Emerson Middle School Newsletter

Emerson Families,

All report cards for students for Trimester 1 can now be accessed online. Please follow THIS LINK for directions on how to access these report cards.

If you would like a hard copy of your student(s) report card mailed to you, you can request this by either calling the main office at 847-318-8110 or via email at em-office@d64.org.

Don't forget! We have MAP testing on Monday. Please ensure that your child is on time, has headphones, and a charged chromebook.

Have a wonderful weekend! Please reach out with questions or concerns. Thank you!

Best,

Dr. Samantha Alaimo

Emerson students will take the Winter MAP assessment on Monday, December 12th and Wednesday, December 14th from 8:05am -10:00am in homeroom.

Please ensure your child has a charged chromebook and headphones for this assessment and is on time for school.

Emerson's Open House is scheduled for Wednesday, January 18th from 6-8pm. Staff have to be present for 1.5 hours. It is a 2-hour event due to the 5th grade presentation in the MPR. The purpose of this evening is to allow 6th and 7th grade students and families the opportunity to view our encore/elective offerings. Students will be asked to make elective selections for the following year in January as well, so it is important for families to attend this night and view our programming. More information will be communicated soon.

Early Entry into Emerson begins at 7:35am. ONLY students who have a signed pass from a teacher or parent may enter the building early. Students may enter through the main entrance by the office and will be let in once the door supervisor opens the door to check passes. Entry BEFORE 7:35 will not be allowed unless there is extreme weather or a situation approved by the school. Please use this link to find extra passes for home use.

EARLY ENTRY PASS LINK

Each Friday Emerson airs WEMS, our local news broadcast, to all students in homeroom. Check out this week's edition here!

District 207 (which includes Maine East, Maine South and Maine West high schools, as well as Frost Academy) is looking forward to the anticipated arrival of the current 8th grade students in the fall of 2023.

Please follow THIS LINK to Pre-Enroll your student in D207 schools. District 207 is asking the parents of incoming 9th grade students (Class of 2027) to enroll your child by January 1, 2023.

District 207 reminds parents that the enrollment process for high school has begun. If your child will be attending Maine East, Maine South, Maine West or Frost Academy in 9th grade, please know that District 207 requires families to complete the initial enrollment process by Jan. 1, 2023. Completion of enrollment is required to access the course selection meeting with your child’s high school counselor.

Parents should have already received an email from District 207 with this information. If you did not receive the email, please contact the school your child will attend for 9th grade:

Maine East - 847-692-8528

Maine South - 847-692-8214

Maine West - 847-803-5768

If your child will not attend District 207 schools, please contact District 207 at info@maine207.org so you can be removed from future communications from the high school district.

This is an invitation for any Emerson Middle School student to attend free fashion/FACS workshops at Maine South for a creative outlet in the MSHS Fashion program. It's a weekly mini-design challenge.

The workshops will meet twice before winter break and twice after winter break. The first one starts Tuesday Dec. 10 @ 4:00pm and will meet three more times after that.

Students must sign up via the QR code on the document or an email to me; in order for me to plan accordingly for supplies.

Here is the attached invite with all of the information if you would like to link it.

The registration deadline is Dec. 8 but I will make an exception for Emerson students!

My hope is to have a nice amount of Emerson students sign up!

Please see the Vocal Notes Newsletter #11 from Mrs. Broeker.

Calling all Emerson Students: You are officially invited to participate in the 2023 Scripps Spelling Bee!

WHO: All Emerson Students

HOW: You must complete the Permission Form by Monday, December 19, 2022 and begin studying

WHEN: The Spelling Bee will be held on Friday, January 27, 2023 at 3:15pm

WHERE: Emerson Middle School LRC

Complete Permission Form by clicking here.

Please contact Ms. Donato (adonato@d64.org) with any questions.

As some of you may remember, 4 years ago Emerson and Lincoln Middle Schools participated in the St. Baldrick's fundraiser to help raise money and awareness for pediatric cancer. Between the two schools over $430,000 was raised. It was truly a wonderful and inspiring event.

We are pleased to announce that we will be holding another St. Baldrick's event. There will be a kickoff assembly on January 26th to introduce the students to the charity and the event. This will be the kickoff to 6 week fundraising campaign that will culminate with the head shaving assembly on March 8th.

Thank you in advance for your support and we look forward to hosting this event here at Emerson!

As we turn to December, it’s time to share with everyone what our weather guidelines are for potentially closing schools. These are the guidelines we would follow if we had to close school due to weather conditions.

In the event we need to close due to weather, students and staff will not attend school that day, and should we need to make up days during the school year, we will adjust the calendar accordingly. While it's never ideal to have to interrupt learning, I appreciate your understanding and cooperation when we are concerned about student and staff safety at school.

District 64 continues to utilize many different platforms to ensure you have important information delivered to you in the most convenient way. One of those ways is through our SMS Text Messaging Service.

