HERGET HAPPENINGS

The beginning of a new school year reminds us that the future holds infinite possibilities; we have begun a school year filled with hope, vision, and enthusiasm. As we begin this new year, I wish everyone the greatest success as we welcome students to their educational journey of 2021-2022.

This year we continue to be shaped by our vision of embracing complexity, getting curious, and finding joy! We continue with our focus on teaching and learning so that our students have opportunities to engage in dialogue, feedback, and challenge. While maintaining the implementation of our vision, we will continue with building relationships and school safety.

We know that we have work to do, work that requires commitment, focus, and collaboration; we know that we have a faculty and staff that will embrace the work ahead. I invite you to think about something written so long ago but something that still resonates today. Emerson said, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” I am confident that we will put our best foot forward for Herget Middle School!

With Husky Pride,

Ms. Larry

Open house is designed for the benefit of all parents as a group. Open House gives parents and students the chance to get acquainted with the teachers, see our school building and classrooms, and perhaps get a quick overview of class expectations and the year's curricula goals.

With the above in mind, Open House is not the best time to speak to teachers about your child specifically; a better time to speak to the teacher about your student individually would be during parent-teacher conferences, which are held on October 5th and October 8th this year. Also, know that you are always welcome to contact your student’s teacher regarding your student's successes, concerns, and needs that is a great way to ensure effective communication.

We understand that extended family members may want to attend our Open House on Wednesday, but we ask that only parents/guardians attend classroom sessions due to space and social distancing.

Food will be served outside of the cafeteria beginning at 5:00 p.m., please keep all food outdoors; there will be tables and chairs available for your dining convenience. We also understand that everyone has their own comfort level about social distancing at this time, so if you feel more comfortable, please feel free to eat in your car. We will be serving hotdogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chips, and water.

We are excited to see you all!

Hello Herget Families,

Welcome Back to our new school year! It is great to be back with students in the building!

These past weeks of August, our teachers have spent time reconnecting, getting to know your students, and sparking students' curiosity and joy in learning. From activities (just to name a few) in the classroom such as “The Best Part of Me,” a writing assignment that allows students to share and celebrate what they like about themselves, to a logic problem involving the safe passage of Wildebeest and Lions across a waterway, to exploring a challenge involving moving marbles from one cup to another with only three strings, and a rubber bands while not being able to touch the cups, our students have been engaged and have learned that even if a problem-based activity is complex, they possess the curiosity and skills to work toward a solution! If you don’t follow our Herget Middle School Facebook page, please do, to see many of these activities and more highlighted there!

As we head into September, we will continue to focus on our building’s and the district’s vision of Embracing the Curiosity, Complexity and Joy of Learning as we move into more of our curricular scopes in each content area.

Dates, Events and Information to put on your radar…

• Performance Series Testing

• Math: 8/30 & 8/31

• English: 9/8 & 9/9

• Open House/Curriculum Night

• 9/8 from 6-8pm

• Come meet your student’s teachers and learn about what your student will be doing this year in their classes

• No School for students - School Improvement Day - 9/20/21

• Midterm grade will be available on the Home Access Portal for parents and students - Friday, September 24, 2021.

Greetings parents! The social studies teachers look forward to this school year and getting to know your students. We are also looking forward to meeting you at Open House. At this time you will get to meet your child’s Social Studies teacher for the year and also hear about all of the great things that are happening in Husky Country!

Every student has successfully logged into their Schoology account and visited our Social Studies course pages. Please remind them to check these pages daily. Here they will find specific class information, online textbook links, daily assignments, and other valuable resources that will help them to be successful this school year. Ask your student to show you our course page!

We look forward to meeting you at Open House. In the meantime, if you have any questions please reach out through email or a Schoology message. See you at Open House!

Physical Education and Health students are ready for the 2021-2022 school year! We have been busy receiving PE lockers and PE T-Shirts. Activities will begin shortly! We are looking forward in both PE and Health to discover the wide world of Health, Nutrition, Fitness, Body Systems, Diseases, and a lot of different sports. We are ready for that challenge!

If you still need to purchase a PE shirt, please send $6 with your student and ask your PE teacher for a shirt. Health students will purchase their shirts in October at the quarter change.

6th graders are beginning the year with multiple challenges, trying to construct the tallest tower, a Marble Challenge, and creating a boat to hold the most pennies. The students worked together in teams, sharing ideas to complete these tasks! Next, the 6th-grade students will explore the study of atoms and how they make up molecules. Students will be able to create models of molecules at different temperatures. They will do this through a variety of activities, in the lab and computer simulations.

