Dear Families,

Greetings! In June, the Middle School faculty members packed up their rooms to make way for the summer camp who made excellent use of all of our spaces. Truth be told, it was nice being surrounded by the sounds of camp as I took advantage of the time to think about things middle school. As July came to an end, the summer camp packed up and was almost immediately replaced by a legion of contractors and craftspeople who are hard at work at a major renovation of our Middle School space. All of the core classrooms and common spaces will arrive shiny and new in September. These rooms will also reflect some new technology additions including ceiling mounted wireless projectors, which we will use in conjunction with a set of new tablet notebooks. The tablets and projectors will allow teachers and students to more easily collaborate and share work. Over the course of the year we will also explore a number of other ways to use these tools to enhance our curriculum.

I hope that things have been equally exciting for you and that you are all enjoying your summer and finding time to be with family and friends. With August here, it is only a short time before we are back in full swing. So I hope that you make the most of these last few weeks.

One item to add to your to-do list is a review of the Middle School Student and Family Handbook. The handbook contains a number of important revisions. These revisions are indicative of the rich professional dialog that took place this past year. While we certainly expect that you will review the full handbook, a link to a detailed summary of the revisions can be found here.

One important change has to do with the schedule for the first day of school (Thursday, September 4th), which has been adjusted to allow each family to meet with their child’s advisor in the afternoon:

Beginning of the year meeting with your child’s advisor:
Advisors meet with each advisee and her/his family at the start of the year to introduce her/himself and for you to learn more about her/his role as an advocate and liaison. This meeting will occur on the afternoon of the first day of school and provides all parties with an un-charged, friendly environment to get to know each other. It is also a chance to establish connections and set goals. This is especially useful for new families and for fifth grade families as the meeting will provide families with a sense of what is new and what to expect. This meeting will also provide a chance for families to discuss any goals or concerns that they may have.

On the first day of school, we will run abbreviated morning schedule with students seeing all of their teachers. Following lunch and recess, the mini-conferences will begin. Advisors will meet with the advisee and her/his parents for 15 minutes. Faculty members who are not advisors will be with kids at Houston Street doing structured games (a kind of mini field day). Parents will pick their child up from Houston Street and can leave with their child after meeting with the advisor. Students may also return to Houston Street following their conference and will be dismissed at 3:15PM.

In order to schedule these conferences, please click here. If you have any questions about this meeting or how to schedule it, please do not hesitate to contact me. We think that this chance to meet with your child’s advisor will be the beginning of a great yearlong partnership.

Some other revisions to the handbook touch on:

• Clarifications of the arrival and dismissal policy
• Homework blogs and agenda books
• Daily Study Group for seventh and eighth graders
• A statement about unkindness and exclusion
• Preparation for Family conferences with your child’s advisor
• Communication between home and school
• Student support

These revisions reflect our efforts to make important Middle School policies and practices clearer so that we can better achieve our divisional goals and the school’s mission. I encourage you to review the handbook with your child as this provides an excellent opportunity to talk about hopes and goals for the coming school year. If you have specific questions, please do not hesitate to contact me before the start of the school year. Whether before school starts or during the year, my door is always open and I look forward to hearing from you. The following are a few other important items to keep in mind as you review the handbook:

• The official start of the school day for Middle School students is 8:15AM. Morning homeroom will run from 8:15-8:30AM. It is important that students arrive to school on time. Please remember that students who are late to school and who do not have a note from their parent/guardian will be expected to make up this time at the end of the day.
• I have posted to the website a document that contains several of the letters of communication that faculty members may send out as email during the course of the year. We recognize that these letters have a formal tone, but we feel that they contain important information that you should know about your child’s progress. In addition, this information allows for better coordination among Middle School faculty members. It is helpful if you read these letters now so that you are familiar with their form. You can access the letters here.
• With regard to communication, please make sure to keep of abreast of Middle School and schoolwide events by reading the weekly blog, which you can access at any time at http://blog.lrei.org/msnews. The blog is updated every Thursday afternoon.

As I mentioned in the spring, we welcome the following new teachers to the middle school team this year:

• Sara-Momii Roberts – Eighth grade core teacher
• Matt McLean – Middle School music and band
• Susannah Flicker – Seventh grade learning specialist

In addition to these new faculty members, the following faculty members will take on new responsibilities as follows:

• Peter Fisher – Eighth grade PE and Athletic Director
• Larry Kaplan – Fifth through seventh grade PE and Intramural Sports Program Coordinator
• Ledell Mulvaney – Middle School chorus

Amidst travels, spending time with families and friends, and reflecting on the past year, many returning faculty members spent time this summer focusing on their curricula and on life in school in general:

