Middle School Newsletter

November 1, 2019

MS. WRIGHT'S OCTOBER WRITING…

I believe one of the most frequently asked questions in education is “how do we get students to be intrinsically motivated”? What can I do so that students are eager to learn and are personally invested in their academic performance. As both an educator and a parent I am continually reflecting on what has and hasn’t worked and researching new ways to instill this desire within all students.

I know that when we extrinsically motivate students we may see immediate results, but they are often very short lived. Once we remove the external motivator, students tend to revert back to their prior behavior. This is why I believe it is absolutely critical that we help students find their own motivation. We have to be better at talking to students about what they want in their lives...short term and long term. What are their dreams and hopes?

Research has shown that when students set their own goals in both school and out of school (sports, clubs, etc) they are more likely to succeed than their peers who weren’t working towards a goal. In order for this process to be effective, students must really reflect on what they want to achieve and more importantly, WHY they want to achieve that goal. The “why” is key because this is where they can tie their goal to their success in the classroom. It is also critical that students are the ones monitoring their progress on reaching their goals. When students see a direct relationship between their goals and their progress in the classroom, this leads to greater engagement, self motivation, and perseverance.

Motivation is often a combination of goal setting and perseverance. Here are four ways we can all help our students build their perseverance capacity:

Encourage positive self-talk and mindfulness. Comments such as: I can’t do this, or this is too hard, are signs of a fixed mind-set. When faced with negative self-assessments, help your student reframe them into more positive ones, such as: This is hard, but if I keep trying I will eventually get it or I’m behind now, but I can come up with a plan to catch up.
Praise effort and process, not intelligence. I am sure we all believe that telling kids they are smart would boost self-confidence and academic performance. However, studies now show this kind of praise can discourage perseverance by suggesting that effort is less important to success than intelligence is. Be specific in complementing the process they used to tackle the task at hand. This is a good opportunity to reinforce the growth mind-set by pointing out how their abilities are growing through their own hard work.
Put failures and mistakes into a growth perspective. Many children have a fear of failure. They avoid it by giving up on subjects or activities that don’t come easily. Some children see their failures as a lack of intelligence or talent. Your own reaction to failure can make a powerful impact. When your child faces setbacks, explain that failure is an expected part of the learning process that actually helps build intelligence and stamina. Take a matter-of-fact approach by encouraging your students to analyze what went wrong, seek help where needed, and try again and again.
Give your child the chance to struggle. As a parent, you may be tempted to rush in to help when you see your child struggling with an assignment or problem. But struggle is essential to building self-confidence, independence, and perseverance. Resist the urge to intervene immediately, thereby allowing them time to figure it out on their own. (You can always intervene later if you see the struggle is becoming unproductive or too frustrating.)

By trying these approaches, you can help your child grow in tenacity and focus—character traits that contribute to success in college and in career. An added bonus is that when students do succeed after struggling, the victory is all theirs.

I believe if our students hear the same message both at home and school we will greatly increase their ability to build their perseverance capacity. I also believe when they experience academic success their intrinsic motivation to want to do well will also increase. Together we can help support our children in building these necessary skills.

Kindly,

Kim

314.645.9600 (607)~kwright@premiercharterschool.org

Veteran’s Day…

Check out our flyer for the Veterans' Day Dress Down Fundraiser and RSVP for the assembly! Our student committee is hard at work preparing this year's event. RSVPs and flyers will go home soon when student committee members visit classrooms! Feel free to print these off, fill out, and return to school.

Panorama Parent Survey…

As the first quarter comes to a close, we want to thank you so much for a great start to the 2019-2020 school year. We also want to say thank you for letting us partner with you to provide the best possible school experience for your children. In the spirit of this partnership, we would like to invite you to take a short family survey. We will use the results of this survey to both ensure that we are meeting yours and your child's needs now and to plan for the future of PCS. To participate, simply go to the school's website at www.premiercharterschool.org and click the link to 2019 Fall Family Survey under Announcements on the homepage. We look forward to hearing from you.

Message from Dr. Schrimpf...

On behalf of all of the other Yellow Vests, I can't tell you how glad we are to be back in session. We really appreciate your daily cooperation in getting all of our kids to and from school safely every day. Now that we are back in the swing of things, we wanted to take a minute and send out a few reminders:

During morning drop off, please make sure you pull all the way to the curb before dropping a student on Sublette.
Turning left from Sublette to Macklind and making a U-turn on Sublette really snarls up traffic during drop off and pick up. Also a reminder that there is now a stop sign on Macklind coming up the hill to Sublette.
During afternoon pickup, please make sure you pull all the way over to the curb and do not park or sit in the bike lane. It is illegal and blocks other cars in. Also, cars that are pulling out cannot see around cars parked in the bike lane.
Out of kindness for our neighbors, please do not park in front of any of the driveways of the homes or businesses in the neighborhood

Thanks so much for everything you do. Have a great day and long, relaxing weekend.

