8th Grade Trip - Account Update

Hi folks,

8th graders were given a letter today with the amount due on the Boston trip. Please check in with your child this evening for that information.

Thanks!

Health Policy Reminder

Here's a note from the health office:

Dear Parents and Guardians,

There have been a large number of school absences due to illness and a large number of students being sent home due to fevers the past couple of weeks. As we think about ways to minimize the spread of these illnesses, we want to remind families of our school health policies, the relavant parts are printed below:

F6: STUDENT HEALTH

Policy

It is the goal of the Milton Town School District to keep our entire

school population as healthy as possible. We thus implement this student health policy, with the

guidance of the Vermont Department of Education and Vermont Department of Health.

Illness/Communicable Conditions

Students with a known communicable condition (such as, but not limited to

strep throat and conjunctivitis/pink eye) are to remain out of school until they have

received antibiotic therapy for 24 hours. Students who have a fever of 100

degrees or more are required to remain home from school until their

temperature is less than 100 degrees for 24 hours, without ibuprofen or 

acetaminophen. Recommendations of the Vermont Department of Health will be

followed.

If a student comes to school and is suspected of having a communicable

condition, the student shall be sent to the health office, where the

school nurse will determine the need for the student to be sent home. If a

student is sent home for a communicable illness, the health office staff

(school nurse) will work with the family to provide guidance for when the

student can return to school. This is generally after 24 hours of

antibiotic therapy, or 24 hours after symptoms resolve. In cases where a

student has had severe vomiting or diarrhea, we require that students not

return until their symptoms have been resolved for 24 hours and they are

able to resume normal dietary habits. In cases where there are attendance

issues, the school will work with the family to make a plan, possibly

requiring that the student be evaluated by the school nurse before

deciding if the student requires an additional absence.

Missing Work

All students missing work for Humanities and Literacy were given PowerSchool printouts this week and were asked to have them signed and returned. We have not seen many yet. Please check with your student or log into PowerSchool to see what work they are missing. All late work should be turned in as soon as possible.

Spring has arrived (more or less) - Some reminders:

Hi folks,

With the annual arrival of spring comes the annual arrival of our reminders about our expectations around student appearance. Please help support us as we enforce the following expectations as stated in the student handbook:

"Guidelines for Student Appearance

• Student dress cannot violate health or safety laws
• Clothing with underwear showing (inappropriate)
• Excessively low-cut shirts/dresses (inappropriate)
• Shorts and skirts no shorter than mid-thigh
• Avoid strapless, backless, or single strap garments
• Avoid obscene, derogatory, racial, ethnic, sexual, hate/prejudice
• Spiked jewelry (inappropriate)

Dress and appearance are considered the responsibility of the student and her/his parents or guardians...Teachers and administration will judge whether or not a student is in violation of the dress code. Students who refuse to change will be sent home."

It's the three items italicized above that tend to present challenges this time of year. Students are being reminded of these guidelines this week. Going forward, any student in violation will receive a Classroom Discipline Referral for Inappropriate Dress. Consequences may include, but are not limited to, contacting home, changing clothes, and attending call back.

Please help guide your child to make appropriate clothing choices in the morning so that we don't have to call  home for a change of clothes.

Thank you for your continued support of our positive and safe learning environment.

4/10 Humanities & Literacy

We are in the midst of our unit on Food Consumption and Production: The Omnivore's Dilemma. Students are learning to identify the natural, human, and capital resources that go into producing and transporting our food from farm to table and the environmental impact of the food decisions that we make. Some great discussions have ensued. Much of their learning is happening through writing, with almost daily opportunities to make a claim about the day's learning and support that claim with evidence.

Laura Fletcher and Ericka Page, two UVM interns who we've been fortunate to have join our team, are currently completing their solo instruction hours. They have worked together to plan a rigorous outline of lessons that will help get students toward the ultimate goals of this unit.

Please continue to check the calendar daily for current homework assignments.

8 Maths 4-2

Students are two thirds of the way through the Say It With Symbols unit, where they have been learning to use equivalent expressions to better understand and solve problems. Students have been developing their skills with the distributive property by factoring and expanding expressions. They have also been using equations to solve problems.

Students will take a quiz on Thursday. The quiz will involve:

• Equivalent expressions - factored and expanded forms
• Solving equations
• Using equations to solve problems

7 Maths 4-2

Students are wrapping up the "Accentuate the Negative" unit, where they have been learning to solve problems involving negative numbers. Students have learned and practiced adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and using the order of operations with rational numbers, including negative fractions and mixed numbers. The final lessons involve using the distributive property to write equivalent expressions.

Students will take the unit test on Thursday. The unit test will involve:

• Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing with negative numbers (including fractions and mixed numbers)
• Absolute value
• Order of operations
• The distributive property
• Solving problems involving any of the above