Getting messages delivered to your mobile device is a helpful tool, and District 64 is reenergizing our efforts to bring this to you.

These alerts will be info about events, school closings, safety, and more. That said, our SMS Text Messaging Service will be used supplementally in our communication efforts and does not replace any school emails or calls you are receiving.

How to receive text messages:

• You must opt-in to receive text messages. To do so, you will need to text “Y” or “Yes” to 67587.

• If you’d like to no longer receive District 64 text messages, you have to send “Stop” to 67587.
  
  

If you have any questions regarding the use of text messages to communicate District/School messages, please email Christopher Lilly at clilly@d64.org.

This is a friendly reminder that yearbooks for the 22-23 school year are on sale. The cost for a copy is $25. Yearbooks can be purchased online through My School Bucks, OR with cash or check in the main office. The deadline to secure a copy is Wednesday, December 14. After this date, yearbooks will be sold on a first come, first serve basis. If you have any questions, contact Ms. Apuli (mapuli@d64.org) or Ms. Dobrydnio (edobrydnio@d64.org).

We are also seeking student photos from any and all school events. If you have any to share, you can send them over through either of the following options:

• Upload through yearbookforever.com (code: eagles)

• Download the Yearbook Snap mobile app from the App Store or Google Play (code: eagles)

• Click here to access a video walking through the above steps.

• Email your photos directly to the yearbook sponsors → mapuli@d64.org / edobrydnio@d64.org

Dine to Donate

Wednesday, 12/14; All Day

Grab some Barbecue at Mel’s Craft BBQ and mention Emerson. 20% of every purchase will help support the Emerson PTO!

7th Grade Social

Planning for 7th grade social has begun. If you’re interested in helping with planning and/or day off please sign up via our website. https://emersonmspto.membershiptoolkit.com/volunteer/89981

Membership

If you have not yet joined, please do today!

PTO membership is the main fundraiser for the Emerson PTO. It helps fund our whole yearly budget for student events, support staff and all the other little things.

https://emersonmspto.membershiptoolkit.com/

**We have had some PayPal issues with folks not being able to use the guest checkout feature. To fix this, we are moving to another payment platform in the coming months. In the meantime, if you don’t want to create a PayPal account, please select “pay by check” and drop off a check in the office.**

Next PTO Meeting

Wednesday, January 19th @ 6:30p.

District 207 Change in English Curriculum to Benefit All Students:

With the goal to provide an opportunity for all students to be successful and participate in the high quality programming at Maine East, Maine South and Maine West, District 207 is making a change so that now all students will be enrolled in English 1 as 9th graders beginning in the 2023-24 school and English 2 as 10th grader beginning in the 2024-25 school year. The English sequences for current 9th and 10th graders will be unchanged.

District 207 considers this to be an “all in” experience for students that grants access to the rigorous curriculum traditionally associated with classes labeled “accelerated” to a larger number of students. An additional benefit is that students will now have expanded opportunities to earn college credit as early as junior year through AP and Dual Credit courses (those courses will be weighted for purposes of GPA). With this change, students can now earn up to 12 college credits (instead of only 6 that was previously available).

District and school representatives provided presentations on this topic in each of our partner school districts for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade parents recently. This communication is meant to ensure all parents have access to the information through the linked materials that include a video of the presentation (https://youtu.be/K4tEMH16hBU), an overview document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kxfjl9Nj1C3EwuQ2eRP7nDbL0kV8m8yz-0RHVStMO6k/edit?usp=sharing)and a FAQ document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VOyjT_a8ZVJz7YR9O5laE9J6m71sOm3KTNrfIJeUmwY/edit?usp=sharing).

After reviewing all the materials, if you have questions that were not answered, please feel free to contact Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Innovation Shawn Messmer at smessmer@maine207.org.

The cafeteria will not be accepting cash to purchase lunch items. Students must use their MySchoolBucks account to purchase any food. Please see this flyer for more information from Quest, our food service company. You can also get a food service overview by clicking HERE.

Unlike elementary school, you do not need to pre-order meals or beverages. Students may select from daily offerings in the Emerson cafeteria. More information about our school lunch offerings and payment can be found here on the D64 Middle School Lunch webpage.

Though we have many food choices in our cafeteria, most Emerson students bring their lunch to school. We strongly encourage this during the first weeks of school while we get our cafeteria systems and procedures up and running.

We highly encourage waste-free lunches. To help reduce waste, please consider using reusable containers for your child’s food and drink, rather than disposable bags and bottles. Emerson is committed to green efforts in the lunchroom. The cafeteria also has a lunch waste sort station for students to empty their lunch waste into recycling, compost and trash. We encourage all students to do so every lunch period.

FORGOTTEN LUNCHES

If students forget something at home or are being brought a lunch, items may be dropped off at the Emerson Office. We instruct students to check in with the office during passing periods to pick up these items. We will not interrupt class to notify students of items/lunches delivered to the office. As noted in our district student/parent handbook, parents are discouraged from delivering lunch to the office from local restaurants; lunches brought to the office should be reserved for emergency situations, such as a forgotten lunch.

