January

Mon., 1/8    First day of new year for students

Thurs., 1/11Spirit Day - PJ’s

5th Parent Tour9:00 am

Mon., 1/15MLK Holiday - no students

Fri., 1/19Parent Chat 9:00 am

                                   End of Quarter 2

Mon., 1/22Final Drake Tour for 8th Graders1:00 - 2:30 pm

Tues., 1/235th Parent Tour9:00 am

Site Council meeting3:45 pm

News

Happy New Year

All my best wishes for a happy, prosperous 2018.  I am looking forward to an engaging and productive second semester for our staff and students.  It has been a privilege to work in the White Hill community.  Thank you for your continuing feedback, support, and encouragement.       

White Hill Principal Search

Superintendent Rick Bagley and Assistant Superintendent Marci Trahan are starting the search for White Hill’s new principal.  Two parent meetings have been scheduled this month to discuss the search process and gather community input.  Rick Bagley and Marci Trahan will be chairing these meetings to evaluate what staff and parents believe are the qualities, skills and background needed for our next principal.  Parents are invited to participate in both of these meetings.

Parent ChatFriday, January 199:00 am Library

Site CouncilTuesday, January 233:45 pmLibrary

Phone Calls to the Office/Leaving Message for Students

Our office staff receives dozens of calls from parents, family members, and guardians each week to leave messages for students.  In 99% of these cases, the calls are not emergencies.  Rather, the requests are afterthoughts related to pick-up locations, forgotten lunches, playdates after school, requests to call home, pick up something at the store, etc., etc.  In these cases, we do not interrupt classroom instruction.  Even if we had the resources to do so, interrupting teachers and students for one request, interrupts instruction for all students.  If we did not exercise professional judgment in this matter, classes would be interrupted continuously.

Please help us by limiting calls to legitimate emergencies.  In addition, it would help office staff to better serve parents if we received calls ahead of time when a child might have a doctor or dental appointment.  If we know well in advance, we can have the student waiting in the office when the family member arrives to pick them up.  Thank you for your understanding and support.

Students Leaving Early

Recently we have had a number of requests for students to leave a few minutes early to get a head start to attend sport practices, and other outside activities.  As a reminder, and in order to protect the integrity of instructional time, we are unable to approve these requests.  Thank you for understanding that our goal is to get the most out of the instructional day.   

Loaning Chromebooks Ending

As of January 8, the practice of loaning Chromebooks to students who forget their device at home, or who may have allowed their Chromebook to lose the battery charge, will be discontinued.  Beginning Monday, we will no longer loan Chromebooks to students unless the device is broken and is in need of repair.  Our loaner policy is not sustainable due to misuse and abuse, non-return of loaners, broken and unrepairable loaners, and the fact that loaning devices is enabling many students to be irresponsible.  Our job is to teach responsibility and raise expectations for our highly capable students.  

Emergency Preparedness Training

A White Hill staff team will be at an all day training in Sacramento on Monday, January 8.  We expect to learn the latest about active shooter events and what is the best thinking about how to prepare ourselves and our students.

Reminders

Recent Survey

Thanks to more than 200 parents who responded to the survey about the Weekend Wildcat Wrap, we have a clear picture about how the majority of our families prefer to receive this weekly newsletter.  Almost 84% of you would prefer to receive the Wrap in the body of an email as opposed to opening a Google document.  That’s how the newsletter will be distributed going forward.  

Lost and Found

Very expensive articles of clothing are picked up on campus every day and placed in our Lost and Found.  Students are encouraged to get their belongings from the Lost and Found near the office.  Unfortunately, a majority of items remain unclaimed.  With the cold and rainy weather continuing it’s our hope that these items will be picked up.  Otherwise, items not claimed will eventually be donated.  

Additional Information about Programs for Students and Parents

Information will be included again beginning next Friday.  

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Rick van Adelsberg

Principal

White Hill Middle School

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