Cougar News

Hello, Sylvan Families,

We have had a great first two days of school! Having students back on campus makes our school complete. I want to thank you for your patience in the parking lot. Pickup and drop-off have been much safer and smoother already this year. We used the first two days of school to help get students acquainted with their schedules and our campus. Our tardiness tracking system will go live on Monday and students will begin accumulating tardies if they are late to class. If you have current contact information in our district communication system, you will receive real-time updates when your child is tardy. The system will also track and assign progressive consequences for tardies. Please continue to talk to your child about getting to class on time. Every instructional minute counts and we want our students to have them all. Our school electronics policy will also be enforced beginning Monday. We gave students lots of warnings and reminders during the first two days of school. Moving forward, when a student has received three warnings, parents will be called to pick up electronics. Please remind your child that electronics are not allowed during instructional minutes, but they may use them before school, during passing periods, during lunch, and after school.

Thank you to everyone who came to Back to School Night. It was a great opportunity to meet new students and families and reconnect with returning families. On August 29th we have another opportunity to learn together through Parent University. There will be tons of valuable information in the presentations, and we look forward to connecting and sharing with you. Please see more details below regarding this event.

Respectfully,

Nicole Latimer

Principal, Sylvan Middle School

Nicole.latimer@sanjuan.edu

(916) 971-7873

Sylvan Middle School will be offering a Parent University Series to help support our families and continue to build school/community partnership and connection. Parent University will offer classes that will always be designed to support what is happening at school, as well as student/family needs. Please take a look at the planned Parent University Offerings for this quarter and use the form below to sign up. Dinner will be provided for all parent participants.

Quarter One Session Offerings

1. Q: How to check your child’s grades and attendance.
2. ELD and Newcomer Supports: How to help your child transitioning as a second language learner
3. Middle School Sports: What to know and expect
4. Last stop before High School! What to expect from 8th grade this year.
5. LiveSchool. New Program, positive energy!
6. Fostering conflict resolution and problem-solving skills at home
7. Having tough Conversations with your Teen
8. IYT (Improve Your Tomorrow) - Improve Your Tomorrow (IYT) is a community-based organization that offers programs for young men of color (YMOC) in Northern and Central California

You may have heard from your student that we had our first Math Block rotation on Friday. Math Block is an embedded support time that we use to provide targeted support in Math for our students. Math Block occurs everyday except for Thursday and each cycle is 5 weeks long. The Math Block is scheduled after 3rd period, but the class itself rotates, so that students will have an opportunity to be with each of their scheduled teachers for a Math Block rotation. We also have some students being pulled into other Math Blocks where the teacher is targeting a specific math skill. The rotation seems confusing at first, but the students get the hang of it quickly and we have staff members out during passing period, helping to remind them where they go as well as announcements over the intercom and on our school news. The current Math Block class is your child’s 1st period teacher. This Math Block will run until September 20th.

The schedule is as follows:

1st period

2nd period

3rd period

Math Block (with 1st period teacher)

1st lunch/4th period

4th period/2nd lunch

5th period

6th period

We are starting up a Sylvan PTO. If you are interested in being a part of this exciting new group of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, guardians, and foster parents that want to make their student's middle school experience successful, please fill out the attached form.

All students will have their picture taken during PE class and receive an instant ID Card. Students will need their student ID to attend Sylvan extracurricular events such as skate nights, dances, receive breakfast and lunch, and Sports-O-Rama.

Picture Day is scheduled for Monday August 19th, 2024!

Go to http://www.campuscolorstudios.com/

Select Order School Pictures

Select SYLVAN FALL 2024-2025

Select your package

Questions? Call (916)749-1026 and select Option 1 or email services@billsmithphoto.com

8.19.24: Picture Day

8.21.24: 6:00pm-8:00pm - Skate Night

8.30.24: 11:14am dismissal - Early Dismissal

9.2.24: Labor Day - No School

9.3-9.6: Breaking Down the Walls (More info to follow)

9.26.24: Sports-O-Rama (more information to come)