Dear HKMS Families,

On behalf of the entire HKMS staff, I must to express our gratitude for such  wonderful educator appreciation week events from our amazing PTO.  Being a middle school educator is both the most challenging and the most rewarding vocation one can choose (or maybe it chooses us?).  It really is a calling to serve for the benefit of others during the years when the most growth and development is happening to our clients' brains and bodies.  Our PTO, parents, students, and leaders recognized just how valued this work is by showing their appreciation all week.  In turn we are grateful to serve such a committed, dedicated, thoughtful, and supportive community of parents. Thank you!

ER9 has successfully launched the new communication system, ParentSquare.  ParentSquare has some great new features, including the ability to respond to school messages, see an archive of previous messages, receive a nightly "digest" of all you need to know, sign off on permission slips, sign up to help chaperone, and a whole host of other interactive features.  In order to take advantage of these more advanced features, parents need to sign up at parentsquare.com/signin (or install the ParentSquare app).  So far less then 2% of our families have signed up or downloaded the app.  I recommend everyone get this app and give it a try. It will greatly improve the home-school-home communications! 

Whenever I describe HKMS to a new family, new staff member, or even to a whole incoming class, I say we are a "relationships first" school.  This week and next week we are having our annual state-mandated Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBA).  Typically,  the process of cycling everyone through their tests in the most ideal settings (i.e., taking the math test in your math classroom), takes four to five weeks, and has a great impact on our normal schedule.   This year Mrs. Gale and Mrs. Mohr constructed a very innovative schedule that compacted the tests into just five days, with 6th and 7th graders only testing on two out of five days and 8th graders testing 3 out of the 5 days! When students are not testing, they cycle through various activities from bingo to bracelet making, Legos to basketball.  Students had 2 hours of completely screen free connection time.  This is an perfect example of how a relationships first school operates.  While we have to administer these sometimes stressful assessments, we also recognize the need for students to connect with each other, the adults they learn with, get some exercise, and have some fun.  We added an "activity period" subsection to the classroom peeks, so you can get a sense of the joy students and staff are having during our testing window.  

Another benefit of our new testing schedule is all classes still meet every day. So all the the amazing teaching and learning  we are used to is still happening on a regular and predictable manner.  So be sure to check out all of this and so much more in this week's newsletter!

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend, a very Happy Mother's Day, and a heartfelt thanks for all the love you shared with us this week! We can't wait to do it all again next week! 

Sincerely,

Steve Clapp, Ed.D.