001graders the class of 2032 that's pretty amazing um I am not used to standing in one place and I know that's gonna make it I'm sorry I'm so sorry my name is Lisa slara I am the principal here at Hanto Regional Middle High School um we have a big crew for you today to meet um um and I'd like to right now introduce um our assistant principal who focuses on the middle school students that's Renee Leandra um we will in oh nice absolutely so we are so happy this is a wonderful turnout it's really um fantastic what a special day this has been to see all of our students wonderful work in um all the grade levels I know it was uh filled with excitement at the elementary school and we had some wonderful presentations
002of innovative projects throughout the middle and high school and then to end it with this transition it um is very special I will make note that we do have um a performance coming um Beetle Juice and that is being is very exciting and we're um doing some um yeah some set design so that is something to look forward to when you come up to Tanto so uh first and formost I want to provide an understanding of what this afternoon is it's really an introduction a beginning to become familiar um for having our parents get comfortable with the idea of because some of you is your first student to come to the Middle High School some of you this is old hat this is um the youngest you have you've had multiple kids come up through
003and we are we have the caring concern for making sure everybody has support and attention for this transition because it is an important transition and oftentimes we know that there is some some anxious feelings around that so if we can provide uh some steps moving forward to make this transition comfortable that's what we're here for so this is not an indepth um you know uncovering of all that is sixth grade this is an introduction to say what should we expect what um we're going to hear probably the Highlight we'll be hearing from some sixth grade students this evening um and and just to provide an introduction there are other opportunities for our students and I want to um the other opportunities we will have a fifth grade stepup day and that is going to happen
004on June 4th it coincides with the practices for the course and band concerts that happen here and so we'll have fifth grade Step Up day and that's an opportunity for students to this the most important thing about stepup day is lunch that is the absolute most important they get to eat in the cafeteria they'll eat with the sixth grade students and they'll get a taste of what it's like to eat at Tanto that is the big highlight and then we'll spend some time with our sixth grade team teachers and then the other opportunity we will have is the um day before school starts we have a sixth grade orientation where our sixth grade students will have an opportunity to meet up with our high school student council students and they'll U be guided through um
005you know get a tour of the whole school and learn how to open their lockers and and also become familiar with some of the students who are the role models in the the school and have familiar faces at every grade level so there will be many opportunities but we all know that it's important to start with this night because it's it's getting close you know it's we're sliding to home of the you know of the school year right it's in a couple weeks it's April vacation and then it's summer right that's what happens so we know that this is what happens so um let me just follow along here so um again my name is l we have um our so our admin team um Rene lantro Rich Cameron um is the assistant principal who
006focuses on grades 9 through 12 and then we have our middle school guidance counselor Greg [Applause] [Music] picarello this this is a nice crowd yeah this very nice um so and I know Kyle I know this is driving you bananas but I really I get a little like claustrophobic when I start to um so I'm walking slow so you can do the camera so uh one of the things I think is one of the challenges for parents is how do I fit in how do I I have been a room parent I have been intimately involved with the activity of my grade school student how am I going to stay connected because we all know as they get older and I've experienced this even though we don't want to admit it they are going to
007become more and more embarrassed by you even though there is nothing to be embarrassed about but we know this is a natural progression of what happens so how do we stay involved and this slide will help um help identify some important groups that help you stay connected and provide opportunities to support what happens at school and to support the the whole student so we have the tono PTO which is incredibly uh um critical critical critical to so um so much programming that happens we have here um Stacy plunet is the um PTO president but we have uh Cindy M uh Kenzie who is here tonight if you have any questions please seek Cindy out she's also going to be at the school store um the school store is managed by the PTO so please make
008sure you stop by a very critical source of support for our teachers for our students for our school Community they funded an U we have this refresh day they funded a speaker series throughout the day we could have never provided that experience for our students without the PTO CPAC which is the special education parent advisory council is very active in our school Community um we'll show you the links of that we we did have car extrom she was planned on coming but El last last minute emergency so we I will show you how to get in touch with the CPAC group we also have the tono athletic booster club very active very involved and provide and host a lot of opportunities for parents to come together and I think as parents you will find that
009there is a shift and because I remember you know if there was a ship I'm gonna if I land don't laugh um oh yeah I'm GNA go so we have it is a shift for parents like how do I fit in where because our friends our friends were our children's friends in preschool our P the pars right that like are kind of that's how we navigated things and as your children get older and become involved in different things we have to find our own way so it's where it's like you know growing up of the parents as well so these are opportunities we also have I want to make a plug for Clinton Savings Bank they are an incredibly supportive Community um presence and provide many special opportunities so how many people have Clinton Savings
