It's February, and that makes us think about doing things with heart. One of the things many of our students and staff pour their hearts into is the arts. We were recently treated to the One Act Plays, directed by some of our talented eighth grade Miscoe Hill Youth Theater members. Our fifth and sixth graders treated us to two amazing winter concerts. And, this month some of our talented Miscoe students will have their work on exhibit in Boston. Talk about doing things with heART! Well done, all!

ALICE Parent Information Night: On March 7th, Principals Jennifer Mannion, Janice Gallagher, and School Resource Officer Stephen Sinko will be joining together for a parent information night at the Miscoe Hill Middle School Auditorium from 7:00 – 8:00 pm.  All parents from the Henry P. Clough Elementary School and the Miscoe Hill Middle School are welcome to attend.

Historically, Federal, State, and private agencies have recommended a lockdown-only approach that includes students hiding under desks or against the wall, with the shades drawn, lights out, and a locked door.  Today, these agencies have spent considerable resources researching active shooting and violent intruder events.  Their findings in these unfortunate events have resulted in a movement away from traditional lockdown techniques to more empowering programs such as ALICE protocols.  The administration, teachers, and staffs of the Henry P. Clough Elementary School, Memorial Elementary School, and the Miscoe Hill Middle School participated in an initial training on January 18, 2019, and it was a great success. The next step in our process is this information night with parents and guardians to support understanding of how our safety practices are evolving. 

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​For your planning purposes,
​this year's MCAS dates are the the following:
April 23, 24 ELA
May 15, 16 Math
May 20, 21 Science Grades 5 and 8 only

We won! Thanks to Dave Quinn, MURSD Director of Technology Integration, and Lisa Young, Miscoe parent, for their efforts in securing a grant for the Miscoe Hill Middle School Clean Energy, Garden and Compost Program. Miscoe has been chosen as one of the 10 winners of a 2018 Possibility Grant from Boston Scientific. The grant will fund materials for a weather station, which will aid us in improving the watering system for our school garden while teaching students valuable STEM skills in electronics, physical computing, and programming for the Internet of Things.

Thanks to the adult and student members of our School Beautification Committee, we are preparing to see some changes at Miscoe! Mr. McInnis has a group of students ready to tackle the eighth grade boys room and give it a much needed make over. The eighth grade girls room will be next! If you can wield a paintbrush and have some extra time, please consider joining this effort. You can email Mr. McInnis at wmcinnis@mursd.org or come to our next committee meeting. Students and adults from BVT have been in to begin planning the renovation to the upstairs boys room. And, we have some beautiful new furniture that we've used to update meeting spaces for students and adults, thanks to a generous donation from the Brochu family. Join us on 1/9 if you'd like to get involved, or watch for notification of projects in which you might be interested in supporting.

New face in the office: Before the break, we thanked Cindy McDevitt, administrative assistant to the principal, for her many years of service to our school and tearfully wished her a happy retirement. This week, we congratulate Liz Black as she embarks on her new role as administrative assistant to the principal. And, we joyfully welcome Raphaela Morais-Peroba to join the awesome Anglea Tinio in the role of office administrative assistant. Please introduce yourself to Mrs. Morais-Peroba when you have a chance.

​One of the wonderful ways to celebrate our students is to be part of the audience for a student performance. This month we have several concerts and hope to see you there! Please read the weekly emails sent Mondays and Thursdays for details. Our Student Council is also hosting a Holiday Carnival for students in grades 5 and 6 on Dec. 7. Lots of fun to be had this holiday season!

School Garden: In addition to donating pumpkins, our students held a pumpkin raffle to raise funds for this year's garden. If you have a green thumb or some innovative ideas about school gardens, please let us know how you'd like to be involved!

FREE - ADHD Workshop: Open to Everyone!
​Speaker : Brendan Mahan
Date: November 28th
Time: 6:30 – 8:30
Location: Miscoe Hill Auditorium
Sponsored by Mendon-Upton SEPAC.

Metrowest Health Survey: In the October 11 email update you will receive from Miscoe, there will be a link to an informational letter regarding the administration of the Metrowest Health Survey to our students in grades six, seven and eight on October 23. Please be sure to read the letter carefully as it will contain information regarding how to opt out should you choose to do so. However, we hope your child will participate, as a key aspect of promoting adolescent health at the community level is gathering the necessary data to determine priorities, raise awareness, and support local programs and policies. 

Student art work: Should you find yourself in our lobby, download the Quiver app and use it to interact with our student artwork. Watch as reality is augmented for each of the Dots on the display boards there. Suddenly, the work is 3-D! Thanks to Mrs. Gentili's art students for sharing their work!

iPad update: Thank you for your patience as we transitioned to new iPads, and more significantly, a new iPad management system (JAMF). After some unexpected enrollment errors, JAMF suspended the process and worked to target the cause and fix it. Our IT team has now moved forward to finalize the resets. Our gratitude to our tech department for their support, and to our students and teachers for their flexibility and patience.

