Dear 7th grade families,

We are thrilled to welcome your children back next week.  Some updated information:

• Bus routes and your child’s team/teachers are visible now in the Parent Portal of PowerSchool

• Download the First View Bus App and watch your child's bus location in real time

• Check out the SPS District Calendar for the 2023.2024 School Year - know when all the vacations and early release days are!

• Digitally sign and submit forms on PowerSchool - especially Acceptable Use Agreement and SPS Technology Device Agreement - BEFORE the school year starts.  

• Sign up for the School Based Health Center using their Digital Registration Form (click here for the Digital Registration Form in Spanish).  The office located in Rippowam operates much like a small doctor’s office does. The medical team works closely with the school nurse and is available during the school day to assist students with sick visits, physicals, immunizations and more.

Outstanding Physicals/Immunizations
If you received a letter or phone call from our school nurse this summer indicating that your child has an outstanding physical assessment and/or immunizations, those must be completed prior to returning to school or your child will be excluded until they are in compliance.  If you have any questions, you can contact our school nurse - Edyta Zalewska - at 203-977-4338 or ezalewska@stamfordct.gov by email.

2023.2024 Daily Schedule
Rippowam is adopting a flexible middle school schedule.  Students will still take 7 periods (5 Core and 2 Encore classes) a day and will participate in advisory twice a week.  Our Core academic classes are  English, Math, Science, Social Studies, 1 semester of Tech Lab and 1 semester of Literacy Lab.  Tech Lab is a STEM focused enrichment class and Literacy Lab is a reading and writing focused enrichment class to better prepare students for high school. Encore classes are art, gym, music, strings, band, chorus, technology, Spanish, math lab, ESL, resource and will run on an A/B day alternating schedule.  Students will be in houses named by colors.  All houses will have a team of Core teachers that are assigned to the house and will be working together to best support the students assigned to them.  Classrooms have been re-arranged by house so students will not travel far in between classes.  We have also eliminated bells and each grade level/house will be determining their daily class schedule which will be communicated to students on the first day of school.  What is in PowerSchool are their classes and teachers, but not their specific daily schedule. 

You can see your child's team at the information bar along the top where you see their name, student ID and other information:

Please note that we cannot accommodate scheduling requests such as a certain team or being in class with certain friends.

Welcome Message from 7th Grade Teams

The Yellow Team:  Hello almost 7th graders! Welcome to the Yellow Team: Rubber Duckies! We are so excited to meet you all very soon and are looking forward to an awesome new school year. Your Core teachers this year will be Mrs. Delbridge - Social Studies, Mr. Cleri - Math, Mr. Aulenti - Science, and Ms. Pawson - Language Arts. We also have Ms. Jacobs - Support teacher, Mr. Flynn - Technology, and Ms. Brannen - Reading. We hope you enjoy the final few days of summer and we cannot wait to meet you all on Wednesday!

The Aqua Team:  Dear 7th grade team aqua students and families, Welcome to the 2023 - 2024 school year! We are so excited to have you in our classes and share the upcoming school year with you all. As team aqua, we wanted to keep with the water theme thus we will be known as RIPPtide. RIPPtide will consist of Mr. Harz teaching Science, Ms. Lin teaching Math, Ms. Judson teaching Social Studies and Mr. Butchko teaching Language Arts. We also have the pleasure of having Ms. Brannen teach Literacy Lab and Mr. Flynn teach Tech Lab for half year semester courses and we will be supported by Ms. Joseph along the way. We look forward to meeting you all very soon! Best, Team RIPPtide

More information to come next week!  Have a great weekend.