010Banks accounts from school because I know that you guys that there's um Clinton Savings bank accounts so you can continue continue to use those bank accounts up here and you can start new ones and there's a branch right in the building really building a sense of um you know personal finance responsibility so with that being said I just want to take a few minutes to um so how do we have a strong Middle School experience and I won't I know I've taken a lot of time I apologize so prepare your child for today in the future so we're preparing our children for what you know the daily assignments are but we're also providing them opportunities for skills that they will use Beyond today and that's really what we want to focus on the here and
011now but building skills that they will use further on and Beyond High School support your child's Independence and encourage them to take risks and be self Advocates this is when as a parent you're going to step back a little bit and and and tell your student have you spoken to your teacher have you and that can be scary that can be scary and I know some of you are going oh no no they're not going to speak to anybody they will not speak to one person oh but we can write an email to our teacher let's sit down and write an email to our teacher together so promoting that self advocacy be supportive but don't enable what does that mean that means don't do the project you are not doing the project they are doing
012the project go do that project I will get you the materials you don't do the project remember to help your child balance their interests with their academic and extracurricular schedules please understand that we want our students to feel good here we don't want them to constantly be stressed out we want them to take academic risks risks we want them to stretch themselves but we don't necessarily want them to always be like well you know I I can't I can't join I can't join soccer because you know what happens if I have a science test we'll figure that out we'll absolutely figure that out you should be on the soccer team absolutely you should be part of the art Club because we'll figure it out and it's all about and that's part of prepare your child
013for today and the future learning to balance because you've got to feed interest you got to feed your soul if you're going to be successful in other areas is so I am going to hand the presentation over right now to Mr picarello and he's going to introduce our sixth grade team and thank you so much for attending and oh just so so everybody I'm sorry I know just grab the um this is being filmed so if there's anyone who's missed this you can assure them that it is on it will be posted on the same link that school committee meetings are posted and we are going to send out this presentation for everybody so you don't worry oh thank you um so so fancy um so I'm H Greg Pell I'm the school counselor here
014at tondo uh Middle School specifically 6 through eight I'm here to introduce the team so first we have Miss Cox who is our math teacher in sixth grade we have Mi SP speroni who is our special ed teacher in um sixth grade next year here M you're done already M Miss Barry social studies and Miss galoa who teaches science if we don't have him here but Mr starak is our Ela teacher um do you want me to read that I'll read it uh the transition to sixth grade is a big step teachers in sixth grade work hard in Freedom progr meets needs for students will Foster your community of kindness and cooperation thank you hello everyone um like Mr picillo just read the transition is a big step and it actually starts right now it's
015starting today with this meeting um we often think that it starts when schools the next school year starts but it's it's starting today and transition means change right a transition is a change and the transition from elementary school to middle school is a really big change and every know um but changes can be exciting but they can also be overwhelming and we want you to know that we are here to help you with the change because a lot of things happen there's a lot of new things that you have to get used to when you come to Middle School there's all new faces you have new classmates that you weren't in school with before there's lots of new teachers there's a new building there's a new type of schedule to follow there's even a new
016routine at home where you have to get up a lot earlier than you used to but on the end of the day you get to go home earlier too and so in the beginning of the year um well our goal all year is that you are comfortable okay we want adults and kids to feel comfortable able with middle school but it takes some time it takes some getting used to and so we're going to spend a lot of time in the beginning like Mrs squa also noted we're going to learn how to open and close lockers and we're going to learn how to navigate the building and we will walk you to your classes until we think you're comfortable getting there by yourself and we really do want you to ask us for help because
017you're going to have a lot of questions and you're not the only one who has those questions I guarantee right six current sixth graders there's a lot of questions and you're not the only ones who had them right everybody else is in the same boat so we want you to ask us and if talking to us in person is a little scary you can send us an email right um so and one of the things that we notice as teachers is that the transition a lot of it happens in the beginning but throughout the whole year things change too because you might discover maybe a new learning style you have or you might notice that your friend groups are changing because lots of new people are in the mix and maybe you try something new
018you you try out a club or a sport those are all new changes and so again we're here to help you we want to support you we want you to go home by the end of that first we can say I love Middle School even though you don't know everything yet so I am now GNA turn it over to all right so in sixth grade we focus a lot on progress not Perfection uh we understand that students will be receiving letter grades for probably the first time and that's a change for the students it's a change for the parents we find some students are obsessively checking their grades and they are devastated if they get an 80 on something and we have some students who are like what's Power School um how do I get
