We have an exciting presentation coming up this Wednesday night. At 7 PM we are doing an orientation for parents of students who will be entering sixth grade next year. In past years, we have held incoming sixth-grade parents captives in the auditorium for almost 2 hours, cramming their heads with enough information to make their heads spin and their hearts race with anxiety about all that they needed to learn about their child’s new school. It resembled a hostage crisis more than an orientation program.

After getting feedback from parents who attended last year, we have redesigned the program to make it more convenient, informative and welcoming than it has ever been. For parents who already have gone through middle school, this presentation has been a fairly routine affair. For parents whose children are coming here for the first time, I know that this orientation takes on certain poignancy. For first-time parents, this presentation is the first event that signals that your little baby is going into middle school. I know that you may be nervous about this so we are going to make this evening as welcoming and as low stress as possible. You’ll get to meet some of the key individuals in your child’s life and we will share information with you about the process we use to help students adjust to middle school. We will start on time at 7 PM and finish the presentation in the auditorium by about 7:45 PM. Then we will have three separate breakout sessions: Academics, Social Emotional Literacy, and Support Services (including Special Education). You’ll attend whichever sessions you wish. If you’ve been through middle school before, you can leave after the auditorium presentation if you like. You are welcome to preview the program by clicking on the Presentations tab at the top of this page. We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday and are excited about our new class of sixth grade students in 2014!