001good evening everyone just getting the volume I don't think you can he me as well as I'd like can you guys hear me is it better a little bit better you can hear me well welcome my name is lisaa I'm the principal here at Tanto Regional Middle High School and oh there it is can you hear it now yes I feel like I'm on Broadway now um okay thank you Mr Cameron um I want to welcome everyone eighth grade families thank you for joining us this evening um I did want to mention that this is being streamed live and recorded So if you know anybody who is not able to attend they will be able to access the information on the YouTube channel that is you we usually view the school committee meetings on so
002this is an exciting time for our students and as our students move from middle school to high school that transition is both nerve-wracking as well as exciting and tonight we're going to be going over a few things we're going to be talking about academic expectations which shift as you move into High School uh we are going to be discussing extracurricular activities and opportunities which are expanding as you get into high school and we also will make sure that all of you understand who you can reach and talk to if you have any questions or concerns and understand that you know communication map I would also like to take a minute and just identify that this is because we did this last year and some people were quite disappointed that we didn't go over scheduling in
003detail this is really about the highlights and the trans highlights of high school and that transition between middle and high school scheduling will be discussed in the spring and we will will speak directly with all of the students most everyone in middle school is familiar with power school because that is how you've been able to access grades and so scheduling still goes through that and we will talk with our eighth grade students in the spring to um go over that more specifically this is more a general presentation so I did want to highlight something that I think oftentimes people forget that your students need you now just as much if not more than they needed you when they were in elementary school and education is truly a partnership between the families the students and the
004school and the community and we have lots of opportuni ities for parents to get involved and that's going to look different at the middle and at the high school level than it did in the Middle School level than it did in the certainly in the elementary um level and we have three really important organizations that create the backbone for family involvement Community involvement and the Stags PTO is um critical and they have their store open and a table out in the cafeteria and we have um do Stacy Stacey oh just if you could stand up please um and this is Stacy and Stacy plunet and she is our um the the president of the Stags PTO so if you have questions um you should be looking for Stacy and I am I'm going to try
005really hard not to talk a ton because there are wonderful students and there's lots of other information CPAC um is um another organization here I have actually so Stags PTO everybody's gonna have access to this slideshow presentation after um afterwards and there are Links at the bottom that will take you directly to these pages and to the people that you would contact if you have any questions we also have so this is the special education parent advisory Council and I think we have Cara extrom here she is representing the CPAC organization if you have any questions please make sure you see um Cara this evening and we also have a very active booster club so there is a link there um Mrs volani is the president of the booster club and she's happy to address
006any um questions she's not able to make it here this evening at this point I'd like to turn over the um presentation and we're going to introduce ourselves as we present so I'm going to turn over the presentation to I modman she is the the um chairperson of the counseling department this will be katiti okay um hello I am Katie Schmidt I'm going be your students's ninth and 10th grade guidance counselor my face is a face you can get well acquainted with if you need to um some things that are different about high school is there's now graduation requirements for students and credits associated with those so there are a bunch of graduation requirements but we talk your students through everything each year when we meet with them to pick their classes so each year
007your student will take a five credit credit English class A five credit class in high school is a class that's offered every single day a two and a half credit class is one that's taken every other day so each year they'll take a five credit English class A five credit math class they'll take three years of a five credit history class and then they'll also take three um five credit lab science courses um we also have two and a half credits that they'll take for health which is typically in their sophomore year and then they have um a minimum of five credits of gym that they'll take each year so that's an every other day class that they can take freshman junior senior year um we also do not require a World Language requirement for
008students to graduate high school but it is strongly recommended from colleges so typically our freshmen or sophomores will take our intro to Spanish or intro to French class um all students must also successfully pass the mcast typically taken in either of their friends freshman or their sophomore year there's three that they're going to take our teachers are really phenomenal they prep the students so well for them um so they'll take the biology mcast either at the end of their freshman year or the end of their sophomore year depending when their biology course ends and then they'll take the ELA and the math mcass uh in the spring of their sophomore year um oh this is what I just said about mcast um each um mcast session is two days I know that students typically get
009nervous about taking them um but our teachers really prepare them very well for them um we also have uh students will have a GPA and a transcript when they're in high school this is something that I talk about with a freshman when I go into their classes at the beginning of the year it's kind of a paper that if they have an older sibling they might be familiar with but if they don't it's fine we walk them through it all the transcript lists all of the courses that they take during their time here at Tanto and it also lists the grade that they got and the credit they got the GPA is then based on the grades that they got the level course that they took and that's all calculated at the bottom so we