019in okay um but the reality is is that your child's not going to get a 100 on everything um and that's okay right our focus is are they learning are they growing are they improving and in sixth grade there's a lot of opportunities to redo assignments do test corrections redo things to show that they've learned so that first time that they take that assessment maybe they're they didn't know what they were doing yet okay now let's try it again right so let's that's really one of our big focuses progress not Perfection um there's going to be an increased workload your child's going to be going to seven classes a day that's seven different teachers every single day that's a lot um and so they're going to have to learn how to manage that workload time
020management all of that stuff and throughout the year at the beginning of the year we're very good about allowing them to pass things in late and we start to scaffold that as we go through the year because again we're looking for Progress not Perfection we're not expecting every single sixth grader when they come in to pass every single thing in on time at the beginning of the year because that's just not a reasonable expectation for students who have never been expected to do that before um and middle school is a time for growth we understand that this is the next step towards High School which is then the next step towards whatever they're doing after high school um and so this is a great time to let your child figure some things out um because
021it doesn't like they this is the first time they're seeing grades so they're not going on college transcripts they're not going to matter as much there okay so that's our focus is progress not Perfection so we're fostering we're fostering Independence right so we want our students to become more self-reliant we want them to be responsible for their academic success we want them to own their school work right this is my responsibility to do this and we know that these things are new and you all have different kids right even if you have a family you know the kids in your family are different right so some of these kids are going to come in and they're going to be ready to go and some kids are going to be like you want me to do
022what um so self- advocacy is huge um their ability to come talk to us and I will admit right off the bat that I am terrifying right yes absolutely so it may be hard writing those emails is a way to go absolutely um or if you're having a hard time talking to one particular adult maybe talk to a different adult that makes you more comfortable right and and we're always happy to go back and forth that way you know we'll have a conversation together that other teacher can go with you right if that's what it takes to get you used to doing that and anything you can provide over the summer if you go to a museum or an activity encourage your student to talk to an adult that's not someone in their family someone
023they know well or have them pay for something at a counter so that they can want to get used to those experiences because talking to us is going to be something they need to do and sometimes it's in an uncomfortable situation it's because they've lost an assignment and they need to ask for a new one and they're uncomfortable with that so building those skills is huge once a student can self Advocate they're going to be fine they're going to be able to do all the things they need to do um self motivation that one sometimes is you know again some kids are coming prepared that's who they are and some are going to have some more trouble with that and we're here to help support that we understand that it's there's going to be growing
024pains as they transition to Middle School um our hope is that by the end of the year they've cut it down right they they've come a long way you see huge growth in sixth grade between what students start out doing in the beginning and what they did in the end you know um I think these guys can even tell you when we started at the beginning of the year we started doing vocabulary and they're like people want me to do vocabulary I don't know what this is this is such a lot and now they come in and they're like pH vocabulary that's easy I know how to do that so um another piece that they need to take responsibility or you know for is how their words and actions affect um both themselves and others
025kinds of things that they do and say are going to affect their relationships um a lot of students just like to kind of like the thing the idea that pops into their head is what they say and you know they can get into a little bit of hot water socially when that happens so that's something else that that we're trying to teach them to kind of make sure that they have responsibility for the things they say and maybe stop for a second and think about something before they just say it and whether that's going to hurt someone else's feelings um we'll have kids who are having all different levels of success right hopefully by the end of the year everyone's having success but there's they're all going to come in in a different place and
026it's going to have different levels of comfort and so some of the things that you know you say when someone else is struggling can be hurtful so we've had lots of you know social issues about those kinds of things so teaching kids that they're responsible for the things they say and that they will have you know issues with their friends if if they're not careful about those things so it's basically kind of you know being responsible for yourself that's the kind of Independence that we're looking for in sixth grade um again we are going to expect that there's going to be growing pains but that as we progress through the year all of it will become much much easier Independence um so I just wanted to take a minute to introduce the entire counseling department
027so you can see uh I'm am the counselor for grades six through eight and then uh we have ktie Schmidt who is our uh ninth through 10th grade counselor and she's also part-time adjustment counselor uh we have Eileen Rodman who is our department head and she's our high school counselor in 11 and 12th grade uh especially helping your students in the process of applying to colleges or post-secondary plans anything like that uh we also have Cara Ford who's our school adjustment counselor and Dr Kim trainer who's our school psychologist so it's a big team uh which to me means there's a lot of resources in the building for you and your students and I think the counseling department is uh the the type that we have the freedom to work with with a lot of