Dr. Schrimpf (the Sign Guy)

Message regarding BAC for 2019-20
Dear PCS Families,

Our primary goal with our Before and After Care program is to provide a safe, engaging and enriching experience for all participating students. In order to do so, each year we limit enrollment to 225 students. 2019-2020 will be no different, we will again be limiting enrollment to 225 students, evenly distributed among all 9 grade levels.

After speaking to parents over the course of the last few years and analyzing BAC enrollment, we believe that the most equitable way to distribute spots in BAC to all our families, old and new, is through an enrollment lottery. This is the same way that we fill open spots at the school.

We will begin accepting applications for BAC on April 1st and hold our BAC enrollment lottery on May 1st. This schedule will allow us to notify all families who applied for BAC if they were accepted or not before the end of the 2018-2019 school year.

We have also decided to offer a special, early bird enrollment lottery for all families who have submitted applications by April 15th. We will fill as many spots as we can on April 15th and fill any remaining spots on May 1st.

As a school of character, we believe strongly in the importance of equity and believe that this enrollment system is in line with our core ethical values. I am happy to answer any questions about this policy change and look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Mike Schrimpf

Assistant Head of School

Safety Awareness…

In an effort to maintain the highest level of safety and security, PCS will now be using the Raptor Visitor Management System beginning on Tuesday, September 2nd. This system allows us to ensure that visitors have been properly screened before entering our buildings. Please see the attached letter for more details.

We would also like to remind you that PCS has safety structures in place if we were ever to be in a lockdown situation because of an outside threat. Please rest assured that we understand communication in these situations are of utmost importance. Parents will be notified through the automated school system; calls texts and emails. We have a very good relationship with the police department down the street and if we hear of or are made aware of a situation where lockdown might be a possibility, we will be in contact with district 2. They will be able to provide accurate details of the situation and from there we can receive their recommendation on our course of action. At all times, student safety is on our minds and we will always communicate with what you need to know. As always please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

UPDATES…

November Department Updates...

ELA…

6th Grade:

7th Grade:

8th Grade:

Eighth graders are wrapping up their study of the novel, Inside Out & Back Again, by writing an essay and completing a small research project on refugees. In literacy lab, writing has been the focus lately. Students have drafted personal narratives, and so many of them excelled at using imagery to show their scenes. Please ask your child to share their work with you, you might be impressed with these budding authors!

Next, we will be honing in on theme. Students will be finding themes in stories, television shows, articles, and songs. They will create choice projects to share their learning, we are so eager to see their work!

Science…

6th Grade:

7th Grade:

8th Grade:

8th grade science is wrapping up their geology unit and going to move on to magnetism. In this unit students will be experimenting with magnets and electricity to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces. We will also do some experimenting with magnetic fields and how they can affect certain objects. The unit will end with the students creating their own electromagnet.

Math…

6th Grade:

In November, 6th grade Math will be working on our ratios unit, Comparing Bits and Pieces! In this unit students will develop skills in using fractions, decimals, ratios and percents to measure and to compare quantities.

7th Grade:

In 7th grade math we are learning about operations with rational numbers. We are reviewing and strengthening our understanding of fractions and decimals as well as learning how negative numbers related to positive numbers. Number lines and chip models will be our best friends in this unit, and one of the most challenging concepts we tackle is understanding what happens when you subtract a negative. Can you think of a real life example of subtracting a negative?

8th Grade:

SS…

6th Grade:

7th Grade:

8th Grade:

Pathways…

Instrumental Music:

6th graders are finishing up their first Pathways class of the year. We learned a lot about percussion, piano, and guitar over these 6 weeks! 7th and 8th graders have been working independently on their guitar or piano skills. Students are showing a lot of grit as they learn to read music!

STEAM:

6th Grade- On October 7th, a new rotation of Pathways will begin. The 6th grade STEAM pathway students will begin this rotation by completing challenges as a team in order to become familiar with the engineering design process, practice collaboration, and establish classroom norms. In mid October they will begin a group project that will require them to use math concepts, 3D modeling, and the engineering design process to create an arcade game.

7th Grade- The 7th grade STEAM students have been hard at work planning and building a miniature city. After hearing from a professional architect earlier in September, each student began designing and creating a building for the city. Some students have been using Tinkercad to make a 3D model of their building which will be printed with our 3D printer. Other students have decided to create their building using recycled materials. The students have demonstrated a determination and perseverance throughout the planning, designing, and creating phases of this project.

8th Grade- The 8th grade STEAM students have been working hard on planning, designing, and creating a fall themed event for their peers. They are using the engineering design process and collaboration skills to develop escape rooms, games, and craft rooms for their classmates to enjoy on Thursday, October 24. Next week, STEAM students will provide constructive feedback to each group so improvements can be made before the big event!

