Week Ahead: May 31-June 4

We are down to being able to count on our fingers how many school days are left this year. What an end! Not exactly what we were hoping for, but we are ending strong nonetheless. As a team we are going to cross the finish line, give a big high five, and then sleep for a week. Well, maybe that last part is just me.

Here is what’s up next week:

Saturday, May 29
2:00 Graduation!

Monday, May 31
VS A-D
1-1:15 Advisory Check In (please review student check out document + Part 2 StuCo election)

Tuesday, June 1
VS E-H

Wednesday, June 2
VS Consolidation Day
8-9 and 3-4:30 Student Check Out by School Store
3:15-4:30 Divisional time; 3:15 Farewells in Library; report writing after that

Thursday, June 3
VS A-D
8-9 and 3-4:30 Student Check Out by School Store

Friday, June 4
VS E-H
8-9 and 3-4:30 Student Check Out by School Store

Upcoming (on the radar)

• June 7 – comments completed and peer reviewed (in S2 bin) and grades completed by 3:00; verification reports printed at 3:45
• June 7 – iPad carts collected by ICT for annual maintenance
• June 8 – verification report reviewed, signed (can be digital) and returned to office by 3:00
• June 10 – report cards emailed to parents
• June 11 – ICT equipment due to ICT by 3:00

Update on Final Week and Student Check Out:  We have adjusted all the final week activities and student check outs for the current situation. Thao will be sharing the student check out documents. Please review them with your advisees during your Monday advisory check in. Thank you to Abby for creating a virtual asynchronous Promotion Ceremony that has some very fun interactive aspects. We have also created a nice end to the year with yearbook pick up on Wednesday June 9.

• June 2, 3, 4: student turn in curriculum books and library books, 8-9 and 3-4:30
• June 9, 1-3:00: Yearbook, G8 Celebration Box, and final materials pick up (all of us in Plaza)
  • 1-1:45 G8
  • 1:45-2:15 G7
  • 2:15-3:00 G6
• June 9, 7:00-pm suggested viewing of G8 Promotion Celebration
• June 10, 9-10:00 Final MS Virtual Assembly

Joyous moments and highlights from the year – Tanya O is working on an SSIS story to celebrate highlights of the year. If you have something you’d like to include, please email her or me by Tuesday, June 1. 

Team Leads, HODs, and Personal Development Team: I am pleased to announce that Jacob Scott will be the new 7th Grade Level Lead. For HODs, please welcome: Geneva Hinchliffe, Math; Ryan Butz, Science; Erin Johnson, ELA; Kelley McKenna, PE; Abby Morgan, Support Services; Lisa Swiercinsky, Arts/Electives; still open Modern World Language, Social Studies. And for the new Personal Development Team, we have Kelley McKenna for Grade 6, Kevin Brodeur for Grade 7, and Cintia Bastos for Grade 8.

Team shifts for 21-22: With growth and scheduling needs, we have had to make a few team changes for current faculty. Please see below the teams for 21-22:

• Grade 6: Team Lead, Ryan Butz; Tyler Banks, Lili Dubois, Rebecca Jardin, Erin Johnson, Kelley McKenna, Ellen Mussleman, Mona Schraer, Joycelyn Wei
• Grade 7: Team Lead, Jacob Scott; Julianne Athon, Natalie Beals, Gary Bertoia, Kevin Brodeur, Mona Davies, Bev Giacobbe, Greg Jardin, Deborah Jones, Sonia Ortiz, Ryan Pool, Jacob West
• Grade 8: Team Lead, Abby Morgan; Stephen Ada, Cintia Bastos/Daniel Mendes, Brian Benck, Sean Boyes, Samantha Caen, Ana Maria Gomez, Geneva Hinchliffe, Andrew Ward

Master Schedule 21-22: Here is the … 32nd? … draft of the middle school master schedule for next year. It’s finally at a point for review through the lens of departments and teachers. Here are some parameters that we use when creating the master schedule (in order of priority):

• Meet student choice as much as humanly possible.
• Have all members of the grade level team off at the same time (this is groups of 9, 12, and 9)
• Meet facility restrictions (number of science labs, PE spaces, drama, etc.)
• Ensure teachers of the same course have a prep together. (achieved almost 100%)
• Provide as many common department preps as possible. Only science and PE have a common prep for all department members.