010have different level of courses that we offer here we have College Prep courses we have honors courses we also have AP courses so those are all ones that students offer um okay and then I'm going to turn it now over to Eileen Rodman who's our department chair to talk about the academic departments good evening I'm so glad that you all came or are tuning in checking in um again I'm Eileen Rodman I'm generally work with the upper classman 11th and 12th graders as their school counselor but also serve as the counseling department chair and as a department chair I'm not going to represent all the other departments the academic departments and talk a little bit about that I did just want to make sure that I also mentioned um there's a financial literacy requirement which
011just came about how many people here have this is your first high schooler that we're going to be talking about okay I just like to get a gauge um so if you if you have an older student in high school they might not have had that requirement if you had a senior this year um but we do have a financial literacy requirement as well as a technology requirement um and that's all in there so for the academic departments we're going to go through them um I'm not going to do Death by PowerPoint and read everything for you but I just want to make make you aware of the different options that are available to your student throughout their four years and know that we do not track the students as as mmitt was talking about
012with um College Prep honors and AP courses um we do not put anyone in a single track so it's not as if a student oh well you're a college prep student and all your courses will be college prep for all four years we do have students who take variety um they might mix it up based on their own own personal strengths and and where they feel that they can challenge themselves and um that's different for every individual the other piece that I just want to make sure I mention when we're talking about levels is the fact that in addition to the academic transition um for high school it's a transition for a lot of other things as well and so it's really important for us as a counseling department to make sure we also mention
013balance just because you know maybe the eighth grade team is going to recommend your student for honors in every subject that might not be a good choice for them moving on maybe that's going to be too much so having that balance so that they're not stressed because they might also be very involved in athletics or music and theater or outside organizations and clubs and activities and we want them to take part in all those things so keeping in mind the academics is just one component of their transition to high school so math as we mentioned it's four years of math students um um will go through a flow of courses based on their math teacher recommendations and depending on what their final goal is sometimes students will take a look and it's not just planning
014one year to the next year but it's planning ahead four years we've had some students who've doubled up in math because they want to get to a certain level by senior year and when they come in they know they can't so there's just different options so um recognizing again all this will be available to you to um look at at your own time the science department as we mentioned three lab Sciences for graduation there's a variety in what students may take to satisfy those three lab Sciences but then there are several other science courses that students may take to explore in area of interest and electives and that sort of thing as well as in the ELA Department um we're pretty much telling your student they're going to take English 9 10 11 and 12
015what they choose to take we also offer a couple um additional electives in that department again College Prep through advanced placement exhibition is a culmination of their studies in senior year and those are going on right now you may have heard some of your students talk about exhibitions in the English Department history Department three years of that history um and then there's an opportunity for students to explore further whether that's an AP level um as well as participate in some history related activities um there is a nature of being is an interdisciplinary course that is co-taught with the English Department and the history department and the students in that class it's sort of like an intro to philosophy class and they end up going on a trip to Cape Cod every year as part of
016this course and I know the kids who take part in that um as well as the staff that take part in it develop a lot of great memories from that trip um the social sciences um although may fall under the history Department really a lot of electives opportunities for students to explore what they may be interested in a lot of these are going to fall perhaps during a student's upper classman year so that your freshman next year might not have an opportunity but ensure when they're doing scheduling that you let them know they're going to have opportunities they have four years to satisfy these so although we'll tell them you must take an English a math a science a history we might suggest the World Language and the PE and they're like I can't pick
017anything I want they'll have room by the time they're seniors when I'm working with seniors sometimes I'm only telling them English math and the rest they get to fill with whatever they want um so lots of opportunities for these the Technology and Engineering is a great field for a lot of students to explore their interests in different Avenues um and here are just some of the electives that we offer within that as well as we have some clubs that are related to that with engineering and Robotics clubs and um you'll see some neat experiments that happen as well as um the displays of things in the hallways if you're ever in the hallways the graphics arts department just displayed some neat kind of a concert venue type of uh advertising that they created in their
