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Dear HKMS Families,

If you have been diligent about limiting your child's access to the more public forms of social media like Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, or Discord, good for you! These can be truly scary places for young adolescents. However, if your child owns a smartphone or a tablet, chances are they are involved in a group chat (or several).   The group chat has become the modern day equivalent of a clique.  Just like the cliques we had to navigate throughout our own middle school years, there are rules, norms, power-brokers, toxicity, exclusion and inclusion, bullying, crude language, mean humor, and yes, ...kindness and bravery. 

Unlike the more "public" forms of social media, the group chat seems more private and personal.  Some group chats may have only a few of your child's friends, others have hundreds of users, some of whom your child may not know.   Unlike the cliques of yesteryear, these groups come home with your child, and can have impacts on screen-time, increased FOMO, and negative impacts on normal sleep patterns. Students in group chats are more likely to be "guilty by association" (if they do not stand up to toxic posts), have their phone number shared with someone they don't know (or don't want their number shared with), and witness or experience exclusion by being "kicked out" of groups.  

Adolescents on group chats are more likely to witness or be targets of harassment and inappropriate content including links to explicit videos and hate speech.  Adolescents will defend these toxic chats as "jokes" or "we were just kidding around" or "no one was hurt." I wish these excuses were true.  The truth is we have great kids who would likely never say out loud the things they type on these chats. These toxic group chats do hurt others, and often those hurt feelings are not shared with adults for fear of loosing access to their phone or tablet.  In addition to exposure and hurting others, these chats leave a digital footprint that can come back to haunt a child in the future.  The adolescent brain is both incapable of resisting the pull to these chats and incapable of understanding the long term implications.

So what are we to do? We could delete the messaging apps, ban group chats, or install monitoring software. I suggest you engage in your child's group chats, you can learn so much! Once a week, or more often, sit with your child and you scroll through their chats, and ask questions like what does  "2MOR" or "BOSMKL" mean? (Answers: "tomorrow" and "bending over smacking my knee laughing").  You can also help coach your child out of toxic groups or navigate tricky social situations (like how to handle being "asked out" when you're too young to date).  Oh, and don't fall for the "you're invading my privacy" argument.  You bought the device, pay for the service that connects it, so, it's yours, you own it, you have every right to inspect it.  If or when you come across something you don't feel you can handle, let us know.  All mistakes are learning opportunities. From our teachers and our mental health providers to our paraeducators and administration, we all are dedicated to helping guide you and your child to the most positive outcomes.  We are all a team, and when we work together we are better able to ensure your child's academic success and personal growth.

Okay, off my  soapbox... We have some exciting events coming our way next week, The St. Baldrick's "Brave the Shave" at Barlow will be on Monday. There still time to support the HKMS Cougars shave team (link here). On Tuesday, the whole administration team from JBHS will be here for a PTO coffee at 9:30 a.m.  This is for all parents, not just 8th-graders.  All of our student are heading to Barlow and this is a great chance to get to know the terrific leaders from our esteemed high school.  The Tri-District Music Concert will be next Wednesday in the JBHS gym starting at 6:30pm sharp where our orchestra and band will perform.

It was another fantastic week at HKMS! Egg drops, D&D in Spanish, Pi-Day, Advisory and so much more in this week's newsletter. 

Wishing you and your family a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,

Steven Clapp, Ed.D.

Grade 7

FPAs

It was an eggcellent egg drop for seventh grade engineers! Check out the videos of both gentle and not so gentle landings. 

Math club takes to the air! Last week it was trig. This week math clubbers tried to challenge the paper airplane record for flight time. According to the Fold 'n Fly website, "The longest flight time of a paper airplane is a duration of 29.2 seconds. This world record achievement was made in 2010 by Takuo Toda from Japan." The video above shows one of the best of our students at 6 seconds...really puts 29.2 second in perspective. 

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