The Panther Post

Good afternoon,

We hope all our students enjoyed Panther Prowl this afternoon. We are grateful for our partnership with EHMS PTO. The website for pledges will remain open through next Tuesday and our prizes will be rewarded next week.

We look forward to holding our 6th and 7th Grade Neon Luau Dance! The dance will take place today, Friday May 12th from 7:00 - 9:00. Below are some guidelines that we wanted to share with you to ensure all students have a great experience while maintaining safety for all:

*Students are asked to bring in a canned good(s) item or a monetary donation towards the East Hampton Food Bank.

*Cell phones will not be allowed during the dance in the commons and must be stored in the music room if students are brining them. In case of an emergency, staff will contact home. *Students can store their personal belongings in the music room, but please note the school is not responsible for anything lost and/or stolen.

*Students must attend school during the day on Friday in order to attend this evening celebration.

*Students must adhere to our PBIS expectations (Respect/Responsibility/Compassion/Pride) as this is an extension of our school day. If this becomes a concern, families will be called.

*EHMS staff will be supervising this celebration.

*Drop off and pick up should be in the main parking lot, as during the school day (not in the circle and/or side of roads please). We will dismiss students from the commons. Staff will be present during dismissal.

Best,

Christina & Emily

Mon. May 15th: Bike Club Race and Jazz Band

Tues. May 16th: Bike Club and Bible Club

Fri. May 18th: Intramurals (7:00), Student Council (7:15) and Bike Club

Wed. May 24th: Capstone Convention

Fri. May 26th: Memorial Day Observance 9:00am

Fri. May 26th: Festival of Flight 6th Grade

Mon., May 29th: No School - Memorial Day

Tues. May 30th: Empower Field Trip

Fri. June 2nd: 7th Grade Field Day

Mon. June 5th: 6th Grade Field Day

June 8th: 8th Grade Step Up Ceremony 1:00pm

Each month Team Leaders will share an update on current happenings throughout the team. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to your child's Team Leader. Contact information is within each newsletter. Team Leaders should be sending April newsletters soon!

Below is access to team's May newsletters. Don't forget to check out Team Amethyst's newsletter. This is our specials and P.E. team.

Enjoy!

iReady Diagnostic

Each year the East Hampton Public Schools administers the i-Ready Diagnostic in Reading and Math in the fall, winter, and spring to monitor student growth and performance. The i-Ready Diagnostic is an adaptive assessment that adjusts its questions to suit your child’s needs. Each item a student receives is based on their answer to the previous question. For example, a series of correct answers will result in slightly harder questions, while a series of incorrect answers will yield slightly easier ones. The purpose of this is not to give your child a score or grade but to determine how to best support their learning. These results are reviewed as one data point amongst other assessments, observations and data regarding student performance. The assessment is integrated into your child’s day as part of their academic learning and is paced to ensure that they work on the assessment in small chunks of time. The implementation of this assessment is completed in accordance with Connecticut State Department of Education guidelines. I-Ready will begin on Monday May 15th in all ELA classes. The i-Ready Diagnostic will provide results that help our team identify your child’s strengths and determine next steps for instruction.

What can I do to help?

To help prepare your child for the i-Ready Diagnostic, encourage them to:

• Get a good night’s sleep and eat a full breakfast the day of the assessment.
• Try their best on each question and try not to rush.
• Try not to worry about questions they do not know—remind them that it is expected they
• will only get about half of the questions correct.
• Be respectful of other students who take longer to finish
• Students should come to school with their earbuds and a fully charged chromebook.

Throughout the week, we celebrated our teachers! We are so grateful for all they do. With help from the PTO, we were able to provide teachers with lunch, treats and refreshing lemonade!

Seventh graders have started planning for their final writing unit of the year. Students will be producing realistic fiction stories based on characters, settings, and plots that they develop. While students have written realistic fiction stories in the past, this year, students are studying how to add elements of symbolism and complexity to the setting/characters to develop themes. Students have been studying and analyzing symbolism and theme within their reading units all year…now it’s their turn to become the writers and use those elements within their own stories!