028people and make connections and act as like a middleman for a lot of uh different departments in the building and always here to help whether it be a parent or a student or a teacher we're always here to help work through problems and try to find Solutions so um I I didn't always have a slide about School counseling um this is my you know I think I started in 2013 um if anybody's reading uh the book anxious generation like I am right now that's prime time our switch over to iPhone forward- facing cameras and we see these rises in anxiety in not just uh adults but kids as well um and it's it's this age it's this heading into Middle School it's 12 13 14 these years are really formative so um as a department
029it used to be myself a high school counselor and a school psychologist and there's no way we could do that now um with the things we're hearing and seeing from from kids and families there's just there's a lot of pressure on kids these days not necessarily from families but from culture and Society so our counseling department we work really hard um our number one goal is building relationships whether it's building relationships with parents or students we want the counseling office to be uh a visit to the counseling office to be as normal as going to the nurse's office if you need uh a Band-Aid or something like that if there is something you a student needs help working on we're we're there for that because that's where we're seeing kids really need um I'm a
030product of the 80s so I don't know if you guys have the same experience as me but my one time talking to any counselor in my life was in high school going to the count my counselor who was also the football coach I think he was the football coach first and then counselor fourth and I said I think I'm going to apply to one college and he was like yeah seems like a good idea so that was my experience with guidance through school so I didn't even realize that um this was a career that people had where we could um support students with the the ISS isues that they're facing these days so we've got a really really strong team uh we've got a very very strong team that works together really well um we
031have a uh in our office you'll there's a sign in uh we try to track every student that comes down requesting anything from counseling we track it so we can make sure if we don't see the person in that moment we can get back to them we don't want it feeling necessarily like a DA counter like take a number everyone sitting in one room crying together we want to make sure you have a space to go if you wanna like come I want kids to talk to me when they had a good day I want kids to talk to me when they had a bad day I want we want to be supportive to everybody because we're all going through things right now we all need um support um the value of being heard is
032so important I think we all know we we have problems we want to talk to people about them we don't always want an answer we just want to know someone Hur us we want to know someone understands us and I think I'm sorry I'm a parents as well parents it can't be you sometimes you just they need someone who's not their parent sometimes to hear them because we're probably saying the same thing you guys are saying but it's different because your parents I know that again I know this because I have two kids so um is someone in the in the in the building who can support you who can support your kids um and I I put up here miss cook so I have a um I had a teacher in middle school I
033wasn't a good student so kiddos that are here I apologize not setting me off for Success here I had a hard time in school school was very difficult for me I had an art teacher Mrs cook who every day she saw me whether I had her class or not check in how I was doing she gave me a hug can't do that anymore but she would check in with me see how I was doing and send me on my way which made me feel a little less worried about that day it made me feel a little less worried about what the rest of my day was going to look like because Mrs cook was there making sure I was all right so we're trying to be more Mrs Cooks in the building we're trying to
034be resources for you guys and and your kiddos and um we're going to spend a lot of time with them I teach classes these guys can test we spent a lot of time together we talked about normal you know Middle School things and we want to try to normalize feelings and normalize being a human being and you we're trying to help them grow right now so that's my counseling Spiel if anybody wants to reach out to me my email um it's on later on the slide if you have questions about the transition if there's something that you think would help your student um just let me know I really just want to make sure I'm here to help so thank you guys all right so um I thought it would be valuable to real quick
035just show you you talk about there being seven periods in a day um um there that's a lot of transitions so uh sixth grade students are going to have their four core classes their English science social studies and math uh currently we also have an extra block we're calling it a Wind Block it's been called a quest block if you have a kid that's already been through sixth grade um it's basically a block that's meant to give students extra support in our core um curriculum State something is coming up in a certain subject is a struggle for your students specifically they might work with that specific teacher to get some help definitely going to be focusing on um drilling the ELA and math thank you very much um we also have um students are going
036to get PE every other day all year these guys only got it every other day for half a year that's why they look so sad but yeah but we're going back to our old model which is PE every other day all year you know sixth graders have a lot of energy and they need to get it out um opposite that there'll be half a year of reading support and half a year of computer science discoveries which will actually we have uh computer science every single year all through middle school and then options when we get to high school for part of our digital literacy program so um that's ba that's basic version of what the schedule might look like along with some other electives that are TBD based on um some you know the next
