Principal's Message - Jan 24
Principal’s Message
Welcome to Northern California winters, where Mother Nature keeps us on our toes. While the inclement weather added much rain to our gauges, it also led to puddles and leaks. With the help of teachers and district groundskeepers, students had a number of dry areas to eat lunch and enjoy some downtime last week. This week, with the brilliant sunshine, it is terrific seeing kids playing sports and card games outside again.
iReady
As indicated in the previous Principal’s Message, our second iReady assessment window starts next week. So that no curricular area is adversely affected, and to show our students that all teachers take ownership of learning, all periods will be decreased by several minutes as a schoolwide testing period is created.
Since it is our students who take the assessments, we will provide them the option of which assessment to take first, ELA or Math, and they may even toggle between subjects until completion. The schedule will be adhered to on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. So that students have the opportunity to perform their very best, we encourage students to be present and on time. The iReady schedule follows:
|
Period 1 |
8:35 – 9:19 (44) |
|
Period 2 |
9:23 – 10:05 (42) |
|
Break |
10:05 – 10:15 (10) |
|
Testing Block |
10:19 – 11:29 (70) |
|
Period 3 (Early Lunch) |
11:34 – 12:14 (40) |
|
Period 3 (Late Lunch) |
11:34 – 12:20 (46) |
|
Lunch |
12:20 – 12:50 (30) |
|
Period 4 |
12:54 – 1:36 (42) |
|
Period 5 |
1:40 – 2:22 (42) |
|
Period 6 |
2:26 – 3:08 (42) |
On a side note, with 1050 Chromebooks operating simultaneously, we hope that you can help us by providing your child with earbuds if at all possible on the testing days. Of course we have a small supply of these in classrooms in the event students do not have their own.
PTA
A Goodwill Donation truck will be at RHMS on January 27th off the Pollard Loop between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm. While Goodwill will collect items, a monetary donation will be made back to our RHMS PTA. The dollar amount is based upon the cubic space the items total and will help offset the cost to support such activities as 6th grade Science Camp, a 7th grade Citizen Scientist field trip, and an 8th grade promotion activity. Please log onto https://www.ptarhms.org/ for more details about how to support the PTA as it works to support over 1,000 RHMS students.
Science Camp
Speaking of Science Camp, RHMS has sent two groups to Walden West this year. While the weather was challenging last week, students were always under the watchful and supportive eyes of RHMS teachers and credentialed teachers from the Santa Clara County Office of Education. We were in constant communication with the Walden West site, our teachers, and our district as the rains and winds increased. With the support of our district, it was decided to send communication to all sixth grade families via email and phone messages.
So that communication of this nature arrives in a timely fashion regarding any situation, please make sure to update your phone numbers and email addresses with our office staff. If for some reason we need to send immediate and mass communication to families, this is our district’s vehicle.
School Tours
We were pleased to take approximately 150 parents and guardians on a tour of RHMS yesterday during CUSD’s Open Enrollment. For those of you with younger children, please log onto the district website to ensure enrollment procedures are followed. For those with children in 8th grade, the Campbell Union High School District (CUHSD) will send counselors to our site on February 4th to meet with everyone as they schedule our current students for high school classes. Please contact CUHSD with any questions regarding intra and inter-district transfers, course descriptions, etc.
Cookies with the Counselors
In an effort to share information with parents about counseling themes this year and counseling classroom presentations, on February 7th RHMS will host two informational sessions for families. Please RSVP at the following websites so that our counselors may gauge the size of the audience and find an appropriate location.
http://tinyurl.com/Cookies-RHMS-Morning
http://tinyurl.com/Cookies-RHMS-Evening
Parent Education
On January 30th from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm, Marshall Lane Elementary is hosting an evening for parents and guardians to participate in a discussion called Screen Time Battles: How to Avoid Them. It is free to attend. The speaker will discuss topics that include:
- Learn the pluses & minuses of electronics – Smartphones, Gaming, Texting, Apps, YouTube.
- What should you expect by age group – toddler, early elementary, middle and high school.
- How electronics can affect brain development at different stages.
- Get ideas on setting reasonable, age appropriate limits in your home without a fight.
- Learn what parental controls you can use and what to know as your kids get older.
- What to do when things get out of control.
- Sexual content – what should you know as a parent.
Construction
Final stages of construction at RHMS are in the works. This includes the installation of lighting in the new parking lot adjacent to Pollard Road and grass seeding of a portion of our fields. Fields are scheduled to be graded this Friday. Once prepared and seeded, the spring rains will ensure that our fields will be in use when school starts in August. Home soccer games will again be played at home, and our Physical Education Department will have access to all field space. In the interim, we are looking at what we can temporarily do to the track’s infield so that it may be a safe and viable alternative.
In Closing
Thank you for all you do in support of your children and our students. It is gratifying to witness the individual and collective growth of students and staff thus far this year. With another eighteen or so weeks of school, we are eager to continue our work at providing an engaging learning environment for all.