Welcome Back!

Dear Middle School Families,

I hope that it has been and continues to be a wonderful summer for you and your family. As always, our middle school spaces were filled with the sounds of Summers at LREI in July and in light of the impressive construction going on at Charlton Street throughout July and August, August was a relatively quiet month in the Middle School. Our spaces have since been freshened up and anxiously await the arrival of students and the start of a new year.

This summer, we asked all Middle School students to read Gred Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea. There is a passage in the book where Greg’s mentor Haji Ali tells Greg that, “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything.” As Greg reflects on these words, he understands that, “That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life. [He] taught me to share cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.” And so it is with us; over the course of this year, we will have many opportunities to share “cups of tea” together. It is my hope that each of these cups will bring us together in the spirit of shared exploration and mutual understanding. While my family has had an exciting and relaxing summer, I’m looking forward seeing all of you in September and beginning what I know will be a great year.

I trust 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. Since it is only a short time before we are back in full swing, I hope that you make the most of these last few weeks. That said, what follows are some important items to keep in mind as you prepare for the start of the school year:

  • 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 Tuesday, September 8th 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 also encouraged to attend.  The orientation will run until 10:15AM.
  • Beginning of the year meeting with your child’s advisor—On Wednesday, September 9th, from 12:15-3:15PM, we are asking families to schedule a conference with your child’s advisor. In order to schedule these conferences, click on the link “Beginning of the year advisor meetings” in the upper left-hand corner of this page. If you have any questions about this meeting or how to schedule it, please do not hesitate to contact me.The purpose of this meeting is to provide an opportunity for your child’s advisor to meet with you to introduce her/himself and for you to learn more about her/his role as an advocate and liaison. This meeting will provide 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 and sixth grade families as the meeting will provide you 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. Fifth and sixth grade students will not participate in these meetings; seventh and eighth grade students will participate.

    On the first day of school, we will run an abbreviated morning schedule during which students will see all of their teachers. Following lunch and recess, the mini-conferences will begin. Advisors will meet with parent(s)/guardian(s) (and seventh and eighth grade advisees) for 15 minutes. Faculty members who are not advisors will be with students at Houston Street doing structured games (a kind of mini field day). Parents can up pick their child up from Houston Street and can leave with their child after meeting with the advisor. Students may also remain until the end of the day and will be dismissed at 3:15PM. We hope that all families will be able to participate in these meetings on this day.

Another 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. The full handbook and a summary of the revisions can be accessed on the sidebar of this page. All returning students will receive a copy of the handbook when they return to school, which they will first review with their advisors before bringing home.

The revisions to this year’s handbook address the following subjects:

  • Starting the Day
  • Lateness:
  • Advisory and Advisors
  • Cell Phones and Other Electronic Communication Devices (ECD)
  • Dress Code
  • Online Safety
  • Homework over breaks
  • Band
  • Progress Reports

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.

On a programmatic note, our seventh and eighth grade performing arts electives will start in September. We are very excited about this addition as it will allow students to focus on specific areas of interest while also providing opportunities to experience the full range of offerings. The program will include electives in instrumental and vocal music, drama and dance. Students will make their official elective choices by the end of the second week of school. For more information about the elective program, go to https://blog.lrei.org/msnews/2009/05/21/educating-the-whole-child/.

If you have specific questions about any of the above items, 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 blog 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 from the sidebar on the left.
  • With regard to communication, please make sure to keep abreast of Middle School and schoolwide events by reading the weekly blog, which you can access at any time at https://blog.lrei.org/msnews. The blog is updated every Thursday afternoon.

As I mentioned in the spring, we welcome Elizabeth Simmons to the Middle School community. Elizabeth will teach seventh grade core. In addition, the following faculty members will take on new responsibilities as follows:

  • Susannah Flicker – Learning specialist for both seventh and eighth grade while Jennifer Haakmat is on leave
  • Ledell Mulvaney – Seventh and eighth grade vocal music performing arts elective
  • Joanne Magee – Fifth grade drama and seventh and eighth grade drama performing arts elective
  • Matt McLean – Seventh and eighth grade instrumental music performing arts elective
  • Deborah Damast (Lower School movement teacher) – Seventh and eighth grade dance performing arts major
  • Peggy Peloquin (High School dance and life issues teacher) – Seventh and eighth grade dance performing arts minor

