Email: jhutchinson@nasd.k12.pa.us
Website: https://www.nasd.k12.pa.us/enms
Location: 330 Roland Drive, East Norriton, PA, USA
Phone: 610-275-6520
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Middle-School/East-Norriton-Middle-School-121770504834624/
Twitter: @EastNorritonMS

We have been checking the weather reports and it appears there is a significant snowfall amount projected for Tuesday. I also want you to know this is not a storm by Buffalo standards :-)

On a more serious note, I wanted to share just in case we had to pivot to a virtual day on Tuesday or a Flexible Instructional Day. Please review the schedule near the bottom of this newsletter.

January

15th No School Martin Luther King Jr. Day

18th End of marking period #2

19th Start of marking period #3

23rd Early Dismissal

24th WIDA Testing begins

24th Chorus 6 and Orchestra concert 7pm and 7th grade trip to American History museum

25th Band and Chorus 7-8 concert 7pm and 7th grade trip to American History museum

26th 5th grade trip to Franklin Institute

The 2024-2025 school calendar is currently being created, and we should have school board discussions around the document soon. Once approved by the school board we will then release this document to families to plan their 2024-2025 vacations etc. Look for more details in the coming weeks.

The following question is a result of the biannual Pennsylvania Youth Survey given to students in grades 6,8,10 and 12 throughout NASD. We issued the survey in October and we wanted to share some results.

The following is a graph of indicating the percentage of students who indicated they sleep more or less than 7 hours each night. It seems the older our students get the less likely they are to sleep more than 7 hours each night.

Not completely shocking, but to those parents of older students please encourage them to try to get 7 hours of sleep each night. Even an 10pm bedtime, and wake up at 5am would still give them 7 hours of sleep. Over half of our 10th and 12th graders report sleeping less than 7 hours each night!

Ticket sales have ended for the 7-8th grade dance that will be held this Friday from 6-8pm. No tickets are sold at the door and students must be picked up at 8pm, and may not be dropped earlier than 5:45pm.

The second marking period will be ending on January 18th. Students will begin a new rotation, lunch time slot, and special area classes on Friday January 19th. Log onto Infinite Campus so students can see their new rotations, lunch times and special area classes. This is also helpful for parents to note as you are planning to pick up students early so you know what classes students might miss if they leave school early for appointments.

The NASD is currently working with The Schrader group to conduct an audit of all district buildings and to develop some potential recommendations for the future of the school district. Last evening the presentation was given at the Facilities and Finance meeting. Several community members attended to learn about future plans. The district is only in the initial phases of its planning process, but just sharing for families to look for information coming out about some of the ideas and opportunities for parental input. This is a great opportunity to help shape future plans for NASD so please consider becoming involved. Stay tuned for more details from Mr. Dormer.

During the week of January 16-19th, students in all grades will complete their Winter STAR assessments. This next round is extremely important because it allows us to generate growth scores for each individual student for us to measure their progress from the fall assessment to the Winter one.

Below is a video link to a video explaining the STAR assessments.

For more information on STAR assessments visit the Family Resource center found here.

I am working on the start date and information related tuned beginning of these clubs. Stay tuned for more details.

Winter Concert Information!

It is that time of year where we start preparing for our winter concerts. Our musicians here at ENMS have been hard at work in class to prepare music for our upcoming concerts. Please save the dates for our concerts, and hope to see you there!

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 7pm - 6th Grade Chorus and Orchestra (5-8)

Thursday, January 25, 2024 7pm - 7th and 8th Grade Chorus and Band (5-8)

Thank you!

Johnny Trujillo, Band and Orchestra Director

Kristin Pugliese, Choral Director

We will be mailing fee letters to the parents of students with outstanding fees associated with Chromebook damage. If you receive a letter please make every effort to pay your fee. Students with outstanding fees may miss out of opportunities as we near the end of the school year. It is important we teach students to take care of their Chromebooks, and also understand fees associated with damage to the devices. We spend a lot of taxpayer dollars on these devices and we cannot simply just replace hundreds of devices that become damaged. Our students have been doing an excellent job, but we do have a few families with fees and we need those paid as soon as possible.

If you have questions or disputes regarding fees please contact our main office at 610-275-6520.

All parents notes that are not written on paper need to be submitted through the Infinite Campus parent portal. You can download it here or search the Google Play or Apple Store.

You will create an account and then choose Norristown Area School District using the credentials sent by the district. You can also just enter your student's credentials.

In an effort to make parents prepared in the event of a snow day I wanted to share the snow day schedule. NASD will operate on a 1/2 day synchronous (live lessons) and 1/2 day asynchronous (non-live lessons). Below is a copy of the schedule.

It will be important that students make sure they have their Chromebooks at home on days when it looks like there is a potential snow day looming. Most students bring them home everyday, but some have left them in their lockers at times. I wanted to make sure families encourage their student to bring them home consistently especially as we prepare for the winter months.

Any questions please let me know.

The Parent Faculty Club wants to thank everyone for your support this year! We wish all of our ENMS families a joyful and Happy New Year!

The next PFC meeting is 2/15/24, in person at ENMS library @7pm. Please note that this meeting is on a Thursday to accommodate Valentines Day. We will also be holding our 5-6th grade Glow Dance that evening from 6-8pm, but we will still meet in the library.