In 7th grade, students will learn the difference between potential and kinetic energy. A variety of labs and computer activities will allow students to investigate how energy is converted from potential to kinetic energy. Students will then be challenged to create a roller coaster that will carry a marble through foam pipe insulation. Each group will need to be creative because each roller coaster must have a minimum of one hill and one loop. Good Luck, 7th Graders!

8th-grade science will be acting as agricultural engineers to try and design more successful methods of growing plants. This project will connect with our curriculum by learning about ecosystems and what living things need to survive and grow.

Hello Herget Huskies! We are off to a great start to the school year. At Herget, we always show our Husky B.A.R.K. (Be Ready. Accept Responsibility. Respect others, self, and the environment, Keep hands and feet to yourself). As we become more comfortable with our lockers and schedules, it is important to make sure we have all our materials for class and ensuring that we are making it to class on time.

We are moving along and parent/guardian(s) have an opportunity to check grades and assignments in Schoology under the parent portal on the district website as well as tardies to class in our system called HERO. Parent/Guardian(s) can click on the following link "Hero for Activating-Parent-Accounts" and follow the directions at the bottom of the website titled, “Creating Parent Accounts Simple Authentication.” This will allow you to see any tardies to class and an e-mail notification will be pushed out as well. Thank you again for an awesome start to the year and please reach out if you have any questions.

My name is Previn Verghese and I'm a Nationally Certified School Psychologist(NCSP). I received my Educational Specialist Degree(Ed.S) in School Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I received my Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Minor in Biology from The University of Illinois at Chicago. This will be my thirteenth year working as a psychologist and my first year working at Herget as a psychologist. I'm familiar with the building and staff as I did some of my graduate experience at Herget. I'm excited for the 2021-2022 school year and looking forward to working with the great students and staff at Herget Middle School!

With the growing emphasis on standardized testing and the necessity for more skill-focused curricula, we must not forget about perhaps the most important trait that all good readers share—we read because we enjoy it! We read to learn new and fascinating things about our lives, world, and society. We read to experience lives that we will never lead and explore worlds that we will never set foot on. We read to feel connected to complete strangers who share our perspectives on life and sometimes challenge them. We read to grow, to laugh, to cry, to be frightened, to be intrigued, to be informed, and even to escape the stresses of our busy lives if only for a few pages. This is the joy and true power of reading, and it’s a feeling we want all of our students to share.

Herget provides many opportunities for students to find and fall in love with books, but we may need a bit of help from you at home. We are highly recommending that our students read books of their own choosing for at least 20-30 minutes a night to continue practicing the skills they are learning about in the classroom and exploring their personal interests. The ideal setting for this reading would be a comfortable space in your home, free of distractions that take students out of the reading zone.

Beyond providing that critical time and space, the only other suggestion we could make to improve our students’ motivation to read is to show that you’re interested in their reading too. Ask questions like, What is your book about? Where does the story take place? Do you have a favorite character? What problems are the characters dealing with? Have you felt connected to any of the characters or anything that has happened to them? What is the coolest thing about your book so far? Have you learned anything new from reading your book? Who is the author? Have you or would you read more books by that author? Are you enjoying your book?

A simple gesture, like asking about the books our students read lets them know that what they read and how they feel about reading are important to us. And if you aren’t convinced by this feel-good approach to improving reading skills, then you may take comfort in knowing that students who read an average of 20 minutes a day outside of school typically score better than 90% of their peers on standardized tests.

Our students have been so excited to get back in the library and pick out books of their choice!

We cannot wait for the Fall Book Fair! The fair will run from September 7th – September 17th and be open from 8:30 am- 3:45 pm. Parents and families are encouraged to stop by during Herget’s Open House on September 8th, or during the school day to browse for books! Students will be coming to the book fair on their assigned library days, or if they have a pass from a teacher. All proceeds go right back into Herget's library. Scholastic accepts cash, check, or credit card:) Start your holiday shopping early. We hope to see you there!

Herget has a new book club that all students are invited to be a part of! Mrs. Dieken, the librarian, and Mrs. Allen, an 8th-grade language arts teacher, are excited to have an in-person book club this year and have a lot of students participate. We will be meeting every other Wednesday from 3:45-4:30 starting mid-September. All books will be provided for our students. The book club is a great way to meet new people, share a love of reading, and read books outside of our comfort zones! See Mrs. Dieken in the LMC to join!