There will be three 4:00pm activity buses that will go to the Franklin, Carpenter, and Field areas. The buses will run Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. These buses leave the the school around 4:15, giving students time to get from their activity to the bus. Please note: there is no 4pm bus on Wednesday or Fridays before long weekends/holidays.

Tardiness

All students are expected to be seated in homeroom at 8:05 a.m. Students who arrive at school after the homeroom period (8:05 to 8:10 a.m.) must report directly to the office before proceeding to class. A doctor’s appointment or a bus problem are acceptable excused tardies. All other reasons will be considered unexcused. Exceptions must be approved by the principal. To assist students and parents in correcting this problem, a sequence of escalating interventions is followed after three unexcused tardies. These range from calls home, parent letters and conferences at school, detentions, tardy contract, and possible legal action against the parents.

Early Check-Out

If a student needs to leave the school before the end of the day, a parent note giving the reason, date and time of departure, and person picking up the student should be given to the teacher whose class the student is leaving. If you email this message to the teacher, please be sure to include the school secretary (em-office@d64.org) as a recipient. The student should report to the office at the time of departure. The parent or guardian must come into the office to sign out the student for the length of time the student will be away from school. If your child returns to school before the end of the day, please enter the school building and sign your child back in before he/she returns to class. Please note that students must arrive by 9:20 a.m. or be dismissed after 1:45 p.m. for their attendance to be counted as a full day.

Absences

For safety reasons and in compliance with state law, a parent is requested to notify the school office in writing or by phone within the first hour of school. If notice is not received, the school secretary will call parents at home or work to confirm the absence. To report an absence, please call the school office anytime, day or night, to access the voice mail system at 847-318-8110. When calling, please provide: student’s name; classroom/ homeroom; date of absence; and reason for absence. For illness, please share symptoms or diagnosis.

• EXCUSED: A valid cause for absence includes illness, observance of a religious holiday or religious instruction, death in the immediate family, family emergency, other situations beyond the control of the student, other circumstances that cause reasonable concern to the parent/guardian for the student’s safety or health, or other reason as approved by the Superintendent or designee. For a student to be released from school as an excused absence to observe a religious holiday or for religious instruction, parents should give written notice to the Building Principal at least five calendar days before the student's anticipated absence.

• UNEXCUSED: Absences due to vacations, travel, attendance at a cultural or sporting event, or participation in a team sport, acting or fine arts performance are considered unexcused. This also includes tiredness (unless your child is ill), oversleeping. If your child is NOT called in by 10am, they will be marked unexcused for the day, and parents will be contacted by the office to verify the absence.

Vacations

Every school day is important, and the District strongly discourages scheduling family vacations on school days as these are considered unexcused absences. If your child will be absent from school for an extended period of time for a family trip, please inform the school office and your child’s teacher. Work will be given upon return for students leaving the country or immediate District area when your children RETURN to school. It must be completed at home under a parent’s supervision. Teachers are not expected to provide homework or assignments in advance for students who will be absent for an extended period of time for family vacation and other activities.

School hours for student classes are from 8:05 a.m.- 3:00 p.m. Please note that each Wednesday, students are dismissed at 2:10 p.m. for staff professional development activities.

Doors to the school open for students each morning at 7:58 a.m. Homeroom begins at 8:05 a.m. Students with an early entry pass will be permitted to enter the school between 7:35-7:45, but not before. There will be a teacher opening the door to permit entry at that time. We WILL allow students to enter before this if there is inclimate or cold weather.

School office hours are from 7:20 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Remember that our student absence line (847) 318-8110 is available 24 hours a day. Please let the Emerson Office know as soon as possible if your child will not be in attendance. Please do not rely on e-mail notification for reporting absences as it may not be seen until later in the day.

All Emerson students and parents are provided access to schedules via the PowerSchool parent and student portals. The PowerSchool Parent Portal allows you access to your student’s academic information, including student schedules and grades. If you have any questions on how to login, please contact the Emerson Main Office for assistance at (847) 318-8110.

Emerson Middle School, along with all District 64 schools, operates in accordance with policies and practices that have been reviewed and implemented by the District 64 Board of Education. Please review the D64 Student-Parent Handbook prior to the start of the school year to familiarize yourself with the information contained in it. We want to work in partnership with you to ensure a positive school year, and having an understanding of this information will help to promote a successful school year. This handbook is intended as a convenience for District 64 families and staff by summarizing selected information about procedures, services and programs. It also provides a quick reference for contact information and District timelines.

The Emerson website and Emerson school calendar are valuable resources to keep informed of important updates and events throughout the year. The calendar is kept up to date throughout the school year, and new information is posted regularly. We hope that these tools are helpful resources for keeping you and your student organized and informed as we progress through the year.