037month or so um but that is a typical day for a student here I'm going do a quick call back um I didn't realize that the counselor slash foot coach was a universal experience I did totally have that too and I also applied to one college and he said great and I did it um but I only have a few things to say about special education services um for any students in the room that get special education services um those will automatically be scheduled for the IEP so you don't have to worry too much about those yes and the transition meetings we will have as well we're going to talk about those um AC academics report comes out of a non-core academic class an Ila intensive language arts comes out of a elective yeah so
038just to picky back off of the um the special education slide there the transition meetings for those of you that that have special ed students we will make sure that we have a a separate transition meeting coming into Tahanto um that will typically happen May June um time frame with the special coordinator down in the elementary school as well as our coordinator up here at the Middle High um we'll also make sure that we have a teacher um at least one teacher Core Teacher plus our special education teacher in those meetings because your services some of you that maybe um have gone through a special education meeting this past year if you've already done an annual meeting they may have said well this may look different when you go to Tanto so we will make
039sure we have that transition meeting we are also going to do Transition meetings this year um as much as possible for any students that are on a 504 um so I coordinate the 504s for the middle school students um so we're going to try as much as possible to reach out to those families at the end of the year um that are already on those plans so we can coordinate any Services coming up um especially those those particular accommodations necessary okay okay so the orientation actually Mr quer covered this which was great um we will send out the date in the summer when we will ask your students to come on in and um again it's it's not mandatory it's just a great opportunity to be here with the student council representatives and the teachers
040will be here it's a great tour when no no other students aside from those you know role models are here so um you get a little bit of free range and you get time to practice the locker the locker is a big um and and um we we want to make sure you have plenty of time for that so that'll be a really nice opportunity oh I'm in charge of this office information slot okay so the biggest you know I I I know how great the the principles are at the elementary school with communication and it and and I again I'm a parent I have a middle school student right now in West Boon and a high school student and I work at a school right so shame on me if I'm not looking at
041my email and reading those weekly Communications but it happens um but that's the way we communicate here as well it's really really important and I can't stress it enough that we have your correct information so if you are getting regular weekly Communications from your current principls you know at Berlin and Boyston great because that's the email we have too um there has been some slight confusion when new students come in to register um with some emails I also know as a parent and an educator many of us have two three emails and we're not always you know checking you know the same one every day so just make sure that we have the right email on file what probably we will do in the summertime um we communicate regularly especially in August we'll we'll put
042out kind of a posting to make sure that we have your correct contact information um and you know if if we don't you know we maybe we'll send out a school messenger just to say hey did you get that last email if you didn't please let us know because really so much information comes home in a weekly email from Miss sequera um every Sunday evening um and it's just really essential that that that gets to you something that sometimes is a surprise um is you know we physical exams that they're they're we know they're annual and I have to take off an hour on Friday to get my daughter one because we missed an appointment so she can play softball so it's it's so um we you won't be able to enter the door without
043that current physical exam and many of you already have them from this last past year but if you don't check the date and what ended up happening um which was unfortunate last year in the fall was we had some students that wanted to do soccer and they didn't have that physical yet um so just as a FYI there's some of those ready meds will do the sports physicals you know appointments so just just kind be on the lookout when that annual appointment is for your student we need that when they walk in the door the nurses have become really really you know on top of that for good reasons but so just please make sure you have that into us um attendance the biggest thing here is and I know the elementary schools have different
044ways to communicate that attendance piece here is you can call the main line and and leave a you know a sick um attendance you know um out today for your student or we will send out in our communication Miss square is also to show you the website kind of how to navigate contact info you can also send an email to our secretary if your student's going to be up and yes this I would love to show you some of the updates on the um the district website we've been working really hard uh actually I I see the superintendent in the back here Mr gan's here he's he's had technology director um you know coming in and really updating our website so it's userfriendly and there's lots of great links on there um and getting to
045the individual schools you'll get a lot of great information there um everybody notic so we go to we go to the regular District website and then if we go all the way to the right hand corner we can go to schools click down and wait there we go look at this and if you scroll down oh wait a second are we a National Blue Ribbon School yes M aquero and and then we have this is um this has been reformatted really we got a lot of feedback from staff and parents from our school council and really allowed us to like what what do parents need and so Middle School information High School information contact Direct to re register your child and the lunch menu everybody's like we need a tab for that and you do
