MSMS Parents Group Newsletter

• School Board Meetings: Nov 7 and 14 (Parents and community members are encouraged to share thoughts on budget priorities or other matters), December 5 and 19th (Draft budget presented).
  
  
• Craft Fair: Hosted by MSMS 8th Grade Students. November 10, MSMS gym, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm. There will be local artisans selling their products, as well as tables selling students' own handmade items. There will also be a student café with food and refreshments available. Come and support Crafters Edge. For table rental information, call 802-223-3404 or e-mail craftersedge@mpsvt.org.
  
  
• Parent Group Meeting: November 13, MSMS library, 5:30-6:30 pm.
  
  
• Parent Topic Night: Restorative Practices, Tuesday, November 13, MSMS library, 6:30-7:30 pm. This year MSMS is implementing a Restorative Practices approach to guiding student behavior and making the school a safe and inclusive environment. Are you curious about this new approach? Do you have questions about how it works in practice? Come to Parent Topic Night for an interactive discussion with vice principal Matt Roy. He will provide information about Restorative Practices, followed by small, teacher-led circles, and ending with Q&A time. Students are encouraged to attend.
  
  
• Parent Topic Night: Act Out, Check Out, or Reach Out: How to Help Your Child Deal with Stress and Improve Your Family’s Quality of Life with Benjamin Newman. Thursday, November 29th, Union Elementary School Auditorium, 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. Join us for an evening of learning about Strategic Self-Regulation Therapy (SSRT), a unique and relatively simple way of looking at what causes challenging behaviors and how to handle them.During this hour-and-a-half long presentation and community discussion, Ben Newman, LICSW and local parent, will speak about the most effective tools he has learned over his twenty years of therapeutic work with kids of all ages, parents, and schools. This event is aimed at parents. You will learn: 1) the basic causes of all challenging behavior 2) simple, straight-forward techniques for changing challenging behavior 3) when to calm things down rather than problem-solve 4)how to improve your relationship with your kid.
  

A big thank you to everyone who participated in the Montpelier Fall Festival on October 7. Together we raised $9,649.70 for Montpelier-Roxbury schools! The MSMS Parent Group will get $2,800 of that amount to help us fund more extracurricular and curricular activities, school improvements, and teacher appreciation activities. Thank you to the parents, students, and teachers who donated their time, talents, and money to make it such a success. We couldn't have done it without our volunteers and the support of the Montpelier community. For more detailed information, check out the Fall Festival by the Numbers sheet!

The 8th grade Team Leadership students ran an awesome Kickball Tournament at the Fall Festival. Nora, Ijaeda, Sophie, Marcello, Ella, Aleah, Autumn, Jasper, and Jojo worked with educators Drew McNaughton and Rebakka DiLauro, and parents Alison Donovan and Lesley Allen, to organize the event. We had over 45 players of all ages and brought in $288. Congratulations to the winning team for their skilful play and their imaginative costumes Everyone who participated had a ball. We look forward to an even bigger and better event next year!

Check out our Fall Festival Photo Album here. Thanks to Jay Ericson, photographer and MSMS parent, for donating his time to take the photos.

Requests Funded

$565. for the MSMS orchestra students field trip to see a performance of Black Violin at the Barre Opera house on October 25.

Tech Talk Tuesdays

https://www.screenagersmovie.com/tech-talk-tuesdays/

Screenagers filmmaker, Dr. Delaney Ruston, writes a weekly blog about social media, video game use, tech tips, latest research on technology, and more.

Parent Group Meeting Minutes

Can't make it to our monthly meetings? Stay up to date by reading the minutes here.

Planning committee: Adrienne Gil (chair), Laura Bozarth (web site), Heidi Groff, Lesley Allen

Parent volunteers: Jason Woodard, Laura Woodard, Alison Donovan, Jay Ericson, Richarda Ericson, Suzanne Garrow, Laury Saligman, Emmanuel Riby-Williams, Laura Murphy, Jim Murphy, Siobhan Padgett, Kaia Santana, Janaki Kasiviswanathan, Emily Wetherell, Sigrid Olson.