Tips from Principal Neill

After ten years as principal at QHMS, I strongly urge families to focus on these three areas to make the start of the school year run smoothly:

SLEEP

• • Middle school students need 8-12 hours of sleep each night, depending on the student's age.

  • If students don't get enough sleep at night, they can have trouble focusing, can be irritable, and are less likely to be successful in school. Poor sleep habits impact students' academic acheivement, behavior at school, and peer relationships.

  • Please work with your student BEFORE the school year begins to establish a bedtime that allows your student 8-10 hours of sleep on school nights.

  • Please create a routine in your home for students to leave their personal technology devices (cell phones, tablets, etc.) outside the room where they sleep so they are not distracted by their device when they should be sleeping.

SOCIAL MEDIA

• • We want to partner with our students and their families to create an environment where all students feel safe, supported and a sense of belonging. Part of this work is empowering students to opt out of negativity and this includes selective use of social media.

  • The majority of interpersonal conficts among students that we see at school start outside of school via social media platforms or other online communication (texting, messaging, DMing, group chats, etc.). Students are more likely to message unkind comments to peers online when they are not face-to-face. These activities that happen outside of school, negatively impact academic acheivement at school.

  • Engage in conversations with your students about how their activity in social media makes them feel about themselves and others. Empower your student to block, report, and/or opt-out of the activities that lead them to feel badly about themselves or others. Prompt your student to reflect on how their actions online likely impact others.

  • Please work with your student to set limits for their social media engagement. Some recommended tips include:

    1. Limit the social media platforms you allow your student to use. I recommend not allowing students to use platforms where content allegedly "disappears" after a short period of time. These platforms are "sneaky" by design and can encourage unkind or risky behavior.

    2. Only allow your student to paticipate on a social media platform if you (the parent/guardian) are friends with or follow your student. This encourages students to post content they would be comfortable sharing with a trusted adult.

    3. Use parental controls on your student's device to limit when your student is engaging with non-essential apps. Turn off access during school hours and sleep hours.

    4. Help your student understand that any content your student shares via the internet (even via private messages or texts) is subject to being shared. They may trust a friend to keep a photo private now, but what happens when that friendship ends next month?

That said, please understand that even when families set limits for their students, it is natural for middle schoolers to find "work-arounds" so ongoing conversation is essential.

READING

• Helping your student build a love of reading will set your student up for success as a lifelong learner. When your student enjoys reading, all assignments in school come more easily.

• All of our students have access to the public library through the OneAccess program, which includes online texts and resources, as well as the ability to checkout hardcopy materials from the physical library.

• Encourage your student to sample different types of texts to find what they enjoy reading: novels, biographies, magazines, etc. Don't stress about reading level or text complexity. Just encourage your student to read...and for an extra bonus, ask your student about what they are reading and what they think about it.