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 PE teacher and Athletic Director Peter Fisher and science teachers Sherezada Acosta and Stephen Volkmann all taught classes at the LREI Summer Institute.
  • Stephen also taught a science class at the TEAK Fellowship program. The TEAK Fellowship helps talented New York City students from low-income families gain admission to and succeed at top high schools and colleges.
  • Middle School librarian Jennifer Hubert Swan attended the American Library Association Annual Conference in July and is reading and reviewing new books nonstop as she prepares to co-teach her first course at Pratt this fall entitled, Tween Media Literacy.
  • Visual Arts chair and fifth/sixth grade art teacher, Melissa Rubin, received a fellowship grant to participate in an Art Teacher’s Workshop in southern France during July. At the workshop, Melissa met other art educators from around the globe and engaged in discussions and seminars focusing on art education. Participants were also able to work on their own art. This is the second time that Melissa has received this fellowship.
  • Middle school vocal music teacher and chorus director Ledell Mulvaney was a Teaching Artist at Brooklyn’s “Creative Theatrics” in July and the composer/director of an original musical with high school students at Silver Lake in Connecticut. in August.
  • 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 served as a program dean for the Oxbridge summer study abroad program in Cambridge, England. The Oxbridge program is for students in grades 8 to 12 and aims to give participants the opportunity to live and study at historic and scholarly centers of learning in Europe.
  • Seventh grade core teacher Matthew Rosen attended the 16th Annual August Institute on the Teaching of Writing at Teachers College Columbia University. The focus of the Institute was on the central role of planning and curriculum development in the teaching of writing; methods for holding students accountable for doing their best work; classroom structures that support inquiry and collaboration; and using literature to help students craft their writing.
  • Eighth grade core teacher Sara-Momii Roberts taught at the GO Project Summer at Grace Church School.  GO Project is an academic support program for elementary students in the downtown public schools.
  • In July, fifth grade core teachers Heather Brandstetter and Wendy Bassin, Sherezada Acosta, sixth grade core teacher Frank Portella, middle school teachnology teacher Steve Neiman and Carin Cohen met to explore a number of innovative ways that teachers can infuse technology into the teaching and learning experience. They explored a number of exciting areas and I’ll have more to say about this later in the fall.
  • In August, Heather Brandstetter, Wendy Bassin, Frank Portella, Sara-Momii Roberts, Jennifer Hubert, seventh grade core teacher Matthew Rosen and eighth grade core teacher Sarah Barlow met to plan for how we will use the summer reading text Three Cups of Tea as a springboard for discussions and activities in advisory groups in the fall.

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 final 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.
  • Summer Reading—Students do not need to bring their summer reading assignments with them to school on the first day. Their teachers will let know when to bring them to school. If you are not sure if you have completed all that you had to do, check out the summer reading section of our website— http://www.lrei.org/libres/sr.html.
  • Middle School Sports—Practices for Middle School soccer, volleyball, and cross country will begin the week of September 13th. You can access the game and practice schedule at http://lrei.org/athletics/fallsports.html. Fifth and Sixth grade intramural soccer will begin the week of September 21st. Practices days and times for all teams will be posted by the first day of school if not before. Questions about the seventh and eighth grade teams should be directed to Athletic Director Peter Fisher at pfisher@lrei.org. Questions about the intramural program should be directed to Middle School PE teacher Larry Kaplan at lkaplan@lrei.org.
  • Middle School Chorus and Jazz Band—The Little Red Singers (grades 5-8) meets once a week on Tuesdays from 11:00AM-12:00PM. Lower School music teacher and Middle School vocal music teacher Ledell Mulvaney directs the chorus. Seventh and eighth grade jazz band members meet during the performing arts elective period. Fifth and sixth grade jazz band members meet 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— Tuesday, September 15th at 6PM, at the home of Michael and Carol, 250 West 94th Street, Apt. 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 Wednesday, September 16th.  Please read and complete the forms that have been enclosed in this mailing.  A parent informational meeting about the trip will take place on Friday, September 11th, at 8:00AM in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria.
  • Middle School Curriculum Night—Tuesday, September 29th 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. In late-October, seventh graders will travel to Williamsburg, VA as part of their study of Colonial America Registration materials for both of these trips are included in this mailing. Eighth graders will travel to Gettysburg, PA and Washington DC in May as a part of their study of American history. The registration for this trip will be forthcoming. All children will participate in these grade-level trips. In addition, our optional foreign language trips to Costa Rica 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. 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

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