"IF  YOU  WANT  AN  A  STUDENT,  YOU  HAVE  TO BE  AN  A+ PARENT"

      (Anonymous)

Seventh grade is unique because it's in the "middle of the middle", the middle year of middle school.  Despite the fact that students have been in the building for a year already, the transition from sixth grade to seventh grade is much greater than the transition from elementary school to middle school.  Students will find themselves traveling farther throughout the middle school complex, accountable to more teachers, and responsible for an increased workload.  To minimize the stress of this transition, and help to insure your child's success, we invite you to become partners with us in what we hope will be a challenging and rewarding journey through the "middle of the middle."  Research shows that support at home and communication with school are key elements in the success of the middle school student.  As our many goals include preparing our students for the seventh and eighth grade state exams, and for the rigors of high school, we ask for your help in insuring that your child achieves and maintains the organizational skills and good work habits which reaching these goals will require.  Here are some suggestions:

• Avoid unnecessary/excessive absences.  If they must be absent, upon return to school remind them to see their teachers to find out about work missed, and follow up with them to make sure it has been completed and turned in. *See pre-planned extended absence policy below.
• Make sure they have the supplies needed for their classes.
• Engage them in conversation about what we are doing in our classes, beyond just asking if there is homework to be done.  Ask them to tell you about something interesting they have learned.
• Expect approximately 1.5 to 2 hours of homework on most nights.  This will vary depending upon what activities are taking place in classes and whether or not your child has study halls and utilizes the time well.
• Provide a comfortable well-lit workspace which is free of distractions and try to maintain a schedule where homework is done around the same time each night.  Monitor their progress;  do not assume that homework is being accomplished behind a closed door.  On nights when no written work is assigned, it is helpful for students to spend some time reviewing classwork, organizing notebooks, and reading.
• Check the Agenda frequently to make sure assignments are being recorded and to look for notes from us.  Check subject notebooks occasionally for organization, completion of work, and neatness.  Blank pages in the Agenda and/or piles of unrelated loose papers which belong in notebooks are warning signs of trouble ahead.
• Monitor student progress by using the parent portal to teacher gradebooks; passwords available through Koda Counseling Center.
• In the event that a parent conference becomes necessary, please follow through with the action plan which is recommended for improvement.  Sometimes a daily consequence/reward system works well to motivate middle school students to meet their academic responsibilities.

* PRE-PLANNED EXTENDED ABSENCE POLICY

A student’s absence from school at any time represents an interruption in the student’s academic progress. Of particular concern are extended absences for family trips during the time when school is in session. Such absences are illegal as defined by New York State Law. It is the parents’ prime responsibility to have their children present for instruction except in cases of illness, religious observance, death in the family, inclement weather, court appearance, and a very few other unusual circumstances.

Extended absences deprive a student of the classroom interactions, practice, and opportunities for additional assistance necessary for academic growth. Much of the learning in today’s classroom involves group discussion and debate, independent writing with peer and teacher conferencing as part of the process, group problem solving and cooperative learning, experiments, demonstration, etc. Since none of these scholastic experiences can be duplicated outside the classroom setting, we cannot support extended absences for vacationing, visiting, and other unusual purposes. Teachers may choose to but are not required to provide work prior to the absence. Teachers are not expected to provide additional instruction before or after the absence to reproduce lessons missed. The school cannot be held responsible for any academic disadvantages the student may suffer as a result of the parents’ decision to allow the absence.

Upon returning to school, it is the student’s responsibility to obtain any work that the teachers deem necessary and to return completed work in a reasonable amount of time as determined by each individual teacher.

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