Look up the 2022 Rebecca Caudill nominees that the students are going crazy over! We can’t keep these books on the shelves! There are 20 titles that are nominated each year. If your child/children read three or more, they can vote for their favorite one at the beginning of March! These books are also used for Herget’s annual Battle of the Books competition! Rebecca Caudill 2022

Regular school attendance is obviously important for all content areas. In math especially, if a student misses school chronically or has multiple long absences during the school year, it can really add up. Math concepts build on prior learning. For students who are chronically absent, it can be difficult to catch up on what was missed in addition to grasping what concept is being taught when they return. Making up work for missed days of school is of course helpful but nothing can really take the place of the instructional experiences and collaboration with peers that students get when they are in school.

Being absent prevents them from being part of the classroom conversation and does not allow them to ask questions about a topic at the moment. When a student is doing makeup work from an absence, they are not usually with their teacher and therefore cannot ask a question if they do not understand a concept or need clarification on how to perform a skill. Understandably, illnesses and emergencies and now also quarantine do happen but some absences are avoidable.

We are so glad to see and hear the school halls filled with our Huskies! Welcome to the pack 6th graders! 7th and 8th graders, remember you are an example of the HUSKY B.A.R.K.
All students: Be Ready - have your chrome book, wear your mask, arrive on time, if you are late, your parent/guardian must sign you in at the main office. Accept Responsibility - complete homework, arrive ontime. Respect others, self, and the environment. Keep hands and feet to yourself - stay in you own personal space.

To report an absence please call the attendance line: 630-301-5230

The elective or exploratory team at Herget includes many different areas of study. Here’s an introduction to our elective classes & teachers:

Teachers/Class Offerings

Art

Mr. Skly

• 6th - 8th-grade art

Band

Ms. Buettner

Mrs. Hunt

• 6th - 8th-grade band

CTE

Mrs. Frances

Mrs. Metallo

• Life SkillsDepartment

• App Creators

• Automation & Robotics Computer Science for Innovators and Makers

• Design & Modeling

• CTE (Career & Technical Ed)

Music

Dr. Glogowski

• Choir

• Music

• Ukulele

World Languages

Ms. Medeles

Mrs. Washer

• Spanish

• Heritage Spanish

• French

This year the elective team will be discussing the topic of feedback during our collaboration time. We will discuss how we currently provide feedback to students as well as how we can improve. We are excited to grow together as a team.

The fall season is off and running. You can look up all the athletic schedules on the Herget athletic website located at https://il.8to18.com/herget/. On the website, you can find game schedules, practice schedules, driving directions, staff emails, and other various resources. You can also follow the Herget athletic account on Twitter @athleticsherget. A reminder that when you play a sport at Herget you must have an up-to-date sports physical on file with us, they last for 13 months. You also must be registered online at the athletic website.

The winter sports season will start in October, this includes 6th boys basketball, 7th boys basketball, 8th boys basketball, 6/7/8 wrestling, and 7/8 cheerleading. Announcements about registration being open will be sent out on Schoology, the athletic website, and Twitter. You can find a complete list of when sports take place under the resources section of our athletic website – Herget Sports Overview. If you have any questions about athletics at Herget you can contact Mr. White at awhite@sd129.org or 630-301-5755.

Welcome back! It has been great to see all the gleaming happy eyes under those masks ready to learn. This is a reminder that all students are required to submit an Illinois School Physical when entering 6th grade or new from out of state. A sports physical exam form does not substitute for a School Physical. New physicals and updated health information continue to be reviewed for safe participation in sports and gym.

With the safety of all in mind, this is an extra note to everyone that we have students with severe food allergies in our school and other students with specific dietary restrictions. Please remind students not to open lunches on the bus. It is always a good practice to remind your student to inform others if they have an allergy such as peanut, nuts, shellfish, wheat, eggs, or such. Here at Herget, we encourage our students to be a good neighbor and look out for each other. Some students carry emergency medications and all students are expected to respect the property of others.

New this school year: Our health office is able to do the BINAX Covid test for those who have submitted a consent form. This is helpful when a student presents to the health office with symptoms. You can access a blank consent form by going to www.sd129.org/covid-19/covid-rapid-testing

Here’s to supporting our students with another safe and healthy Herget school year!

Elizabeth Silva RN

Email: www.hergethuskies@sd129.org
Website: https://herget.sd129.org/
Location: 1550 Deerpath Road, Aurora, IL, USA
Phone: 630-301-5006
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HergetHuskies
Twitter: @HergetSchool