The CMS Tide Weekly Newsletter

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Thank you very much to each of our parents that attended the CMS Open House on September 26 and for making it so successful. To our new parents, it was wonderful to meet you, and to our returning parents, it was great to see you again. We enjoyed sharing with you the learning that happens here each day. The support and involvement of families is greatly appreciated by the teachers and staff and we believe it is the number one opportunity that parents have to enhance their child's education.

We also appreciate the parents who joined the Community Forum afterward to both learn about the current state of the new school building project as well as share their thoughts.

Please enjoy the pictures below. We look forward to seeing you throughout the year.

Students will complete the i-Ready Reading benchmark on October 3 and the next day (October 4), they will complete the i-Ready Math benchmark. These are completed in the morning so it is important that students arrive to school on time like every day.

i-Ready is an online program that will help us determine your child’s strengths and areas for growth, personalize their learning, and monitor their progress throughout the school year. i-Ready allows us to meet your child where they are and provides us with data to inform instruction.

The i-Ready Diagnostic is an adaptive assessment that adjusts its questions based on student responses. Each item a student receives is based on their answer to the previous question. For example, a series of correct answers will result in slightly harder questions, while a series of incorrect answers will yield slightly easier ones. The purpose of this is not to give your child a score or grade but to determine how to best support their learning. Student performance from each of the three i-Ready administrations (Fall, Winter, Spring) will be shared with parents.

You might be asking "What can I do to help?"

To help prepare your child for the i-Ready Diagnostic, encourage them to:

• Get a good night’s sleep and eat a full breakfast the day of the assessment.
• Bring your charged device to school.
• Try their best on each question and try not to rush.
• Try not to worry about questions to which they do not know the answers—remind them that it is expected that they will only get about half of the questions correct.
• Be respectful of other students who take longer to finish. Bring a book to read, for example.
• Use paper and pencil to show work for math questions

Thank you to Ms. McCormick and her Spanish students for the creative tissue boxes that were distributed throughout the school! Beautiful boxes that will be put to great use!

Students decorated tissue boxes after a Spanish speaking country or a Hispanic American. After researching their topic, they decorated each box with their creativity and knowledge. Our teachers and students never cease to amaze us!! A huge "thank you" to all that participated in this fun activity!

Our students recorded their hopes for this school year and shared them on the first day of school. Below is a slideshow of these hopes which serves as a window through which we can see the most important aspects of school and the amazing individuals that comprise our student body.

With CEF generosity, we have created a therapeutic support center. A student demonstrates relaxation techniques learned there.

An initiative of the CMS Green Team was to create reminders to parents during pick-up/drop-off to avoid wasting fuel and emitting pollution. Thank you, Green Team!

The CMS Vegetable Garden continues to grow!

Just a reminder that the school follows the state recommendations for preventing the spread of respiratory viruses, as stated on our website.

Per the recommendations:

• Stay home when you have symptoms of any respiratory illness like flu or COVID-19
  
• You may begin to resume normal activities with precautions if:
  

1. You have not had a fever for at least 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medicines; AND

2. Your other symptoms are improving

For more information, please refer to the mass.gov website at the following link:

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/staying-home-to-prevent-the-spread-of-respiratory-viruses

Please contact me with any questions.

Thank you,

Nurse Erin

Erin Kalberer, APRN

Cohasset Middle School Nurse

143 Pond St, Cohasset, MA 02025
Phone: (781) 236-1070

Fax: (781) 236-1040

Ekalberer@cohassetk12.org

Massachusetts General Law Chapter 76 requires that each school notify parents and guardians if their student has five (5) or more unexcused school absences. Parents and guardians will receive a letter when their child has 5, 10, and/or 15+ days of unexcused absences. The letter will also include the number of unexcused tardies and unexcused early dismissals.

For the purposes of school attendance records, a student must arrive at school before 11:35 am to be considered "present." A student who begins the school day at 8:15 a.m. must remain in school at least until 11:35 am in order to be considered "present." Refer to MGL Chapter 72, section 8: "A pupil who is not present during at least half of a session shall be marked and counted as absent for that session.."

Absences will be excused under the following circumstances:

• After a medical appointment documented with a note from the medical office

• Illness or quarantine with a note from the appropriate medical office

• Observance of a religious holiday

• Bereavement or serious illness in family

• Court appearance

• A child may also be excused for other exceptional reasons with approval of the Principal or designee in accordance with the school committee policy and the regulations set in Chapter 76

Daily attendance is essential to a student's success. Missing a significant number of days of school has a detrimental effect on academic and social development. Therefore, each school will work with individual families to support student attendance.

Safe Harbor Cohasset Coalition is excited to reintroduce the “Our Safe Home” campaign to address the issues of youth access to alcohol in the community. This effort involves parents, guardians, merchants, and youth themselves. Parents pledge their commitment to joining other parents in providing a fun, safe, and substance-free environment for our children. Merchants pledge to comply by following the law and regulations, to not sell alcohol to young people under 21 years old. Youth are increasing awareness of the issue by talking to adults in their community.

We recognize that we cannot supervise our teens 24/7, nor can we always control the choices they make. However, we will do our part to discourage underage drinking and we will do our best to help each other support and monitor our teens.

You can join us in our efforts to create a safe space for youth in Cohasset by joining the Our Safe Home Directory at our website, www.safeharborcohasset.org/oursafehome. You do not have to have school age kids to participate, it’s simply a message of support. This is not a pledge for adults to not have alcohol in the home- it is a pledge to not provide to minors. You don’t have to share more than your name if you don’t want to, to participate. Please email safeharborcohasset@gmail.com with any questions.

Check out this video to learn more: https://videopress.com/v/rhvBG5Mp