Cougar Courier

October 4, 2024

Principal's Message

Greetings Elm Families,

Happy Friday! We hope everyone had a wonderful week. A huge congratulations goes out to our Elm Middle School Cross Country Team for completing their season in spectacular fashion at Monday's Conference Meet for cross country. Highlights from the conference meet included Declan Cahill placing 2nd in the top ten, earning a medal, with a time of 9 minutes and 33 seconds. Our second fastest 6th grader was Andre Luna way to go! During the sixth grade girls race, Addie Jimenez and Yaretzi Morales lead our Elm team.

Our 7th and 8th grade girls brought home the third place trophy as a team. Samantha Reyes received a medal by earning 9th place overall with a time of 11 minutes 26 seconds. Lena Waz followed, great work!. Our 7th and 8th grade boys finished strong in the final race with Jacob Waz leading our team with a time of 9:37 and Finn Cahill with a time of 10:14. Great job to all members of the Elm Cross Country team!

Additionally, please see the information below for instructions on ordering school pictures! We will be doing a re-take for photos on October 15th! Also, mark your calendars. On October 31st, we will be taking a school-wide field trip to EPHS to see the fall play. Permission slips have been sent home and are due back on October 25th to your students' advisory teacher. Additionally, on October 25th, the Elm PAT will be hosting our annual Fall Dance. Please see the flyer below for more details about the dance and dates for ticket sales.

Please take a few minutes to read through this week’s Cougar Courier. As always, should you need anything, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly. Have a fabulous weekend! #TeamElmStrong

Most Sincerely,
Ms. Ashley Groeneveld

Assistant Principal's Corner

How do I help my students who are missing work?

Good afternoon Elm Families,

This week, I had the opportunity to meet with several Elm parents in regards to their students academic performance. One major question that kept coming up was, "how do I know what my student is doing in class and what assignments they are working on?" My advice is/was simple; "begin treating your students Chromebook as tool for both you and your student." Log into your student's device and go into their Google Classrooms, all of their assignments are listed in the students running agendas on the main stream of their individual classrooms. Assignments will be given to students in two different forms depending on the instructor; this will be a physical copy or a digital.

Students will have access to both forms in their learning. If a student states that they do not have the material, it can be accessed the vast majority of the time in a digital, editable version. Most often these will be linked within the "Classwork" section of their Google classroom. Further, you can access your students PowerSchool account via their device; wherein, you can find their individual class grades and missing work. If you see a student received a "NE" or "1" on an assignment; your student should most certainly do/redo this assignment. If your student claims, "my teacher will not accept makeup work," they are perhaps confused on our policies. I wish to assure you that we do, in fact, want them to complete their work!

Navigating these tools can be a bit confusing at times, so please reach out to me with assistance. I hope you and your families have a great weekend. It was another wonderful week at Elm Middle School.

Sincerely,

David Parolin

Assistant Principal

Dean's Den

Buses

Hello Elm Families,

This past week, we have had many issues with our buses picking up our students late, as well as not making correct stops on the way home. We wanted to make a moment to recognize these issues, and share are apology for any inconveniences. We work directly with the bus company to ensure that these types of situations are limited, and always let the bus company know when we are having issues.

We want to ensure you that when a bus is running late:

-Students on that bus are never marked tardy.

-Students on that bus always have the opportunity to eat breakfast

If you haven't yet already, please join my Bus Riders Remind App using the code @9dh292. This way, you can get real time updates each morning and afternoon in regards to our buses.

Once again, we apologize for any inconveniences these situations may have caused. Please continue to reach out to me directly with any bus issues.

Fall Dance

Jostens Picture Ordering

8th Grade Families

We are so excited to start this year and celebrate the Graduating class of 2025 all year long. Please fill out this form to sign-up!

This year we are collecting as one lump sum for all the activities and graduation events. Included in this one time payment is:

2-field trips with lunch included

Graduation gown with delivery to Elm Middle School

8th grade graduation t-shirt signed by all students

Graduation card personalized from parents and balloon

Total cost $100

***PAT is still hosting the dinner dance, that communication will come separately in the upcoming months.***

Cougar Athletics

We're looking forward to another very exciting year of Cougar Athletics! The Leyden Norwood Athletic Conference schedule can be found here!

As a reminder, any student interested in participating in athletics at Elm this year, must have an active physical on file! Be sure to check with the nurse to ensure your student is able to tryout! Addtionally, take time to review the student and parent code of conduct from the Leyden Norwood Athletic Conference here. We will have annoucements for tryouts and athletics meetings as seasons are approaching!

Cougar Celebration Store

Elm Extra-Curricular Activities

Our goal is to provide as many opportunities as possible for our students to contribute to our school community not only inside the classroom but outside of it as well. We offer a wide variety of activities for our students to participate in! Encourage your Cougar to try something new or keep going with something they already have been! Here is the list of all of our offerings at Elm, with scheduled meeting days and sponsors!

Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to a sponsor of an activity!

The Elm PAT

A huge thank you to our Elm PAT for always supporting our school community! Here is a detailed schedule of all things Elm PAT for the 2024-2025 school year! Mark your calendars! Our next meeting is October 10th at 5:30pm in the Elm Media Center!

Missed the book fair? No worries! Shop online until October 6th at https://www.scholastic.com/bf/elmmiddleschool

Elm Middle School Yearbook

If you're interested in purchasing a yearbook, please go ahead and click the link here! For any questions, please reach out to Ms. Fiorito our yearbook club sponsor!

Box Tops for Education

Earn cash for our school by using the Box Tops app. It’s an easy way to make a difference. All you have to do is buy Box Tops participating products (like Cheerios!) and scan your grocery receipt. Box Tops are worth $.10 each and they add up fast! Use this referral code K7Y8751D when you sign up and you’ll get 25 Bonus Box Tops when you scan your first receipt through 05/31/2025. Download the Box Tops for Education app here: https://btfe.smart.link/c2jjdifkw?referral_code=K7Y8751D