046because that's the number one so let's look at this Middle School information oh wait a second um I think I double clicked so we Middle School information so the first thing is um the program of studies um that that was the one from this year and then we have additional tab scheduling handbook summer Work N um National Junior Honor Society which is we actually have to um put that tab um and then Athletics so it really is a much easier website to navigate mcast update district report cards so these are news and announcements really those um kind of pressing issues or things that are coming out right now um we have links to scholarships we also have um a lot of great photographs our mission and vision um and if you scroll down this is
047a really nice this is our calendar that is updated so we have a schoolwide calendar that is updated um kind of sinking you know um as we're changing it so this is a um a really great spot for it's not districtwide this is for toono backage just to them that that contact information pth so if you have questions throughout the the summer um all of the um emails and phone numbers and if you keep scrolling down I think they have our roles and kind of who to contact when this is a great resource when you said oh you know I wanted to ask about this but it's July will anybody answer me there'll be people in the office throughout the summertime so feel free to either email or call um and many of the teachers
048are not here but if you want to email um an admin or if you want to give a call to the main office that way you'd be able to get a response um so just please take a look um play around a little bit with the Tahanto piece of the website we um they Continue to update it and and we're really really happy about that it's much easier to navigate I know that some Middle School teachers have individual web pages and I'm not sure if those Will Go On on here or how that's going to work but there are Middle School teachers and teams I know sixth grade had like a website at one time seventh grade has individual pages so that'll all come through your child's Google um email and Google classrooms oftentimes okay
049okay okay so we're at our closing but miss squa might want do you want to bring up your guests now or so this is the most important the absolute most important part of the presentation we actually have some real live sixth grade students who have survived up till this point [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so we have this is so they've been um they've been asked to share a little bit of their experience and to um help answer any questions Mr piccell UMC I because people are way more comfortable with you than me maybe I don't know okay um so we're going to have Mr pi because they um we've talked about different things that they might want to share you know some be highlights maybe you know something special something they've learned um so yeah we
050just want to say thanks Evelyn barha and Sasha came gave their time to to speak to you guys which we really appreciate so um we just love [Applause] to so I'm going to let them say their piece about their experience in sixth grade and then I can help um coordinate if anybody has any questions they want to ask of our three sixth grade students or you guys after that have questions for us I'll definitely help facilitate that conversation um I think that when we first transitioned into sixth grade the teachers did a really good job of sort of introducing us to what we were going to be doing throughout the year well you really scared were you scared no it wasn't that scary the first day of school is kind of just weird because you're
051all over the place and you're just so excited it's like all your friends are there but after like the first week or two you kind of get used to the schedule and it's not like you straight like just go straight into work it's kind of like the first two or so weeks are just getting to know the teachers like what they expect um you get what you're going to learn the curriculum do you get a lot of homework the first day uh no you don't have any first day yeah I agree with Marsha the first few weeks are very calm it it's a very very easy to like figure out where you're supposed to go how to manage your time get used to all the new parts and yeah the teachers help a lot with
052that you do you guys have any advice [Applause] for we do have a lot of fifth graders soon to be sixth graders here do you guys have any advice for them about maybe the transition or things that you were worried about walking in the building that you realized afterwards like wasn't such a big deal stay out to you guys um well first um I wouldn't be worried because getting to classes like you can't get lost teachers help you out in the first couple weeks and even if you do like not know where you're going you can tell by the people in your class they're going to be going the same place so you can see you be like oh this person's going here I must have Spanish that's where it is so the first all
053of the classes are in one hallway they're all like lined up and your lockers are right next to the classes the only thing that you should be slightly worried about I guess is electives but you get you know where they are because the teachers walk you to your elective for the first week or so well until you know that until they know that you're ready to walk to your own elective but one of like the hardest parts for me was remembering to charge my Chromebook every every night you have to bring it home every night and then you have to bring it back so I put my cbook in my backpack and charge it from inside that's a what one of major problem the major problems for me was getting used to the early wake
054[Music] up I sometime sometimes would leave my alarm clock on the other side of my room so that in order to actually turn it off I would have to get out of bed does anybody have any questions for our our sixth grade students because we want to give them the opportunity to answer I you know I could speak but they they just are going through this experience now so if anybody has any specific questions for them yes how much homework are you doing now question um we do we don't have a lot of homework because you get like one sheet of math homework for the whole week and then the rest of it is just things you haven't finished or like there might be like something every other week we do not have a lot
