We were glad to see so many of you at our meeting on April 7. We began with a quick summary of PTA sponsored events – the Spiritwear Sale, Magazine Drive, Distinctly Diamond, and the Book Fair. We hope you have been enjoying these events and we thank you for supporting the Diamond community. Next, we urged everyone to get involved. The Diamond PTA wants you! If you are interested in serving on the PTA Board next year, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact one of the members of the Nominating Committee: Margaret Counts-Klebe, margck [at] yahoo [dot] com, Jen Geller, jentg [at] verizon [dot] net, or Diane Biglow, dbiglow [at] rcn [dot] com, by April 28. We then turned the meeting over to Diamond Principal Anne Carothers, who spent over an hour answering parent questions on a variety of topics. Here’s a summary: 8th Grade Activities There will be a reception on June 20 following the evening 8th Grade Step Up ceremony. We are looking for 7th grade parents to help with this event. More information to follow. Program of Studies Only 5th graders will get a paper copy of the Program of Studies. Everyone else can access the Program of Studies online in about a week. This will give information on courses to be offered next year. Placement Process for current 6th and 7th Grade Students On May 9th parents will get a letter detailing the placement process, the course registration form, and the student information sheet (parents can write what they want the school to remember about their child as they place them on the student information sheet – share anything about your child and how they learn that you think is important.) The administration does not plan to make appointments with everyone to discuss placement. They will be taking into account what they know through teachers, parents and guidance. Goal is balanced classes and teams. They will look at kids’ strengths and weakness, balance of gender, kids’ social networks (it is helpful if you describe this). The school will not be completing placement before the end of this school year. The placement process will begin during this school year and continue during the summer. Placement information will go out to parents/students in mid-August. This enables more flexibility in creating balanced teams and affords us the school an opportunity to double-check the placements and move things around. If parents do not agree with the placement decisions, they can contact the administration at that time.
Math Placement Math offerings will not change from this year. They will be the same in 2011-2012 as they are in 2010-2011 school year. 6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade Pre-Algebra Extended Algebra I extended Math II Pre-Algebra Algebra I Math I Algebra IA Grade 7 Mathemematics Grade 8 Mathematics Pre-Algebra Extended and Algebra I Extended challenges kids laterally – stretches them and keep them challenged while not moving them ahead in the curriculum. Very few kids are in these classes. These are the kids who eat and breathe math. Students in both Algebra I and Algebra I Extended can go into Honors Algebra 2 in 9th grade if recommended by their teacher. Students in Algebra IA in 8th grade will go on to Algebra 1B in 9th grade. Several different data points are used to determine math placement including: 5 Continental Math League Contests The New England Math Contest Common Mid-Year Assessment across the grade Common Final Assessment across the grade (Grades do not factor in as much because they can be influenced more by a wide range of issues.) Teacher recommendations play a smaller role. Kids are rank-ordered based on how they do on these assessments and then a cut-off is determined and kids are placed. Need to be very close to the cut-off point to have a discussion with parents about it. If wind up with more kids in a particular level than anticipated, can move teachers around to create a new class section. They will learn their math placement near the end of the summer. Everything happened earlier last year with math placement, but they did not use the year-end assessment which is important because kids can improve in the second half of the year. We will not know which teachers will be teaching each math level until the beginning of the summer. If you know that your child responds well to a certain teaching style, put information about that on the student information sheet.
Foreign Language Placement There are only 2 levels in 8th grade: Regular and Honors. Placement is based on teacher recommendation and test scores.
Electives Ms. Carothers will post a chart on the Diamond website showing the required electives and the electives students can choose at each grade level, once the information is finalized. There will be some changes from this year to next year. 4 team subjects: Math, Social Studies, Science, Language Arts Most children take a foreign language, but not all. Students are required to take 2 Physical Education blocks. What has changed: Had developed a huge array of wonderful electives, but a problem developed – did not have enough teacher hours or enough students interested in taking some of the electives. Scheduling problems resulted from having so many electives. These factors played a role in the decision to offer fewer choices for next year. 6th Grade: Engineering/Reading – Each 1 semester - required Technology Applications / Art – Each 1 semester - required Band or Orchestra or Chorus all year OR Drama for 1 semester and General Music for 1 semester. (this is the only choice for 6th graders) Always some cases when kids can’t get all of this – depends on the child’s resource needs, etc.
7th Grade: Music (guitar)/Health – Each 1 semester - required Art/Drama – Each 1 semester - required (This Drama requirement is a change. This class provides a place to do meaningful work on social emotional issues and problem-solving strategies related to social issues.) Band or Chorus or Orchestra all year OR Journalism / Technology – One or the other for 1 semester (The Economics elective was moved to 8th grade because in 7th grade Economics is a part of the Social Studies curriculum.)
8th Grade: (has the most choice) Engineering/Health – Each 1 semester – required Band or Chorus or Orchestra for the full year OR Composers/Drama – each for 1 semester (this is still undecided – they may allow more options instead of just Composers/Drama) Additional Elective Choices: (more detailed information about how many you can choose will be available on the chart when it is posted online by Ms. Carothers) Women’s Choir Men’s Choir Art in America Art and the Media Art and Identity Economics
Why is Speech and Debate no longer offered? Ms. Carothers explained that this decision was made carefully and took into account a variety of factors, including the availability of a teacher for the class, past interest in the class, and the other factors discussed concerning offering multiple electives. She also mentioned that the high school has informed Diamond that the speech and debate at LHS is quite different than the speech and debate at Diamond and that the Diamond speech and debate is not a pre-requisite for LHS speech and debate. Debate at LHS is completely different. Parents asked whether we could establish an afterschool Speech and Debate club? Perhaps high school students would like to run it and those high school students could get community service hours for it. Or, perhaps there is a teacher who would like to do an afterschool Speech and Debate club.
What happened to keyboarding? Keyboarding is no longer a separate class. It is within the Technology Applications class.
Are all the electives offered throughout the year? Unsure if all the electives are offered throughout the year or are only available during certain semesters. Ms. Carothers will check on this.
Communication Parents raised a number of questions concerning communication between teachers and families, and between the administration and families. In School Council we are discussing if communication should be a goal in the next school improvement plan. What are the most effective means of communication? Consider how we are using teacher websites. We do not anticipate any changes to how conferences are done. Parents requested that the school communicate more about dates for auditions, sports tryouts, etc. Perhaps do this via the Diamond listserve. Consider surveying parents about what kind of information they want to hear. For example, some parents were unaware of the math placement contests/assessments throughout the year. In addition to the daily announcements being posted on the website, they could also be sent out on the Diamond listserve.
What is happening for kids next year in terms of anti-bullying? This year they had Rachel’s Challenge. Next year anti-bullying and pro-social behavior will be addressed in the drama class. Health class in 7th and 8th grades also addresses some of this. 6th grade this year had Rachel’s Challenge – they won’t have that next year. Best way to communicate with teachers? Email. If you do not get a response, you can try emailing again and cc the team leader or the Principal. You can also ask for a Team meeting if something is really going on – just contact the team leader. Are there guidelines for how much homework should be given to students? Homework – some people think not enough, some too much, and some just right. The homework needs to be reasonable, doable, and worth doing. Email the teacher if the homework is unreasonable for your child. |
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William Diamond Middle School PTASupporting the students, staff, and families of Diamond Middle School |
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