Port Susan Middle School

Students at Port Susan are reminded daily through morning announcements to make choices that will support the learning of all students. As we continue our work with teaching and learning, you will see that the strategies used by our staff directly impact the goals of student achievement in our annual action plan (AAP). We appreciate the parent partnership and communication throughout the school year. If you have any questions and/or concerns, please reach out. A list of all staff emails is found at the bottom of the updates weekly. Thank you for your support!

Links to register for clubs:

Robotics Club Sign Up Here (Tuesdays *Begins October 24th)

Crochet Club Sign Up HERE (Thursdays *Begins October 19th)

Chess Club Sign Up Here (Wednesdays & Fridays *Began October 11th)

Stanwood United XC

For the second time this season Stanwood United raced on their home course at Stanwood High School. Training on hills in practice paid off and there were a lot of personal records set!! 7th Grade Boys and 8th Grade Boys both crossed the finish line first. Nice racing!

Girls Soccer

The girls soccer season wrapped up this past week with three games. They did a great job playing hard, communicating, and working together while having fun! This has been an outstanding soccer season. We have had a motivated, hardworking, kind and enthusiastic group of girls. Every single player has improved and we managed to win a few games along the way. This really was a special group. We had a referee go out of his way to write a letter about the sportsmanship and positive play shown by all of our players. It has been a pleasure to coach these girls and we wish them the best as some of them move on to highschool, We look forward to next year having the 7th graders back, ready to be leaders on and off the field. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. Congratulations!

Boys Basketball starts on Wednesday Oct. 18th. On Wednesday Oct. 18 and Thur. Oct. 19th, 8th grade boys will practice at LHHS (there will be a shuttle provided to LHHS, but athletes will need to be picked up from LHHS after practice). 7th grade will practice at PSMS. There is no school for a teacher in-service on Friday October 20th, so there will be no basketball practice. Once teams are decided, coaches will communicate where they are practicing and any schedule changes there may be. IF you have signed up, watch from an email this week with more information. It is not too late to sign up if you are interested in doing so!

Boys Basketball sign ups are open and found here: FinalForms

Your student is going to have health class for one quarter during the 2023-2024 school year. Health classes will be using the FLASH (Family Life and Sexual Health) lessons linked below. All instructional material is available for parent preview. This will allow you and your child to have some meaningful family discussions both before and after the classroom lessons.

There will also be an opportunity to view the materials at an open house event through our district office in October. If you have any questions about this event or the attached curriculum, please contact Colin Ryan, cryan@stanwood.wednet.edu

After previewing the materials attached to this email, parents who wish to have their child excused from participation may sign the release form below or send an email to Sarah Oldow, soldow@stanwood.wednet.edu

State law provides that a parent or guardian must preview the materials before they can have their child excused.

The Stanwood-Camano School District is holding its annual anti-bullying poster contest to bring awareness to the pain caused by bullying and why respecting other people is important. See the form below for instructions on how to submit your artwork.

The Stanwood Camano News wants to feature student artwork in the form of a weekly comic. Those interested can complete the form below.

Mrs. Campbell has been at PSMS for over 21 years and has taught almost every subject! She has taught math, science, ELA, history, and an elective class called Brain Power. Mrs. Campbell's favorite thing about PSMS is that we have awesome students and a great staff that she is very proud to work with. In her spare time, Mrs. Campbell enjoys spending time with family (grandkids) and friends. She enjoys going to local events, watching ball games or sporting events, going for walks or just gathering for dinner. In addition, she enjoys reading and painting (watercolor/acrylics). One thing Mrs. Campbell enjoys and wishes to do more of is travelling.

If your student will be absent due to illness or family business, please call the school at 360.629.1366 or send email to skline@stanwood.wednet.edu to excuse the absence prior or the morning of to avoid an email or phone call. All absences must be excused within 72 hours of a student returning to school.

As you can see below, on regular schedule (Mon/Tue/Thur/Fri), class begins at 7:40 a.m. and on Wednesdays (late start throughout the district), secondary classes begin at 9:00 a.m. As a district, we will always be on late start Wednesday schedules unless it is an early release day. Full year calendar below.