• Middle School art teacher Carin Cohen, PE teacher and Athletic Director Peter Fisher, and science teachers Sherezada Acosta and Stephen Volkmann all taught classes at the LREI Summer Institute.
• Sherezada also participated in a Salvadori Center workshop that focused on integrating standards-based built-environment projects and activities into the curriculum so that students can use the “urbanscape” around them to increase their knowledge of mathematics, science, arts, language arts, social studies, and technology. In August, Sherezada participated in workshops at EduChange’s Annual Summer Invitational on backwards planning, assessment and rubric design and subject-specific differentiated Instruction.
• Middle School librarian Jennifer Hubert Swan completed her third summer teaching a Young Adult literature survey course in the Queens College graduate library program.
• Middle School art teacher and visual arts department chair Melissa Rubin taught a visiting artist workshop to graduate art education students at Manhattanville College during the first week of July and had artwork in an exhibition at the Gold Dome Gallery in Oklahoma City, OK.
• Ana Fox Chaney continued her masters program at the Bank Street College of Education in Leadership in Mathematics Education. The program’s focus is on innovative curricular and instructional approaches and new assessment strategies in mathematics.
• Sixth grade core teacher and dean Lynne Cattafi worked with a number of colleagues from the lower and high school divisions to develop an intensive three-day orientation program for new LREI faculty members. Lynne was also the recipient of one of our first travel grants. In August, Lynne traveled to Turkey. This experience will certainly add a new dimension to the Islam unit of our sixth grade study of the Middle Ages.
• Fifth grade core teachers Wendy Bassin and Heather Brandstetter were also the recipients of a summer grant that they used to develop new materials and resources for their fall Civilization Simulation. This work will further enhance an already rich unit of study.
• Eighth grade core teacher Sara-Momii Roberts participated in the Facing History and Ourselves Summer Institute that was held Teachers College. The Seminar challenges participants to explore a range of inquiry-based approaches to the teaching of history and to reflect on questions about what it means to participate responsibly in a civil society.

A most impressive list and reflective of the commitment that LREI faculty have to their own continued professional growth. Rest assured that whether connected to the projects noted above, or through the day-to-day work that the teachers have planned for students, we have many thought provoking and challenging activities planned for the coming school year.

A few specific reminders:

• Foreign Language—If you are a fifth grader or a student new to LREI and have not informed me of your choice for foreign language, please call or email to discuss this.
• New Student Orientation—All students new to the Middle School (this includes all fifth graders and sixth-eighth graders new to LREI) are invited to join us for an orientation session on Wednesday, September 3rd at 8:45AM in the Sixth Avenue auditorium. Faculty and returning students will be on hand to answer your questions and to let you know the inside scoop on being an LREI middle schooler. Parent/guardian(s) are encouraged invited to attend.
• Summer Reading—Sixth through eighth graders should bring summer reading assignments to school on the first day. If you are not sure if you have completed all that you have to do, check out the summer reading section of our website— http://www.lrei.org/libres/sr.html.
• Middle School Chorus and Band—The Little Red Singers (grades 5-8) meets once a week on Tuesdays, 11:30AM-12:30PM. Lower School music teacher Ledell Mulvaney directs the chorus. The Middle school band meets on Fridays from 2:15-3:15PM. Middle School music teacher Matt McLean directs the band.
• New Parents—you are invited to a cocktail party hosted by Board Chair Michael Patrick (LREI ’71) and his wife Carol Sedwick— Monday, September 8th at 6PM, at the home of Michael and Carol, 250 West 94th St. 15E
• LREI Medical Forms—please make sure that you return all medical-related forms to School Nurse Kitty Highstein before the first day of school.
• Ashokan—Fifth and sixth graders will leave for their three-day outdoor education trip to the Ashokan Center in the Catskills on Monday, October October 6th. Please read and complete the forms that have been enclosed in this mailing.
• Middle School Curriculum Night—Tuesday, September 16th at 6:30PM. All are invited to attend.

Among the many highlights of the Middle School program are the overnight trips taken by each Middle School grade. The fifth and sixth grades begin our trip program for the year with their annual journey to the Ashokan Outdoor Education Center. This three-day experience provides an excellent opportunity for our middle school students and faculty to learn together in a setting that helps to further the sense of community that is so important to our program. The fee for the Ashokan trip is $300 and payment is made directly to LREI. In late-October, seventh graders will travel to Williamsburg, VA as part of their study of Colonial America. Eighth graders will travel to Gettysburg, PA and Washington DC in May as a part of their two-year study of American history. The pricing for the Williamsburg trip is $675 and the pricing for the DC trip is $659. Payments for these trips are made directly to our tour company NCT. I’ve included a copy of the trip registration form, which will allow you to register for your child’s trip. All children will participate in these grade-level trips. In addition, our two optional foreign language trips (Spain and France) will take place over Spring Break. The projected cost for these trips is just above $2,000, which includes all travel fees and spending money. I’ve included this information to alert you to the additional payment so that you can plan accordingly. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions about the payment for your child’s trip.

That’s all for now. With the start of school just around the corner, I hope that you make the most of these last days of summer and that you return with interesting experiences and stories to share as we embark on new and exciting adventures in the fall.

See you soon,

Mark Silberberg
Middle School Principal