Students have been learning about living and non-living organisms in an ecosystem. To prepare for our construction of our terrariums, the students studied the history of terrariums and how to care for them. We took a nature walk outside to collect non-living items to put in our jars. The next day, we constructed our terrariums using specific measurements of rocks, sand, moss, soil, and seeds to ensure there was enough room for plant growth. Over the next 2 weeks students will be observing their jars to see if any growth is occurring and will write journals documenting their experience caring for their terrariums. Hopefully a mystery flower or 2 will grow!

We are so proud of our band, chorus and jazz band students for their efforts this year. They put on a wonderful spring concert! Thank you to Mr. Shilansky and Mrs. Rahusen for their efforts in organizing a wonderful evening.

The EHMS Bike Team had a dominating victory yesterday at Moran Middle School in Wallingford.

Leading the way for the Panther girls were Abby Hambidge, finishing first overall, and Charlotte Daniels taking second. On the boy's podium, Lee Barron came in first place and Luke Garcia just 2 seconds behind in second place. Also placing in the top 10 were Dolan Krasnitski, Owen Fielding and Eden Milewski-Mason. The team earned additional points from Mineth Kulatunga, Dillon Petrone, William Finn and Brian Kostoss, who all contributed.

The Panthers will host the second race of the season this Monday afternoon, right here at EHMS. Please come and cheer them on!

The Panther Prowl took place today, Friday, May 12th and so far our students and families have raised over $6,000 in pledges - and counting! The weather has been beautiful with students enjoying lots of fun activities this afternoon.

If you haven’t collected all pledges from friends and family yet, there’s still time! The website will remain open through 11:59pm next Tuesday, May 16th. Please register your child via the link below and obtain pledges online. If you prefer to send cash / checks (made out to EHMS PTO) to school, please do so by Tuesday in an envelope marked “Panther Prowl” and include your student’s name and homeroom teacher.

Thank you!

Register now and share your fundraising webpage with family and friends across the country to help achieve our goal and to have your student entered into the raffles!

Prizes include Apple AirPods Pro, Yard Goats tickets, Hydro Flasks, EHMS hoodies and flannel PJ pants, Pura Vida bracelet packs, LED flying disc frisbee, color-changing Bluetooth speaker alarm clock, portable ping pong set, Smart LED strip lights, photo clip string lights, Squishmallows, Carhartt cap, spiritwear e-gift certificates, EHMS string bags, local arcade The Pinshack gift cards and DQ and Chatham Creamery gift cards. The top fundraising student will earn a special "free time" activity of their choice to share with several friends during the school day! The top raising homeroom will also be rewarded with a celebratory breakfast.

Parents, please register your student at the website below and share with friends and family - every pledge counts!

THANK YOU for helping to achieve our “reach for the stars” goal of $10,000!
If you have any questions, please let us know at ptoehms@gmail.com

1. Register your child by visiting: https://www.getmovinfundhub.com/event-webpage/6435ab27e0256
2. The School Identifier: 6435ab27ddfe7
3. Use the student fundraising webpage to promote online donations through email & social media.

Every 2 years East Hampton youth in grades 6th through 12th complete an anonymous and confidential survey that asks about positive things in your life, your beliefs and behaviors, as well as any substance use. This information helps the community better understand the perspectives of East Hampton youth and enables the East Hampton Prevention Partnership, a local coalition of organizations working together with youth, to provide relevant and meaningful programming. This survey is anonymous and confidential. We will provide students with the survey during FLEX on Monday May 15th. Please click the following link to see the survey yourself. Families may request to opt their child from not participating in the survey and students may wish not to take it. Students can also skip any questions they would like if they are taking the survey.

If you would like to request that your child be opted from participating in the survey, please email Christina Amaral at camaral@easthamptonct.org. We will continue to share out this survey to you through Parentsquare as reminders prior to providing the survey to students.

Please click on the presentation below to see further details regarding this opportunity.

Attention, Panthers!

From May 1st through May 20th, EHMS is running a grade-against-grade contest to raise money for “the Relay For Life movement", "which is dedicated to helping communities attack cancer. Through funds donated, time given, or awareness raised, our communities are teaming up - virtually or in-person to make a difference. When we rally together in the fight against cancer, we can accomplish anything.”

The winning grade will earn a special outdoor lunch with music and snacks!

