Wareham Middle School parents gave comments and critiques over cream cheese and croissants on Friday morning at the first parent check-in with Principal Peter Steedman.

Steedman is starting quarterly check-ins over breakfast with parents to inform them on what’s going on at the middle school and to answer their questions.

“Be prepared,” Steedman warned them, motioning up and down in waves with his hand. “Middle school goes like this, and that can be within a two-week period, particularly when the winter doldrums hit.”

Parents new to the district peppered Steedman with questions about how to get their kids involved.

“This is the first time a school or principal has invited me to have breakfast,” said Magdala St Juste, a parent of a seventh-grade student who recently moved to Wareham. “I get to see the community at the school this way.”

Here are the three C’s the principal touched on during Friday’s breakfast.

1. Curriculum. All work on the MCAS will now be done on Chromebooks, so students have been using them more frequently to get used to them.
   Steedman said he hopes the International Baccalaureate classes offered at Wareham High School will be available for grades five through 12 in the future.
   “No other school in the commonwealth is doing that,” Steedman said. He has been affiliated with International Baccalaureate classes for 20 years, teaching them in the Netherlands, Brazil and Australia.
2. Community. The middle school is focusing on behavioral expectations this year, particularly on building a sense of empathy and helping students make good choices.
   Steedman said the school is also promoting experiential learning opportunities with the bogs growing outside and the STEAM and humanities academies.
   After-school activities are also picking up, as students prepare for a winter concert, engage in intramural sports and competitive robotics. More than 90 students auditioned for the drama production, Peter Pan, which will be performed in March.
3. Communication. Steedman encouraged parents to follow Wareham Middle on Facebook and to follow him on Twitter. He said he has an “open door policy” and welcomes questions and concerns.
   “I don’t like to email about it, I’d much rather you come into my office so we can dialogue,” Steedman said. Parents should expect a quick response time to emails from anyone at the school, though.
   “If you don’t receive a response from us within 24 hours, something’s wrong,” he said.

Steedman said he anticipates holding a check-in with interested parents once a quarter. He can be reached at psteedman@wareham.k12.ma.us with any feedback.