018in their Graphics classes and things like that so um opportunities for students to explore I'm now going to turn it over to Mr picarello to talk a little bit about some of the other opportunities good evening everybody uh as middle school counselor um I'm here to support your students in their journey to high school um I always like to meet with all the students um take a class talk over High School options uh talk about about what that transition is going to look like and be there when they're picking their classes because I I think it's always helpful especially in the Middle School to high school transition just because things look a little different there's leveled uh classes they're picking now so it's nice to to be there to answer questions for them and I'm
019here for you guys as well if you have questions about the transition to high school I'm definitely a resource and I want to help uh support you and support your students um I've being said it is sad to have my eighth graders moving on to high school but they're in great hands so I'm really excited for the rest of their Journey here at Tanto um so talking about world languages this is something I talk to all the students uh every year about so I'm going to say to you guys so you can say it to them as well uh as we said before there's no grad requirement for World Language but if college is in your students plans two years uh consecutively of the same language is something that a lot of schools are looking
020for I have t tons of students that look at their freshman year and say I can do Spanish one or French one later and then I'll I'll catch up we think of uh our classes and the grades as puzzles and Spanish one is a ninth grade puzzle piece it can potentially fit in later grades it gets harder and harder so if your student is serious about college and they want to get at least their two years done we strongly recommend sign up in get it done in ninth and tth grade then they can make the choice maybe they want to stop maybe they want to continue through uh 11th and 12th grade but at least get opens the door gives them the option we strongly recommend having those foreign languages for them uh so we're
021Department of uh three teachers in the foreign language Department we got two Spanish teachers and one French teacher one Spanish one through four and French one through four and there's lots of trips and experiences and um yeah just great we got a great staff uh for apparently they went to Canada and France which is really nice we did have uh there is going to be a trip to Canada um Mr Gman is Canada that was approved by the school committee so I think traveling is becoming um you know a greater opportunity for our students so that's look forward toate um we are a uh multilingual Community as a public school it is our job to serve whatever students move into our district and any level of English language that they have um our secret weapon
022is Miss McCarthy she does a really great job she's created a great environment up in her in her classroom where she supports any student that comes in we've got our own students that are uh inviting in these students and giving them connections giving them friends it's a really welcoming environment it's just been it's been really great she's been a great addition to us about the past few years and uh really confident when we have a student come in we're like okay M McCarthy will take care of you just get her up to her real which been great um physical education and health um you're going to need uh five credits for PE and also your 2.5 credit health class uh along with you'll see again I'm not going to go through the whole list but
023we've got a lot of sports opportunities for your students here um if your student participated in the sport and they want to continue that's great I always tell the students as well you're now getting to an opportunity to meet a lot of people and sports is a great way to make connections you're going to be connected to not only your freshman class but all the high schoolers and go try something see if you like it you don't have to do it forever so a great opportunity to make new connections to find new friends especially because they're going to be having classes that might have 9th 10th 11th or 12th graders in so it's a great opportunity for them uh Visual Arts we've got two Visual Arts teachers here we have art one art2 Ceramics one
024and two we have independent study Fiber Arts you guys walk around the building you can see we have a ton of amazing artists as our for our students and they do some great work and we're getting to that time of year where we like to put up all our our artwork and show off how how great of a job they've done so uh if you guys are at some point able to look around the building we got some some really talented kids here always popular classes too and Performing Arts we have uh Mr glant teaches our chorus class Mr Pier is our band teacher he also teaches jazz band uh Mr glant runs a music technology course out of his course room uh we have computers they do recording they do a lot of really
025interesting things they'll record uh commercials they'll do voiceover tracks um if you have a student who's interested in that side of the technology of learning how to record music or do any kind of voice over it's a great opportunity for them and it counts as one of your techs right yes uh marching bed as well it's a nice marching looks great and um sorry I was like this isn't mine all righty hello I'm Amanda I work for Clinton Savings Bank and I run the banking internship program here um the course is a part of the financial literacy requirements for graduation and through the program students are real life interns for the B so they get hands-on experience with cash handling they actually um do all of the transactions in the branch whether it's a withdrawal
026or a deposit um a cash exchange the school is really great a lot of Staff members have accounts they come in and just deposit $10 or take up $5 for Cafe for a cause or something like that so the students get to participate um they do have the opportunity to work at the bank through the program which is why it is for um sophomores Juniors and seniors just because of the legal age requirements to work at the bank um but they can also put this on their college resume as a banking intern or if they're going into the workforce they can use me and the program as a reference as well so it's a really great opportunity um during lunch we have middle schoolers that are able to come in so it's really cool for