In order to participate, please donate under your grade: 6th Grade; 7th Grade; 8th Grade team link by asking family members, or neighbors, or by texting it, or having your family share it on social media!

Thank you in advance for helping to make a difference!

Trish Seeley

8th Grade ELA Teacher

EHMS EarlyAct Advisor

EHMS Coach

East Hampton Middle School

YEARBOOKS ON SALE NOW!

Cost of Yearbook: $30

Cash or checks are accepted

Please make checks payable to: EHMS

Paper forms are available in the main office or send an email with your student's name and Homeroom to cbuchan@easthamptonct.org

NOTE: Students will receive their yearbooks on the last day of school.

There will be NO yearbook sales on the last day of school.

On Friday May 26th at 9:00, we will hold our annual Memorial Day Ceremony. We would love to invite any family member to our students who is a veteran so we can honor at this ceremony. If you have a veteran you would like to honor, please fill out the following google form.

Eighth grade students have been working on press release flyers for their Capstone projects! Want to learn American sign language? Do you know the latest developments in cybersercurity? Always wanted to learn how to make macarons?

Be sure to attend our Capstone Convention on

Wednesday, May 24 at 6:00 pm

to learn all about the wonderful things our eighth graders have been working on!

The Nutmeg Game Show is coming! From now until the end of May, we will be running a fun reading initiative that will culminate with grade-level “Nutmeg Game Show” assemblies on June 6!

What Students Will Do:

• Read as many of the 3 Nutmeg titles selected for their grade level as they can. All books can be checked out in the LMC.
• Submit questions about the book(s) via Google Form linked on the library website here (These questions maybe used during the game show!)
• Form teams of 3-4 students to participate in a preliminary round within their ELA classroom in mid-May
• Winning teams from each ELA class will go on to complete at grade-level assemblies the end of May/June
• The winning team from each grade level will get to pick 1 friend to join them to watch a movie in the LMC during the last week of June…movie snacks will be provided!

With the start of spring comes planning for all our end of the year events. We have been honored with the opportunity to see your child grow over the last three years. Each student has become an integral part of our Panther community and has evolved into an individual with interests, passions, and goals. We look forward to partnering with you as we open the doors to your child’s high school experience and all the opportunities that await while celebrating and closing the door to all they have accomplished over the last three years at EHMS.

We are planning a culminating event for our 8th graders. On Thursday June 8th at 1:00, we will hold our 2nd annual 8th grade Step-Up ceremony in our gymnasium. We will continue to celebrate our students that evening (June 8th) with our 8th Grade Formal that will be held at EHMS from 7pm to 9pm. We encourage all families to come for pictures starting at 6:30pm. The next day, our students will be attending their 8th grade High Meadow class field trip on Friday June 9th. More specifics to these events will be communicated out, but we wanted to provide you the dates to save in your calendars! If there are any questions, please feel free to reach out to administration or our 8th grade co-advisors; Mrs. Donovan and Mrs. Mercaldi.

Our first event that will take place will be our students showcasing all their hard work around their Capstone projects. Our 8th Grade Capstone Convention will be held on Wednesday May 24th at EHMS from 6pm to 8pm.

A reminder that the following email addresses can be used by parents to report and document their approval of an absence:

Memorial_Attendance@easthamptonct.org

Center_Attendance@easthamptonct.org

EHMS_Attendance@easthamptonct.org

EHHS_Attendance@easthamptonct.org

If you have successfully emailed the school, you will receive an autoreply that notifies you that the absence communication has been received and recorded. This process is effective for your child for the first 9 absences. After your student has more than 9 absences, additional documentation or communication is required to excuse the absence. However, please continue to use the email designated for your child's school to continue to notify the school that your child will be absent. You may call your child’s school at any time to report an absence but please make sure to follow up a phone call with a note or email to the attendance email.

Also, just a friendly reminder to have your child bring lip balm with them to school, if needed. This year has been tough for those lips!

Nutrition is so important for growth and development. Please be sure that your student is bringing enough snacks for themselves and remind them to eat breakfast and lunch. As a reminder, the school offers breakfast and lunch, free of charge for all families.

Is anyone else having Spring Fever?! If we aren’t going to be getting snow, then bring on Spring!