I didn’t have time to put the doc into a nicely readable format yet. That will come Monday (?). So here is how to read the master schedule:

• Courses are listed by semester. And the programming doesn’t allow for the semesters to be lined up properly. So an S2 class may appear at the top of the row. Please be sure to check the “term” carefully.
• Color coding: Green is for G6 classes; pink is for G7 classes; yellow is G8 classes; pink/yellow is for G7 and 8 classes.
• Big T – team prep (color coding stays same)
• Pencil in brackets – department and course common preps.
• Room numbers are not all correct. I will tackle that once I know we have the schedule finalized.

Feedback to provide: Please provide feedback regarding any of the following things: incorrect course assignments, room issues, missing classes, any other things that seem off or strange!

Grades and Comments: Grades and comments are due Monday, June 7 by 3:00. We will be hiding comments in PowerSchool starting on Monday, May 31. Please make sure that you have updated all grades as early as possible so that students and parents have a clear understanding of where they currently stand. This means entering in 50% Fs for 0s that are in the grade book. If you have any questions about this, please check in with your team lead or with me.

Virtual School Progress Documents:  Missing assignment data is also collected Tuesdays @ 9:00AM, but not included in the VS Progress documents (below). By collecting missing assignment data on Tuesday morning, the hope is that you should have time to set up any new meetings or classes with students on the Wednesday consolidation day. This should also give you time to be able to email students and tell them what they should be working on Wednesday (if you don’t plan to meet with them).  These reports are organized by subject, teacher, and also by assignment. This makes it easy to identify how many students might need additional support or time on a specific assignment. Note: Tuesday reports are sent directly to team leads so that they have the option of combining it with other correspondence, reviewing it at a meeting, or forwarding it directly to you.

G6 VS Progress Q3 & Q4 ’20-21

G7 VS Progress Q3 ’20-21

G8 VS Progress Q3 & Q4 ’20-2

Help for G8 Promotion From Abby: I would like to share something that the G8 advisors are working on for our G8 Promotion Ceremony, and to ask if you can help with one task.  Since our Promotion Ceremony will now be virtual/ at home, we are putting together some special surprises for our G8 students. One of these is personalized messages for each student. Our aim is for each student to receive at least 2 (3 if we can get more volunteers!) personalized cards from their teachers. These messages could be to wish them luck, share a memory, or something else. The hope would be that this is more than just a “congrats, have a good summer” message. Since we’re not able to sign their yearbooks, this is another great substitute for that too. 

So, how can you help?Many of you know our G8 students in different ways;

• you might teach a grade 8 class
• you could have taught some of these students in G6 or G7
• maybe you were their sports coach, ASA advisor, or trip chaperone
• you might have worked with them in the library, or other areas within the MS
• maybe you helped them out during virtual school
• …and many more!

You have all likely formed close relationships with some of these G8 students. We would therefore like to extend the invite for you to also write some of these personalized cards. It would be great for our students to be able to open up 3 personalized cards from us all. 

If you think you can help with this, please open up this excel sheet. You can add your name into one of the volunteer columns for a student that you would like to write a message for. If the first three columns are already full, but you would like to write something for this particular student, please add your name in the 4th column as an additional volunteer, so we are aware. Once we have gathered all of this information, we can finalize who will write each card, and I’ll send out a follow up note with that information. The cards will be provided for you, and we would need them to be completed by 12PM next Friday 4th at the latest. They will then be put into the gift boxes that G8 students will be surprised with the following week. 
Thank you! Please let me know if you have any questions or other feedback. I’m sure that our students will really appreciate hearing from us all before they transition to high school.