055of homework and it's really easy to manage how much we do have question answer um and I think a lot of it in sixth grade is um things you don't finish in class go home so your student might be it might be harder for them they might be bringing home more and that's just something to talk through with them and talk through the teachers but I think we see a lot of that times it's it's work that's done in class that's not quite finished end up going home so more yes there's a variety of electives and so you're not if you and your friend pick an elective together on purpose you're not going to get into the same elective but there's a chance you could so I wouldn't base your electives off of your friends
056the electives that we have are art Spanish jazz band chorus band and Lego robotics and if you're not put into the elective that you want first you also get a second pick for your elective um that was the one piece that I I didn't put up there was the elective choices we typically have one period for sixth graders for the electives that they're choosing just because of we're going through just picking what classes are going to be available every year it's slightly different so for these guys that's what they've had but that's not exactly necessarily what it's going to be next year but that information is going to go out when we send out the scheduling information yeah way in the back so what if you want you're interested in changing your schedule good question
057okay um yeah if you're not comfortable with the electives or high your schedu is working out um at towards the end of the F first quarter you can like go to the office and request a change in your schedule electives the counseling office is a place to do that and typically we try to not wait too long and if you know pretty early on that you're unhappy with something want to talk about it because we don't want you stuck in something that you're not you're not enjoying um but say earlier the better when it comes to changing schedules for sure yes long inter so each class is 40 minutes and you get three minutes to transition from class to class so that means going to your locker having to fill up your water bottle going
058to the bathroom you want to finish that between the three minutes that you already have since the teachers only have 48 minutes to give you all the need to do all on that day does anybody yell at you if you um don't get to class time like that that just seems like a really really short time like do you do that like is it possible like what happened um so the teachers do not yell at you if you're um it also kind of depends on how far it is into the year but either way teachers don't yell at you they'll just honestly I don't think they say anything um you just go in class it depends how late I guess like if you're like couple minutes late because you had to get water but but
059yeah there was a line um they're not going to yell at you you're just gonna go in and get back to what is and I my water bottle um I don't but I mean you could good question so I think that uh as they kind of noted three minutes between classes but majority of the classes are in one hallway but then you know if you're going from electives from if you have PE and you have to make it back to the sixth grade hallway that might be a time right oh I can't I don't have time to stop at that period the period before I should stop and use the bathroom grab reps things like that so I do think there's some planning that can happen and that's something we you know we can do
060with the teachers we can the counseling office can do that you just need help kind of getting getting used to things so so we have to see um what teachers are available um and what time thoughts are a available um based on um staff that we share so because um there's a middle school and a high school elective teachers share um the all the students in the school so we have to see what graduation requirements are needed we also have to see what times are available for the sixth grade you know for the sixth graders like when their core classes are available we also did a shift we instead of just having a half year every other day of PE it's a whole year so that shifted so there's a lot of like the availability
061of teachers and the availability of like time through the schedule but I can we will have art and and and chorus and Legos and computer science discoveries so we're going to have those courses yes related to the question about is it all so it's you know it's art sixth grade art and computer compter programing compter is that just sixth gr or is it other kids who they did guitar last semester and not they want to try computer programming so be a mix grade of only sixth grade only sixth grade for sixth grade electives it's sixth grade students yeah and then for high school you get you would get mixed grades but for electives because of the way the schedule is blocked there are sixth grade electives seventh grade electives and eighth grade electives the only
062the only change for that would be Bandon course because that's a really difficult thing because it's a you know Ensemble you know it's a group of students trying to play together so we have to do that but for other for other electives it's individual yes can you talk about the phone policy in Middle School sure no um yes I'm GNA have um Miss Leandra um I do want to make a plug for this though this is I I'm um I've have read the anxious generation I absolutely please read that book it's probably one of the most important books that you will read um raising a child today my biggest advice to anyone who has a middle school because we know we want our children to be able to contact us if they've missed the bus
063or when they're done with practice we know that we want them to be able to text us and and call us they do not need a smartphone they do not need a smartphone I had a flip phone does anybody remember the era of the flip phones that is all they need they do not I know this may seem radical they do not need and I'm gonna just say it they do not need the garbage that comes through social media they just don't need it they do not need it I am all about the flip phones and send them to school with the flip phones if if you want to if you wanna you know kind of navigate social media with but it's it's our children are too precious they're just too precious just quickly on