If at any point you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me at khafele@easthamptonct.org or call the school office at 860-365-4060.

Thank you!

Mrs. Hafele

A reminder that student drop off areas in the morning are beyond our staff parking areas prior to the 7:45 drop off time in order to ensure safety for staff and students. A cone will be placed to specify the area where parking should not occur.

EAST HAMPTON MS ATHLETICS SCHEDULE

MAY 15 - MAY 19 (subject to change)

MONDAY, MAY 15

Windham MS softball at East Hampton MS, 3:45 pm.

Note: no baseball game.

Baseball practice 2:35 until 5 pm

TUESDAY, MAY 16

Washington MS (Meriden) baseball at East Hampton MS, 3:45 pm game.

Note: no softball game.

No softball practice

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17

Beman MS (Middletown) baseball/softball at East Hampton MS, 4:00 pm game.

THURSDAY, MAY 18

Baseball practice 2:35 until 5 pm

Softball practice 2:35 until 5 pm.

FRIDAY, MAY 19

East Hampton baseball/softball at Cromwell MS, 2:20 dismissal, 2:30 bus, 3:30 pm game.

If your child is having any Chromebook or technology issues please click on the link below to do some troubleshooting: EHMS TroubleShooting Tips

If the troubleshooting doesn't work click on the link below to submit an IT work ticket:

Chromebook Trouble Ticket

Please encourage your child to take pride and care in their device. Below is a video to review the proper care of Chromebooks with your child.

The EHHS Botany Plant Sale will be held Saturday, May 13 from 9 AM to 1 PM. The location will be at the greenhouse in front of the High school.

A variety of annuals, perennials, sunflowers, and vegetable garden plants will be available for sale, all grown by the students. Varieties include Dahlias, Purple cone flowers, Cosmos, Delphinium, Verbena, Shasta daisy, Sweet pepper, Aster Powder Puff, Hot peppers, Large leaf basil, Cherry peppers, Gaillardia, Monarda tomatoes, Cilantro, Rosemary, Eggplant, Pink brandy wine tomatoes, Four o’clock, Cucumber, Large red cherry tomato, Mexican sunflower, Broccoli, Scarlet poppy, Beefsteak tomato, Lilliput Zinnias, Marigold, Red salad bowl, Lettuce, Buttercrunch lettuce, Brussel sprouts, Crackerjack marigolds, Lavender, Catnip, Sage, Thyme, Parsley, Cilantro and more.

Please bring along a box to fill and remember to bring any plant trays or pots you would like to donate for reuse.

Board of Education Statement on School Safety:

The East Hampton Board of Education is committed to a safe and secure learning environment that honors and celebrates the diversity of our students, our community, and our nation. The Board of Education in partnership with the school community will not tolerate any threat of violence in the schools or any hate speech that targets any race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Each student is held to the highest standards of responsible decision making within a culture that is expected to foster compassion, caring, and empathy.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement of the East Hampton Public Schools:

The school community of East Hampton is committed to the mission of honoring and celebrating the diversity of our students, our community, and our nation. We strive to guide our students to conscious, deliberate, individual and collective actions that cultivate the respect of all races, religions, and social backgrounds. Our school community endeavors to produce graduates who are equipped with a greater understanding of the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Nondiscrimination Statement of the East Hampton Public Schools:

The East Hampton Board of Education, in compliance with federal and state law, affirms its policy of equal educational opportunity for all students and equal employment opportunity for all persons. It is the policy of the District to promote nondiscrimination and an environment free of harassment regardless of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, ancestry, disability (including but not limited to, intellectual disability, past or present history of mental disorder, physical disability, or learning disability), genetic information, marital status, or age or because of the race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, ancestry, disability, genetic information, marital status, or age of any persons with whom the individual associates. The District shall provide to all students without discrimination, course offerings, counseling, assistance, employment, athletics, and extracurricular activities. The District shall provide equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The District shall make reasonable accommodations for identified physical and mental impairments that constitute disabilities, consistent with federal and state statutes and regulations.

Email: camaral@easthamptonct.org
Website: https://www.easthamptonps.org/o/ehms
Location: 19 Childs Road, East Hampton, CT, USA
Phone: (860) 365 4060