Welcome to Week Four!

Students and Families,

This weekend was all about recognizing the students, staff and community organizations that come together to create each of our unique school communities at the CelebrateED event. Parkside recognized several "Game Changers" who made a large impact on our school last year. In the spirit of celebration, we ask that you take time to recognize a staff member who has helped make the start of the school year a great one for your child.

This week's newsletter features opportunities to recognize staff members, information about the iReady diagnostic and an explanation of one of the strategies our staff members use to help students stay focused on their learning in class.

Thank you,
The Parkside Staff

CelebratED

On Saturday, the school district hosted the annual CelebratED Event at Veterans Park. Parkside was proud to recognize three staff members and three students as "game changers" during the last school year. The Game Changer Award is presented to staff and students who go above and beyond to make their schools great.

Please help us in celebrating and recognizing our recipients.
Students: Fatoumata Bah, Ayden Convery and Anastasia Brovdi.
7th Grade Math Teacher: Kristen Fennelly
7th Grade Case Manager: Tracey Lamarre
SAP Counselor: Heather Martineau

iReady Reading and Math Diagnostic

This week, our school will soon start implementing the i-Ready Diagnostic for reading and math. i-Ready helps teachers to effectively assess their students and then provide individualized instruction based on each student’s unique needs.

The i-Ready Diagnostic is an adaptive assessment which means that it automatically adjusts the difficulty of the questions according to each student’s performance in order to determine his or her abilities in reading or math. Before your child begins the assessment, it’s important to set appropriate expectations. Encourage your child to independently complete the test to the best of his or her ability, and know that it is okay to get questions wrong.

The assessment efficiently assesses students across multiple grade levels, allowing for identification of root causes of students’ struggles or for identification of areas where a student is ready for further challenge. This information will then provide the teacher with a “road map” to instructional remediation. Once your child completes the test, he or she will be assigned online instruction to support his or her progress in mastering each skill. The online instruction is designed to be both challenging and engaging.

If you have any questions please reach out to your child's teacher.

Reminder Cards

Reminder cards are positive intervention cards that students are given when they are not meeting level one expectations in class or around the building. Before a reminder card is issued, students are given chances to improve their behavior with verbal reminders or redirections from the teacher in accordance with protocols and procedures from the school and district.
Some examples of a level one expectation are:

Being on task
Using appropriate language
Being prepared
Arriving on time to class

There are several level one behavior expectations listed in the code of conduct which can be found at https://www.mansd.org/page/code-of-conduct

These cards remind students to be meeting the school expectations which will support them in being their best self and allow learning to take place. Reminder cards are a tier one intervention that is tracked and monitored across the entire school. At different intervals there are reflections, detentions, parent contact or meetings. This system is used as a monthly tracking system and designed to help students make positive choices while they are with us at school.

Middle School At Parkside