Brown MS Weekly Update
Mar. 31, 2023
Report Cards!
Term 2 report cards were printed and sent home with students this past week. They are also available to view on Aspen. Just click here to login. Throughout the school year, academic expectations and challenge increase which may result in grades that are a bit lower than first term. However, a stand-alone letter grade doesn't tell the complete story about what is going well nor does it explain what they need to work on. Throughout the term, teachers give students specific feedback on assignments and much of this can be found on Schoology. Our term report cards do provide information to students through teacher comments. We encourage students to not only look at the letter grade, but also look closely at the comments from teachers. These are meant to help students determine what their goals should be for the remainder of the school year. Please talk over the report card with your child.
Annual Food Drive (April 3 - 14)
In advisory, we have been discussing hunger, food insecurity, and the importance of helping our community in order to kick off Brown Middle School’s Annual Food Drive to benefit the Newton Food Pantry.
All donations are greatly appreciated. Items that the pantry needs the most are listed below. Please note: items should be unopened and within the expiration date, and no glass please!
Cereal: 12 – 16 oz., brand names preferred
Hearty soups: meat, bean, veggie
White tuna in water: 5 oz.
Ground coffee: 1 lb.
Shampoo
Deodorant
Toothpaste
Diapers size 6
Baby wipes
Donations should be brought to your child’s advisory any day between Monday, 4/3 and Friday , 4/14. Donations will be delivered to the Newton Food Pantry the afternoon of Friday 4/14.
Wish List: The Newton Food pantry has created the option of ordering some of the most–needed items from their Amazon Wish List. The order will be delivered directly to the food pantry—just select ‘Newton Food Pantry’ as the delivery address upon checkout.
We owe a big thank you to sixth grade teachers, Wendy Kritzer and Jen Carlisle for organizing this annual effort. Thanks to all families for your support in the coming week!
Tenacity Challenge Team
Brown Middle School 7th graders represented us proudly at the Tenacity Challenge at Bedford High School on March 18th. The Tenacity Challenge is an annual academic scholarship competition for teams of Latinx and African-American students from urban and suburban high schools across Massachusetts. Students on our team are: Violeta Gonzalez Vanegas, Jared Levy, Hailey Nesvacil, Gabe Norton, Tyson Norton, Cerise Pierre, Mariela Weiss, and Ariana Xible-Silva. Below they are pictured along with the bench they designed for their leadership project. Their description of the project is below:
"For our Leadership Action Project we chose to paint a bench that our community can use. We used a bench from our school’s mindfulness garden and sanded it and then painted it. You will notice that the two main colors are black and white. These colors symbolize segregation. The handprints represent the many cultures that blur the lines that divide us. We asked the students and adults in our community to submit quotes by Black and Latinx individuals, and we also asked for general positive messages. We wrote those on the bench.
We chose this project because we want to highlight the struggles that people of color have faced throughout history and still encounter today. The colors of the handprints represent the people who are working toward change.
In conversations with students and teachers, we found out that there have been many instances of microaggressions between students. Students have used the n-word and other slurs that are directed toward LGBTQ students and religious comments. We created this bench as a symbol of unity. We asked students to write messages of hope that could go on the bench."
Congratulations on a job well done and special thanks to Michele Shin for all of her work as the advisor of this group!
After School Extra-Curricular Activities
Please take a look at our spring extracurricular activities. There continue to be many opportunities for students to get involved. This is a great way for them to explore new interests and expand their friendship groups. Click here to view the schedule of after school activities.
Mathcounts Team - 10th in State
On March 11 four students from Brown Middle School competed in Mathcounts, a national middle school mathematics competition that builds problem-solving skills and fosters achievement through four levels of fun, in-person "bee" style contests.The team, known as "Brown Pi-Thon", placed 10th overall in Massachusetts at the state competition on March 11. Congratulations to Zach Gao, Jason Huang, Stephen Wang and April Mei!
NCE in the Fall - Survey for families
Newton Community Education is looking to offer students some wonderful after school activities this fall. We would love to hear from you as we prepare. Please complete this linked survey so we can best support you!
Upcoming MCAS Dates
Dates for the administration of the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) have been set as follows:
English Language Arts:
This past week our 7th graders took the English Language Arts MCAS. I want to commend them on their efforts to do their best work on this state wide assessment!
April 10 & 11 - 6th grade
April 12 & 13 - 8th grade
Math:
May 15 & 16 - 8th grade
May 17 & 18 - 7th grade
May 22 & 23 - 6th grade
Science & Technology/Engineering:
May 24 - 8th grade only