STEM Computer Science:

Year One" Computer Science (6th)

The first rotation of 6th grade Computer Science is over, but Mrs Deason's home base did a phenomenal job! Not only did we create 4 separate coding project, but also finished the year with some AMAZING 3D printed models.

"3D Modeling" (7th)

7th grade Computer Science students have been working tirelessly on their Architecture projects. This time, they are both the Architect AND the Client for a student in class. Each Client created a list of needs (ranging from a dream house to a taco shack and everything in between!) and were assigned to another student as their Architect. The designs and 3D models look great, presentations coming next week!

"Year 3" Computer Science (8th)
So much going on in 8th grade Computer Science! As a class, we have decided to create an arcade for a school event! Each student is creating a custom Video Game which will be featured at an upcoming school event! The games look great so far, next we will begin our feedback sessions and revision!

STEM Engineering:

In the STEM Engineering pathway, students just wrapped up their "Perfect Candy Food Engineering Project." Teammates took on the roles of head chef, assistant chef/head food engineer, art director, copywriter, and market manager/team leader to execute the entire project. Working through the engineer design process students were able to research a recipe, brainstorm ways to alter it, create a candy, share it with a target market as taste testers, and decide how the candy should be improved based on the feedback given. Lots of the candies, whether gummies, taffies or chocolate received great reviews. Students also learned valuable lessons about sanitation and food safety, measurement, cooking, following directions, working as a team, creating logos and flyers, and presenting to an authentic audience. The list goes on. The project ended with teamwork surveys, self-evaluations, and individual goal-setting for project management and completion on a team. Mrs. Daugherty and the STEM engineering would like to thank everyone who was a taste tester for their participation and valuable feedback as well as the STEM engineering students for a job well done.

Visual Arts:

The 7th and 8th grade students in the visual arts pathway continue to impress with their weekly sketchbooks, commissions for staff, and unit projects.

7th grade students are about to finish their graphic design unit! Each student chose a nonprofit that they were passionate about, and worked to redesign their logo to bring to life their mission. They have learned so much about color psychology, graphic design terms, and creating digital art!

8th grade students have been working extremely hard to write and present proposals of projects they would like to do to bring more art to our campus. Students recently finished presenting their proposals to Ms. Wright. As they work on these projects, we will be starting to learn about different elements of art. This will help them learn techniques to create realistic drawings.

PE:

Last week we had our Grand Opening of the new Fitness Center. We are so excited to start putting it to good use this month. The students in middle school will start going up and learning to use each weight machine properly. It will be a slow process, but will be well worth it. Once the students understand how to use the machines properly, they will be doing some circuit training to get started and then they will focus on what they need to work on based on their own Fitnessgram results later this month. I will be sending home the results of the fitnessgram results at conference time, so please look for those at conferences. Please remember if you have any questions or concerns you can always reach me by email at kbrann@premiercharterschool.org and Follow PE on twitter @PremierPE and instagram @pcsphysed

Messages from the Nurse…

Talk to your Kids about Vaping

Although cigarette smoking has markedly decreased among middle and high school students, the use of e-cigarettes or vaping as risen astronomically.

Vaping products are deceptively marketed to youth with flavors such as bubble gum, cotton candy, fudge, and blueberry muffin. In addition, the vaping industry markets vaping devices that masquerade as USB drives and pens so parents can be completely unaware of their child's vaping habit.

As of today, e-cigarettes available in the U.S. have not been reviewed by the FDA to determine their impact on lung health. However, it is known that e-cigarettes contain and emit a number of potentially toxic substances. In 2018 the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine released a consensus study report stating that inhalation of harmful chemicals through vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and lung disease. Youth who use e-cigarettes are at increased risk for cough and wheezing and an increase in asthma exacerbations.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services recommends that any person experiencing unexplained chest pain or difficulty breathing after vaping in the days or weeks prior to their symptom onset should seek medical attention.

For more information on youth and vaping including photos of vaping devices click on the following link:

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/Quick-Facts-on-the-Risks-of-E-cigarettes-for-Kids-Teens-and-Young-Adults.html

To start the conversation with your child, you may find the following link from the American Lung Association helpful:

https://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/vape-talk/

As Needed Use of Steroid Inhaler Just as Effective as Daily Use

A St. Louis research study on children with mild asthma concluded that daily use of steroid inhalers showed no better results than "as needed" use of steroid inhalers.

This is good news for parents who are concerned with the cost of steroid medication and its side effects.

The study concludes that children with mild asthma using a steroid inhaler containing beclomethasone on an "as needed" basis were able to reduce their steroid inhaler use by almost 75% while achieving the same results as children who used a steroid inhaler daily regardless of their symptoms.