You can reach us on our FB page or through gmail eastnorritonmspfc@gmail.com

Follow us on Facebook at East Norriton Middle School Parents Page

For more about the PFC find us on the NASD website

Amy Bligh Daniels PFC President

Nicole Echevarria Vice President

Shannon Mieski Vice President

Heather Garman Treasurer

Jenny Rosen Treasurer

Ronette Jones Secretary

I would like to share this resource with families. Tutor.com has private (real people) virtual tutoring available for all students in NASD 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I can tell you, this is a tremendous resource for families and would really like to encourage you to access this. I promise you, it will be helpful. I also receive a report from the tutor with the skills and questions that were covered which I can pass along to teachers so they are aware of something the student was struggling with. Think about checking out this free and helpful resource.

Students can access it directly in the Classlink on their Chromebook (ask them to show you Classlink and you will see the icon).

I would love to see families using this because I can tell you that it will be worth your time. I'll be tracking numbers to see how many families are taking advantage of this resource. I cannot say this enough... this will be helpful to you.

If possible, I would like to recommend that parents drive their students to school on the day of field trips. The main reason for this ask is that it will avoid the potential of First Student buses arriving late, after the field trip has already left. I know this may be a big inconvenience, but wanted to share in case it is an option for some families.

Unfortunately we cannot wait for all First Student buses to arrive at ENMS before we leave ENMS to go on our field trips. Our field trips have to leave ENMS by 8:45/9:00am in order to make it to their destination in time for students to enjoy the events. Our field trip buses are covered by Metz, which is a different bussing company. In many instances, we are taking students to Philadelphia and other places that are out of the Norristown area. For example, our 6th grade is going to the Franklin Institute. These trips require us to leave those locations by 1:00-1:30 in order to meet the deadline of all field trips returning to school by 2:15. In order to give our students enough time at the trip destination we need to leave before 9am so we can arrive with enough time to enjoy the experience.

I do understand this may be difficult. I wanted to pass along this information because we will need to leave probably before all of the buses arrive. There is no logistical way for us to wait for all buses to arrive before we leave.

If any student misses the trip due to a late First Student bus, we will refund the cost of the trip to those families.

PENNSYLVANIA SYSTEM OF SCHOOL ASSESSMENT (PSSA) AND KEYSTONE EXAMS REVIEW AND OPT-OUT PROCEDURES

Section 4.4 of Title 22, Chapter 4 provides for the rights of any parent or guardian to excuse his or her child from the state assessment if, upon inspection of the testing materials, they find the assessment to be in conflict with their religious beliefs.

This is the only basis for a parent or guardian to excuse his or her child from the statewide assessments.

A Parent/Guardian may only request a secure assessment review if they believe that they may have an objection to content based upon their religious beliefs.

The opt-out request is only in effect for religious reasons and not moral or ethical reasons. If opt-out not for religious reasons, test must be marked as parent refusal.

If you have questions around exemptions or other questions related to the PSSA assessment please email or give me a call.

We have two counselors at ENMS. These individuals should be one of your first points of contact if you need guidance related to any issue or problem your student may be facing during the school year. We can usually resolve issues quickly when parents contact their child's counselor. If you need to speak to your child's counselor their contact information is found below.

5th and 6th grade School Counselor: Ms. Gena Bussell gbussell@nasd.k12.pa.us

7th and 8th grade School Counselor: Ms. Sarah Raimondi sraimondi@nasd.k12.pa.us

All students must have their cellphones turned off and placed in their lockers. Below are the consequences for cellphone violations.

1st-3rd offenses: Teachers will ask the students to turn their phone off and place it in their locker, or ask the student to give it to the teacher. It will be returned to the student at the end of the school day.

4th offense: Students will give their cell phone to a teacher and the teachers will give it to the main office. The parent or guardian must report to the school to pick up the device. Cell phones are placed in a locked safe in the main office until parents arrive. A one-hour office detention will be assigned for each violation.

Chronic cellphone offenses: It is the policy of ENMS that students who chronically violate the cellphone policy despite warnings, parents picking up the phone etc. will not be permitted to bring their cell phone to school. This is not negotiable and even if a parent disagrees with this policy it is still our policy and it will be enforced regardless of parental agreement. I am asking parents to please discuss these rules with your student.

All classrooms and office have telephones inside them. If there is an emergency we have plenty of phones to handle any emergency situation.

ENMS does not have a dress code for our students. Many of our students choose to wear hooded sweatshirts. The only rule we have around hoodies is that students must have their hoods off. We need to see students faces and when students wear hoodies, combined with masks it makes it extremely difficult to recognize a student from a distance. Therefore, students who choose to wear hoodies must leave their hoods pulled down.

If we run into situations where students do not remove their hood they will receive consequences ranging from a simple discussion all the way to a suspension for chronic offenders. This is usually not an issue for us, but I like to remind parents at the start of the year of this policy.

Lastly, students also cannot wear "slides." All students must have shoes that have a back on them. Croc style shoes are fine as long as students wear the strap along the back of them. The biggest issue with slides is the tripping hazard they pose on stairs. Therefore, students cannot wear slides to school. Again, this is not a big issue here at school, but I like to remind parents of those two simple rules around our dress policy.

Here are the first and last days for the 2023-2024 school year. Below is a pdf file of the calendar for next year. Plan those trips now :-)

First Day for Students - Monday, August 28, 2023
Last Day for Students - Thursday, June 6, 2024

Safe2Say Something is a youth violence prevention program run by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. The program teaches youth and adults how to recognize warning signs and signals, especially within social media, from individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others and to “say something” BEFORE it is too late. With Safe2Say Something, it’s easy and confidential to report safety concerns to help prevent violence and tragedies.

Here’s how it works:

• Submit an anonymous tip report through the Safe2SaySomething system
• Crisis center reviews, assesses and processes all submissions
• Crisis center sends all submissions to school administration and/or law enforcement for intervention
• If needed, crisis center may contact tipster anonymously through the app