Nature's Classroom: Many of our fifth graders returned from Nature's Classroom with funny stories, interesting facts, and new skills to share. We are fortunate that our students have the opportunity for this type of learning experience. I'd like to publicly thank the staff members who supported this event. It takes staff hours of planning, time away from their own family and friends, and extreme flexibility to make this event possible. But, they all agree - it's worth it!

​Newly released resource from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: The Family Guides to the Standards are guides to the Massachusetts learning standards designed to help families understand what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of each grade. Designed to help families and teachers work together to support learning, the guides are available in English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Simplified Chinese.

We need you! The Scholastic book fair is returning to Miscoe on October 22 - 26th and Mrs. Arnold, our school librarian, needs your help.  She is looking for volunteers to assist with running the registers, putting up displays, and helping with many other tasks to make this event run smooth and fun for our students.  If you are interested or have questions, please email her at karnold@mursd.org.  We're looking for people during the hours of 8:30 am to 2:30 pm and Wednesday night from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

The 2018-19 school year is off to a great start. We have thrived despite the heat and the adjustment to our first full week of school! Classroom routines and expectations have been established, and students have learned their schedules. The kinks were worked out of dismissal procedures, and the area for play has been expanded at recess. We assembled as a school community to share our Miscoe pride, and we got down to some serious learning. We're looking forward to our fifth graders' trip to Nature's Classroom, Open House, and cooler, drier days. Thank you for all you have done to send us students who are ready to learn and grow. Miscoe in September is a great place to be! Please see below for this month's updates.

Handbook: At the September 10 School Committee meeting, our 2018-19 Family School Handbook revisions were approved. The most significant changes are to our dress code. These revisions were made based on feedback from our seventh, eighth and ninth graders last spring. We're so grateful for their efforts and willingness to engage in what was a lengthy process. In addition, we've revised the language around consequence for controlled substances. These revisions were made to reflect current research around the developmental levels of our middle school students. Please access the handbook from the Parent page of our school website. After reviewing the contents with your child, please sign the Google form that will be shared online in a forthcoming email to indicate you have done so.

SRO: School Resource Officers have been around since the 1950s. In the past we have had a part time SRO who we shared with Clough Elementary School. We now share Officer Sinko, a full time SRO, with Clough. He's quickly become a wonderful addition to our staff. The information below is from the National Association of School Resource Officers. 

• What is a school resource officer? A school resource officer, by federal definition, is a career law enforcement officer with sworn authority who is deployed by an employing police department or agency in a community-oriented policing assignment to work in collaboration with one or more schools. NASRO recommends that agencies select officers carefully for SRO assignments (see question below) and that officers received at least 40 hours of specialized trainingin school policing before being assigned.
• Are school resource officers usually armed? Yes. A school resource officer is a commissioned, sworn law enforcement officer, not a “security guard.” NASRO recommends that all SROs be issued and carry all the same equipment they’d have on any other law enforcement assignment. NASRO is aware, however, that a few, local jurisdictions unfortunately prohibit their SROs carrying their firearms when on school campuses.
• What are appropriate roles of school resource officers? The goals of well-founded SRO programs include providing safe learning environments in our nation’s schools, providing valuable resources to school staff members, fostering positive relationships with youth, developing strategies to resolve problems affecting youth and protecting all students, so that they can reach their fullest potentials. NASRO considers it a best practice to use a “triad concept” to define the three main roles of school resource officers: educator (i.e. guest lecturer), informal counselor/mentor, and law enforcement officer.

Officer Sinko will speak briefly at Open House as well as at grade level meetings with students. In addition, he interacts informally with students throughout the day. Please introduce yourself to him if you have a chance!
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​Help us raise “MONEY FOR MISCOE”: September is our PTO Annual Giving Campaign. Money for Miscoe is an annual fundraiser where 100% of your donation goes to support the PTO. Your participation will allow us to provide the best resources and programs for our students and teachers.  Your contributions help the PTO sponsor the Ice Cream Social for incoming 5th graders, educational programs such as Rachael’s Challenge and scholarships for Nature’s Classroom. The PTO would not be able to to do this without your help.  The participation form, which includes more information about this fundraiser, can be found as an attachment in our Monday/Thursday updates.

Additional Ways to get involved at Miscoe this month:

• Through PTO: Attend the next PTO meeting on Oct. 10 at 7:00 in the library or check out the PTO's Facebook page to see how you can get involved either short term or throughout the year.
• Attend an Open House on Sept. 19 or 20.
• Reach out to Officer Sinko, ssinko@mursd.org,  to express interest in participating in our school safety committee.
• Contact your child's teacher(s) to share a skill, talent or area of expertise you would be willing to share with students either in person or electronically.
• Support the Cookie Dough fundraiser for interscholastic sports, Yankee Candle fundraiser to support our PTO, and/or the PIE fundraiser for our music boosters.