027the upper classmen to be able to encourage them oh you're doing such a great job saving um you know what are you saving for or even with their peers to be like oh youve got a new job you're working here do you love it do you hate it tell me everything about it so it's really cool that they get the customer service experience but even if the student is not in the banking program the bank is still able to help other students in the school be able to create budgets and kind of get a good understanding of what it looks like to save money um so that is the program we do have the branch open tonight if anybody wants to pop in and see what it looks like um and we have a table
028set up if you would like to come and introduce yourself and learn um some more information about the program thank you uh we do also have the library obviously the room does not move when your student goes from middle school to high school so there's a couple resources here they have to do some research in their classes they can stop in there there's the catalog and the databases M sharpener is great she can answer all the questions um and she's yeah she's wonderful um so next up we actually have one of our seniors who's GNA come talk to you about some of our extracurricular activities so this is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Lily um so my name is lilan CA I'm a senior at Tonto um I've been here since sixth grade so I kind of
029know all the ins and outs of transitioning from middle school to high school here um so we have a lot of extracurricular activities that you guys can choose to involve your kids in or they can choose to try out for themselves um some of the ones that I'm the most involved in are Spanish club which I'm president of and I'm also really involved in mock trial which I really enjoyed last year um and then also one of the most well-known ones that we have is ational Honor Society which I can get into a little bit um on the next slide um but after speaking with some College admission reps um a lot of the things that they look for in um College applicants isn't necessarily um having a million different things on your resume a
030lot of the things that they look for is consistency and commitment to one specific thing so like for me I've been doing Spanish club since my sophomore year and I've really enjoyed it so I stuck with it and it's something that's been on my college applications um and then for the National Honor Society um in their junior year students who meet a certain GPA requirement are invited to apply for the National Honor Society um and then the application consists of the student demonstrating their skills in four Central areas which are scholarship leadership service and character um and the students are inducted at the end of their junior year and then they participate in the activities that the NHS does throughout their senior year um which consists of cafes For A Cause which are um kind
031of like little bake sales where all of the money goes towards a certain cause um and other charitable events um and then when it comes to Athletics we also offer a very wide range of athletic teams um and we offer most sports at a JV and varsity level um and we also offer football um with the West Boon lions and we also offer hockey with Hudson High School um and we are potentially introducing a junior varsity volleyball team which I think that's based off of Interest I haven't heard a little lot about it but it sounds fun um and I think that is all for me so I think I'm going to the next person but I've enjoyed talking to you guys I hope you [Applause] [Music] enjoyed [Music] hi there I'm San stles I'm
032the director of curriculum and grants for grades six through 12 and um this is something that's kind of a work in progress but I can talk about it a little bit we're in the process of developing a job shadowing an internship program it would be something that would be available for juniors and seniors um and the idea is to allow students to explore different careers and workpl places to see if the areas that they're interested in are actually something that they'd like to pursue so for the uh job shadowing experience um in junior senior year just as students are allowed to have um excused absences for college visits up to three times a year the same thing would apply for a job shadowing experience and then for the internship program seniors um can opt if
033they you know are interested in it um they can arrange something through um speaking with their counselor Mrs Rodman and also with myself and they would work um 35 hours throughout the year to earn 2.5 credits um as I said we're still working out a lot of some of the details and it's a work in progress but that's something that um should be up and running by the time your students are um Juniors and senors so I did want to speak a little bit to our community connections um with the burlin boil Liber who are both represented here the mun municipal offices in both towns as well as the community center 19 Carter these opportunities these are wonderful focal points for student involvement especially prior to being able to drive you can um these are
034bus stops and students can get dropped off at these locations but they really are wonderful sources for Community involvement ment potential jobs internships and creating a um a connections with our community which is really really essential and I think is an important aspect of you know as as students grow older you know where do they fit in and these um particular um organizations within both towns have reached out and really want to make sure that the student students feel a part of both communities so I think this is really um a highlight and really connected to what our school is trying to bring forward um especially with Miss du's um you know work with the internship and job shadowing good evening everyone and thank you for coming my my name is Miss Ford and I'm
035the school adjustment counselor here at Tonto I've had the pleasure of get getting to know some of our upper classmen from when I started here and they were in Middle School in the counseling office I work with students on IEPs 504s are simply if they're having a bad day we get contact from you as a family just saying can you check in for our child today I also get to work with this great team to my right every day we have a really collaborative and cohesive approach we also understand sometimes there can be a stigma about going to see a counselor or getting called downstairs or just mental health in general we make it a very safe and welcoming environment so if there is something going on we want to talk it out with them