064that we are um there is going to be some information coming out we are working on um trying with the the school committees and the the the sub committee policy and the U technology subcommittee working on what might be an actual policy for cell phones in our handbook right we have procedures right and protocols and right now middle school students they are not supposed to have their cell phones on them when they are um or using them at all during the the daytime sixth graders are actually really good about that sixth graders for the for the most part have their cell phones in their backpacks in their lockers we don't really have to worry too much about the sixth graders um so you guys are doing an awesome job with that really good you notice
065that um hoodies are really a big popular item for many reasons right one of them is because that really cool pocket and uh so it then becomes a bit of a challenge to navigate especially as the students are getting up to eth grade so we're really trying to take a look at what is the best best thing for our for our school for our learning because there's there's also two sides to that story we have a lot of great apps that the teachers especially in high school use for um for some tools right in their classroom for some resources so we're really working on an actual policy we don't have that yet we do have protocols and procedures that we follow in our handbook that's outlined right now well we are going to be looking
066for parent input we've just put together kind of kind of spearheading asking the subcommittees of the school committee what they would like to do as far as next steps um we actually had at our refresh refresh day that's a real social emotional um support day for our school we actually had a a a optional uh cell phone free lunch and we got some really great feedback from the students on that so we're pull pulling all of that together and um we will definitely um I know Mr um superintendent ganam had pushed out to the whole District kind of this toolkit that the Attorney General is kind of sharing with all um districts so take a look at that if you haven't already I believe yes we have it on our uh our our presentation here
067we're going to also send this out to all of you so you have the so this is a QR code right here so you can take a look at that toolkit so be informed to kind of some options what other districts have done so far because there are there are both sides to this right um but the social media piece we've seen a great impact um throughout all communities and we are also having a presentation that will be um yes on the 16th um superintendent gam has also put together this presentation it will be virtual so you can you can access this from home um and this will really kind of teach us a little bit more about that social media piece about cyber bullying it's a really great presentation I believe the elementary schools
068may have already had some portion of that and this will be another followup for you so more to come on actual policies but we do have procedures that we follow and I have to say sixth grade teachers are great about you know kind of reinforcing the need to be present um and sixth graders have done an outstanding job this year about really being present and not using their cell phones um in school yeah do you have a question no um kind also yeah well we're going to ask for for all of that input and I'm I'm sure the school commit will actually be sending out formal surveys you know in time just because we want your input right there's there's we need to also teach how how to use these resources right they are resources
069they are tools we all have them um and I wish we could get flip phones more I I know how the stores go right we we all we we know and being a parent of the sixth grader myself if he didn't have a phone I'm not going to know when to pick him up from practice we understand these struggles we got to navigate this together we got to understand when it's appropriate and we got to teach them we're in the business of education so we got to do that together right we're Partners in this so so please more to come on that so great question and and thanks um you know for being a part of that conversation we really value your input on that okay as far as safety goes you guys resource officer
070here no we do not but we have right we do have a safety director Rich Cameron our assistant principal um he's director of safety with um for the district we also have a very good relationship um very proactive relationship with the boy and PD and we can call them and we we do call them whenever we need them and they're here at a moment's notice yes my question is for the students um what was your favorite project that you've done so far this my favorite project was um pretty recently in science um we were tasked like drawing out a fossil like a site where paleontologists had found a lot of fossils um like it was very enjoyable and a good it was honestly a good good way to like learn about how fossil are found
071like where they are any other questions yes are the school hours I know it starts when does it end um it's actually um the late Bell is like 7:33 so they have to be in the door but um not arriving at the school at 7:30 like we open the doors at 7:15 okay and they should be in their classroom seated by 7:35 and then the last bell rings at 74 24 14 and they'll load the buses or get picked up at 2 you know after that so coming up I I believe there are a combined between Berlin boyon I believe at this time at the last I checked it was a total of um 88 combin and so we have that would be broken up so it would be 22 um students that can fluctuate
072a little bit depending on potting in how they're grouped so no more than yes when the buses arrive in the afternoon that is an excellent question and I feel you because I was always worried about the buses so what happens is the buses so we have Administration goes out there's bus Duty and parent pickup Duty and the bell will ring and you'll collect your things and when the bell rings we know we already know that the buses are going to be outside waiting for us and and we have um someone from Administration out there and everybody wears a walkie-talkie so it say you forgot something in your locker you could you could run back and say I can you hold the bus we can go we need the bus help and we need the bus
073held and they'll say hold the bus okay thank you all so much there are cookies and um all and water and all of us to ask answer questions thank you thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] you