We are so excited for students to return to school on August 29! This is a big empty place without their energy and enthusiasm. We have spent the quiet hours of the summer collaborating, learning, and planning for a successful school year. As the new school year commences, the district will unveil the strategic plan for the next five years. Appropriately entitled Inspire, it is sure to drive dialogue, collaboration, creativity and growth as we explore what it means to be innovative teachers and learners in a modern context. It's an exciting time to be the lead learner at Miscoe. I will use this site to share monthly updates on our progress toward the plan's goals as well as other updates on the happenings at Miscoe. I hope you'll visit regularly! Below, you'll find some some updates to start off the new year.

Update emails: You will receive informational emails on Mondays and Thursdays. Please read these regularly to stay abreast of what's happening during the week. If you do not receive them, please check your spam folder to see if they are landing there.

Staffing:
You will see some new faces and some familiar faces in new places at Miscoe this year. 

• Miss Rhodes will teach grade 8 science, taking Mr. Conant's place.
• Mrs. Cullen and Mrs. McCourt have switched roles, so Mrs. Cullen is teaching grade 6 math and Mrs. McCourt is teaching grade 8.
• We welcome Miriam Fermin to Miscoe in the role of World Language teacher. She will teach Spanish Immersion in grade 8 and World Culture Exploration in grade 6. Mrs. Obrador will teach grade 7 Spanish Immersion and grade 5 World Culture Exploration.
• Ms. Clarke will teach instrumental music, taking Mr. Amitrano's place.
• We also welcome Stephanie Cappadona to a long term subbing position in guidance, filling in for Mrs. Grant while Mrs. Grant is home with her new baby.
• Mrs. Shilale will continue as a para professional but will also put her teaching license to good use teaching our French electives for grades 7 and 8! Previously, French was not listed as an elective choice. If you would like to take French, please select it in iPass. If you need support, please contact Mr. Marshall.
• We are also finalizing the hiring of several paraprofessionals. 

School Resource Officer: Officer Sinko joins the Miscoe and Clough community as our new SRO. He will be in the schools during the school day every day and will be in full uniform. He will be in classrooms working with students and supporting students, staff and families in many ways throughout the year. We look forward to having him as part of our team!

Breakfast and Snack:
Breakfast is available to all student for purchase and consumption in our cafeteria from 8:10-8:25 for $1.50. Milk is available for $.50. Various snacks are also for sale at this time for consumption at teacher discretion later in the day.

​A note about cell phones: 
The most common response students give when asked why they are texting or using their phones is, "Oh, I was just texting my mom." While we know this is definitely not always the case, we are asking all family members to please help us help students adhere to the guidelines in our school handbook in terms of cell phone use. Cell phones use is not permitted during the school day without permission from the classroom teacher. If you need to connect with your child immediately, please do not contact your child via his or her moblie device during the school day. Instead, please contact the office for support. 

PTO:
The PTO has three open positions heading into the new school year: Vice President, Treasurer and Fundraising Chair. If you would like to learn more  about these important positions, please attend the meeting on September 5th at 7:00 in the Miscoe library. Participating in PTO is a great way to be part of the awesome things happening at Miscoe. Please consider attending the meetings and finding ways to get involved. 

School Council:
In September our PTO will hold elections for this year's school council. We are looking for two parents and a community member. As stated on the Department of Education's website, "School councils enhance site-based decision making because they expand the participation of the school community in its schools' decision making. The involvement of different groups on the council -- teachers, parents, and non parent community members -- provides the school with different and mutually complementary perspectives on its improvement goals and plans. In addition, by involving people who work in and support the school in the development of the school's improvement plan, the likelihood will increase that the plan will be successfully implemented." If you would like to have your name placed on the ballot, please contact PTO president Danielle Joseph at DJoseph@advocates.org.

Scheduling: Mr. Marshall has been busy this summer working on scheduling. Please contact him with any questions or concerns regarding your child's schedule.The deadline for making corrections will be September 7. If your child was in Miscoe last year, she or he will notice some changes in the Miscoe schedule. Periods will rotate, so if you child isn't a morning person or is sleepy after lunch, they will not always have the same class at that time. When viewing your child's schedule in iParent, please be sure to click "Schedule Rotation" to view how classes rotate throughout the cycle. Two gradespans will have recess before lunch for the first half of the year and switch with the other two for the second half. We will solicit feedback from students at the end of the year about which they prefer and why. Additionally, we have worked with the bus company and Officer Sinko and will now dismiss all busses at the same time rather than by town. Your student may arrive at home a few minutes earlier than in year's past!

A few resources for parents and guardians of middle schoolers:
What's Best for Kids? Tips for Parents
Talk with your Teen About E Cigarettes; A Tip Sheet for Parents
Helping Your Child Cope With-Back-To School Anxiety

A back to school message and resources from Commissioner Riley: Please click here to access.