036because we as adults we leave emotional baggage at the door every day and we have to power through the day we're teaching the kids the same thing when it comes to self- advocacy self-awareness and also teaching them too that come by and say hi to US during lunch with the counselor stop in during the day so you already have that Rapport and connection with staff so if something is bothering you we're not this stranger that you're suddenly talking to all the time so we work together um eileene obviously sees high school we see Middle School we also have Dr Trainer she's also known as Hannah's mom our beloved um therapy dog so again we all work together and we encourage anyone to reach out to us with any questions and I went backwards so when
037leaving this evening these are our best advice and takeaway tips to have communicate just like we say to our kids communicate with us use the staff directory reach out to us when you pass and obviously keep us in loop with concerns going on at home you're noticing things going on in the community because at the end of the day we are a community your feedback means a lot to us to maintain that Better Together stag strong mentality when it comes to homework we know that's not the most favorite thing for anyone to do but again staying on top of the kids letting us know if they're feeling overwhelmed so we can communicate to the teachers and make sure their expectations are being fulfilled newness this is new it's a clean slate right so there might
038be shifts in peer groups there's going to be changes in teachers there might be anxieties there might be Sunday scaries when they don't want to go to school on Monday again communicate with one another so we can make this a really positive experience for the upcoming freshman organization we all do that or we try to so it's just keeping everything organized the teachers are wonderful with Google classrooms if they're a visual learner we're going to give them tips on how to maintain that they need to write down notes stickies whatever they need we're going to customize it for each kid to be successful time management what else can I say everyone does it differently some kids power through they're really good at prioritizing some of us may wait to the last minute again these are
039things we're going to get to know for each kid as we get to know them more on a daily basis and individualize each student learns differently each student is unique which makes their needs more unique so again that communication with with one another will make it a lot easier and this is where we really appreciate any input from all of you in order to make future events like this more successful we want to hear your takeaways we want to hear any advice or guidance you have for us because we're working as a team and by working as a team we can assure that success of all our students so QR code you can pull out your phones you won't get in trouble for doing so you can scan it and it's going to bring you
040to a survey it's super brief but again your input's really important if you can't get it on this screen there's bright neon green signs as you walk around the corner with the QR codes too I would also at this time like to introduce our admin team um Mr Cameron and Miss Leandra hi pleasure to see you all I'm rich Cameron I am one of the assistant principles here at Danto Regional um I mainly oversee the high school but I've worked with many of your kids uh throughout the course of the school year uh some of of you I've met personally or you have seen me waving outside in the cold at arrival and dismissal um but I very much look forward to getting to meet every single one of you and if you ever need
041anything please uh never hesitate to reach out now and I Mrs aandra I've met most of you and I know all of your students and um it's I primarily work with the middle school but the nice thing is is that we all work together so just as Mr picarello saying you know sometimes it's sad to see them moving out we're always at the lunches together arrival dismissal so um we're always still here to help and I know Mr Pell follows certain students around and you know certainly if there's a connection that your student has made with me um you know just as just as we're already doing now so we work as a team we share an office so they'll you'll still get to see us quite a bit so thank you thanks for being
042here so at this time I would like to have our stud we have we have um three students that we'd like to have come up um and you can back on up here and open the floor up for any questions last year the most of the questions were for our students so if we we've met Lillian but let's all right so my name is stie Michaelson um I'm a senior at Tonto also senior class president um and yeah I actually came here in the seventh grade so I was a new kid um move schools a lot too um so like any stresses with that type of stuff if like moving into a new environment stuff like that I know a lot about it hi I'm Logan I'm a sophomore I came here in seventh grade
043and I was also a new kid so the transition was a little different but nothing to be worried about so I'd like to open up the FL any [Music] questionss I don't know I think we might have a shy group your best resource really I'm doing the college visits now my kids and I always say talk to the students on campas so talk to the students they're the best resource and we will have a variety of Representatives out in the cafeteria there's coffee there um water the math team brought cupcakes yes cupcakes so that's great so no questions really seriously okay we are all going to be here so if you're shy to um ask any questions now we are available and wanting to answer your questions I know that um the students really will
044have a lot of the best answers for and Matt as well um so well thank you so much for coming and we hope that your students have an incredibly successful transition to high school and know that we are all here and we truly truly believe we are better together so thank you very [Applause] much