Monday, October 16th

• Regular Schedule

• Advisory: Leadership Lesson

Tuesday, October 17th

• Regular Schedule
• Advisory: Homework/SSR
• XC Finals @ Cascade

Wednesday, October 18th

**Spirit Day: Wear ORANGE for Unity Day (info below)

• Wednesday Schedule
• Boys Basketball Day 1 (8th @ Lincoln Hill HS & 7th @ PSMS)

Thursday, October 19th

• Regular Schedule
• Advisory: Homework/SSR
• Boys Basketball Day 2 (8th @ Lincoln Hill HS & 7th @ PSMS)

Friday, October 20th

• Non-Student Day (No before or after school activities)
• NO SCHOOL

Future Dates

October 23 Picture Retakes

October 23 Kick off assembly (fundraiser)

October 25 Mod Pizza fundraiser

October 26 ASB Meeting

October 27 Donuts With Grown-Ups

October 30-3 Spirit Week

• Monday: Cozy
• Tuesday: Costume
• Wednesday: Navy & Grey (Diabetes Month)
• Thursday: Twin
• Friday: Neon

October 31 Monster Mash After School Activity

Students and staff across the school district — and the state — will participate in the annual Great American ShakeOut drill at 10:19 a.m. Oct. 19 to practice earthquake safety and test our early warning system.

The district deployed an earthquake early warning system in 2019 at Stanwood Elementary — the first school in the state to connect to the USGS’s ShakeAlert system. We have since added sensors to all 13 of its buildings and connected them to a centralized intercom that is automatically activated by a seismic event.

The sensors are part of the automated earthquake early warning system, called ShakeAlert, that is now available to more than 50 million residents within the country's most earthquake-prone region. You can download the ShakeAlert app to be automatically notified of earthquakes.

Learn more about our alert system HERE.

• Find school breakfast and lunch menus HERE
• Sign up to volunteer in our schools HERE
• See school start times HERE
• Steps on how to complete Free & Reduced Meal applications are HERE
• Find the calendars for the school year HERE
• Sign up for our new weekly Spartan Sports Report newsletter HERE

Find the most recent Friday Family Message from the Stanwood-Camano School District online HERE

Cherae Almanza, Principal

Crysty Auckland, Assistant Principal

Teacher Emails

Dave Austin (6-8 Fitness & Social Studies 6) daustin@stanwood.wednet.edu

Jonathan Bletscher (6-8 Band & 6 Choir) jbletscher@stanwood.wednet.edu

Joan Campbell (6-7 Math) jcampbell@stanwood.wednet.edu

Tamara Pedersen (6-7 Math) tpedersen@stanwood.wednet.edu

Lori Stunz (7 ELA & 7/8 Art) lstunz@stanwood.wednet.edu

Grace Gale (6 Science & 8 STEM/Robotics) GGale@stanwood.wednet.edu

Chelsea Hanson (6-8 ELA/Humanities) CHanson@stanwood.wednet.edu

Audrie Harrington (6/7 ELA & 7/8 Leadership) aharrington@stanwood.wednet.edu

Joshua Keaton (7/8 History) jkeaton@stanwood.wednet.edu

Seth Hills (6/7 Social Studies) shills@stanwood.wednet.edu

Lori Johnson (6-8 Assist) ljohnson@stanwood.wednet.edu

Wade Johnson (7/8 Science) wjohnson@stanwood.wednet.edu

Rebecca Klein (6/7 Science) rklein@stanwood.wednet.edu

Meghan Lawrence (6-8 PBS) mlawrence@stanwood.wednet.edu

Ellianna Martin (6-8 Math) emartin@stanwood.wednet.edu>,

Daniel Mccrumb (6/7 Science) DMccrumb@stanwood.wednet.edu

Sarah Oldow (6-8 Health & 6 Art) soldow@stanwood.wednet.edu

Tracy Riley (6-8 ELA) TRiley@stanwood.wednet.edu

Kelcie Rocha (7/8 Math) krocha@stanwood.wednet.edu

Brad Rochon (6-8 Computers & 6 Leadership) brochon@stanwood.wednet.edu

Sheri Schroeder (8 History & ELA) sleeschroeder@stanwood.wednet.edu

Kym Shoemaker (7/8 Math) kshoemaker@stanwood.wednet.edu

Crystal Titus (6-8 Fitness & 7/8 Lifetime Fitness) ctitus@stanwood.wednet.edu

Kayte White (8 ELA & 6 Cultures) kwhite@stanwood.wednet.edu

Julia Zurcher (7 History & 7/8 Home Ec) jzurcher@stanwood.wednet.edu

Office Support

Christy Thompson (8 Counselor) cthompson2@stanwood.wednet.edu

Keli Niegemann (6-8 Counselor) kniegemann@stanwood.wednet.edu

Emily Bowne (School Psychologist) ebowne@stanwood.wednet.edu

Kandyce Hansen (Speech Language Pathologist) khansen@stanwood.wednet.edu

Sara Harlan (Librarian) sharlan@stanwood.wednet.edu

Amy Hart (Student Support Advocate) ahart@stanwood.wednet.edu