The research study was conducted by Washington University and pediatricians throughout the St. Louis area on children with mild asthma ranging in age from 6-17.

For more information regarding this study see the following link:https://source.wustl.edu/2019/08/children-with-mild-asthma-can-use-inhalers-as-needed/

Dental Van…

This fall, Gateway to Oral Health Foundation will again offer dental care to PCS students.

If you would like your child to participate in this program, please complete and return the dental consent form that was distributed during August conferences.

Dental Consent Forms are due back on Friday, September 6 and dentists are scheduled to come to PCS the first week of November.

Other News…

BAC…

The October 24th half-day is quickly approaching. Please remember that aftercare ends at 4:00 pm. If your child is not signed up for aftercare but will need it for this half-day, please let us know ahead of time. Half-day drop-in fees are $25 per child.

FRAM…

Free/Reduced Meal Status 2019-2020

As a reminder, Free/Reduced lunch statuses from the previous school year are expiring here soon! If you have not filled out an application for this current school year, or are interested in turning one in for the first time, make sure that you do so and turn it into any of the offices ASAP! We ask that all families have one on file as our Free/Reduced Meal numbers have positive funding implications.

If you have any questions feel free to contact Ben Huebner at bhuebner@premiercharterschool.org

Vending Machine…

Thanks to the hard work of three former 8th grade students we have our a vending machine! We have made sure that the machine is filled with healthy snack options. Students may make purchases from 8:10-8:25, during lunch and from 3:25-3:35 daily.

Dress Down…

Beginning in September on the last Monday of the month any student who has earned 80% or higher on their homework completion grade may dress down. Students can check their grade on Infinite Campus to ensure that they have indeed earned this privilege. Please remember that all clothing must be school appropriate.

STUDENT CLUBS:

Let Me Run…

The end of season race is coming up quickly! It will be held on November 2 at 8:30a on the campus of Missouri Baptist University. All are welcome to come support the runners and the cause. The race is open to the public. Please sign up and share the registration link with anyone interested in running the 5K!
https://st-louis.letmerun.org/5ks/65-let-me-run-fallfest-5k

*Let Me Run boys are already signed up.

Drumline…

ATHLETICS:

Cheerleading…

REMINDERS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Middle School Trip…

The Middle School Trip to New York this year is at full capacity! Thanks to all interested parents and guardians for everything you've done up to this point to sign your student up. We currently have 100 students going and a wait list. If you are on the wait list or missing paperwork you will be notified. Paperwork is currently being processed with Adventure Student Travel. Credit Card payments will be processed by Friday, October 4th. Please look for an email with login information the week of October 7-11.

The first payment of $150 is due on October, 30th.

Trip dates: Sunday, April 19 - Friday, April 24

Tentative trip cost: $1,027

Please contact Melanie Rhine with any questions:

Melanie Rhine

mrhine@premiercharterschool.org

314-645-9600 ext. 426

Middle School Trip Fundraiser:

Thank you to all the families that participated in the 1st fundraiser, TJ Pizza, for the Middle School Trip to New York City, it was a great success. Our 2nd fundraiser, Yankee Candle, kicked off Wednesday, October 9th and was handed out during study hall on Wednesday and Thursday to students who asked for them. This will run through Wednesday, October 23rd, when the forms and money are due to be turned in. Please contact Ms. Slattery with any questions at 314-645-9600 x. 435 or kslattery@premiercharterschool.org.

PCG Update…

We have a wonderful Parent Community Group here at PCS. They are always looking for families to get involved in anyway that works best for you.

In order to make our annual Fall Festival a success we need all the volunteers we can get. Please take a look at the sign up sheet link below and see what time slot you could volunteer. This is a great opportunity to get to know new families at PCS!

Please see the attached flyer for information on Fall Festival bracelet sales.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0c4eaaab28a6f94-2019

SFE Update…coming soon

Fun Around Town…

Sat Oct 26 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

National Blues Museum Kids' Blues Boogie Fest

This is a family fun event where you can listen to live music, wear your costume, and take pictures in our photo booth! Our special musical guest will be the phenomenal Saint Boogie Brass Band.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/family-day-kids-blues-boogie-tickets-75337678023?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Sunday Oct 27 at 2 p.m.

Free for all children; Free for college students with ID; adults $10

Harlem Quartet performs at the St. Louis Art Museum

Harlem Quartet advances diversity in classical music while engaging audiences with a varied repertoire that includes works by minority composers.

https://racstl.org/event/almost-my-last-and-only/

Sunday, Oct 27 at 3 p.m.

Storytime 4 All at EyeSeeMe African American Bookstore

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/storytime-4-all-eyeseeme-tickets-73858734463?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Important Upcoming Dates…

10.23.19-Conferences

10.24.19-1/2 Day and Conferences