NEWSltr APR - MAY 2019

Hadley Middle School SeNpEteWmSbLerE-OTTctEobRer 2018 Principal’s Message April - May 2019 Hadley Student Pledge Dear Hadley Parents & Families, I pledge kindness to my Hadley family to be a person who re- The arrival of May is bittersweet! It is an exhilarating time of year for everyone in many spects and values you regardless ways, all of which are enhanced by the longer, warmer days and more sunshine. I really can’t of your skin color, intellect, inter- believe this school year is almost over! It seemed like just yesterday we were celebrating ests, talents, or years. Together, a new school year with our Back to School Fun Fair as we welcomed our new we will work to achieve, success 5th graders. Throughout the year, our students continued to grow and develop while teach- ers prepared them to be Future-Ready and active members of the 21st century global learn- and become positive ing community. Our staff worked hard to create and implement engaging lessons focused global citizens! on technology, best practice tailored with Differentiated Instruction all while creating a climate in which every child has the opportunity to be successful. The end of the school year always seems to arrive too quickly. The thoughts of end-of-the -year festivities, summer, outside activities and sports can sometimes distract us from those things that are most important. Please continue to encourage your student to finish this school year strong by putting forth their best effort each and every day. This has been a very busy year, with a multitude of scholastic and social events for our stu- dents, families, and staff. I want to give a special thank you to all of our amazing parent volunteers for taking time out of their very busy schedules throughout this school year. Our very active PTO planned a plethora of exhilarating events and fundraisers for our Hadley Community. Our treat day volunteers made lunches even more exciting. Each and every one of you have helped make a difference in the lives of our students. Hadley Happenings 2 As our sixth graders conclude their learning at Hadley, I would like to wish them the best Family Steam Night of luck in junior high. I know they are well prepared for HJH and their transition will be seamless. We will all miss their energy, spirit, and student leadership. Middle Schooler’s Life, Steam Class 3, 4 Over the past few months I have received a number of teacher requests for the 2019- 2020 school year. While I try to honor requests, they cannot be guaranteed due to the Summer Activities 5 number of requests received and a significant number of pertinent factors that go into appropriate student placement and effectively balancing classes. Our primary goal is to ef- fectively align scheduling placement to the individual needs of each of our over 850 stu- dents, while meeting scholastic needs, social needs, elective selections, required student support services and much more. Scheduling is difficult, and I am always willing to answer questions. Middle Years 6 KErinsjteony tShcehrloasetdefrew weeks of the school year! Principal Social Workers Message HKadrliesyteMnidSdclherSocehdoeorl 7 Principal

Hadley Middle School Hadley Happenings 2

Page one of two One might sum up a middle schooler’s life in this way:  To be funny at all costs. (Hence, the silly bathroom jokes, talking at inappropriate times in class, and the “anything it takes to be popular” attitude.)  To focus on SELF — their clothes, their nose, their body, and their hair.  To try new things. They are playing “dress up” with their identity trying on things to see what fits. They are impulsive and scattered, they are up and they are down. As the parent, you are changing, too, as you enter the stage of parenting when you quickly depart from the naïve platform of “My child would never…” to the realization that, “I’m sure my child did that. I’m sorry, and please excuse his behavior, he is going through a phase.” Then it happens: Maybe because we are exhausted from their constant begging for a phone, or because we think that all their friends have one, or because we want to upgrade ours to the latest model…we cave. We act on impulse. Our brain seems to regress like theirs, and we give them our old smartphone. And with that one little decision comes the world of social media access—something we haven’t thought about and something none of us is prepared for. Because the midbrain is reorganizing itself and risk- taking is high and impulse control is low, I can’t imagine a worse time in a child’s life to have access to so- cial media than middle school. Here are just a few reasons why: Social media was not designed for them. 1. A tween's underdeveloped frontal cortex can’t manage the distraction nor the temptations that come with social media use. While you start teaching responsible use of tech now, know that you will not be able to teach the maturity that social media requires. Like trying to make clothes fit that are way too big, they will use social media inappropriately until they are older and it fits them better. 2. Social media is an entertainment technology. It does not make your child smarter or more prepared for real life or a future job; nor is it necessary for healthy social development. It is pure entertainment at- tached to a marketing platform extracting bits and pieces of personal information and preferences from your child every time they use it. 3. A tween's “more is better” mentality is a dangerous match for social media. Do they really have 1,456 friends? Do they really need to be on it nine hours a day? Social media allows (and encourages) them to overdo their friend connections like they tend to overdo other things in their lives. 4. Social media is an addictive form of screen entertainment. And, like video game addiction, early use can set up future addiction patterns and habits. 5. Social media replaces learning the hard social \"work\" of dealing face-to-face with peers, a skill that they will need to practice to be successful in real life. 6. Social media can cause teens to lose connection with family and instead view “friends” as their foundation. Since the cognitive brain is still being formed, the need for your teen to be attached to your family is just as important now as when they were younger. Make sure that attachment is strong. While they need attachments to their friends, they need healthy family attachment more. 3

One might sum up a middle schooler’s life in this way, continued How Can Kids Slow Down? First, we need to slow down and rethink what we are allowing our kids to do. We need to understand the world of social media and how teens use it differently from adults. Here are a few tips that work well for many parents. 1. Delay access. The longer parents delay access, the more time a child will have to mature so that he or she can use technology more wisely as a young adult. 2. Follow their accounts. Social media privacy is a lie: Nothing is private in the digital world, and so it should not be private to parents. Make sure privacy settings are in place but know that those settings can give you a false sense of security. Encourage your teen to have private conversations in person or via a verbal phone call instead if they don’t want you to read it on social media. 3. Create family accounts. Create family accounts instead of individual teen accounts. This allows kids to keep up with friends in a safer social media environment. 4. Allow social media only on large screens. Allow your teens to only use their social media accounts on home computers or laptops in plain view, this way they will use it less. When it is used on a small private phone screen they can put in their pocket there are more potential problems with reckless use. The more secret the access, the more potential for bad choices. 5. Keep a sharp eye on the clock; they will not. Do you know how much time your child spends on social media a day? Be aware of this, and reduce the amount of time your child is on social media across all platforms. The average teen spends nine hours a day connected to social media. Instead, set one time each day for three days a week for your child to check their social media. Do they benefit from more time than that? 6. Plan face-to-face time with their friends. Remember that they don’t need 842 friends; four-to-six close friends are enough for healthy social development. 7. Spend more real non-tech time together. Teens who are strongly attached to their parents and family show more overall happiness and success in life. Excerpts from Psychology Today “Why Social Media is not smart for Middle School kids” By: Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D. Posted March 26, 2017 Imagine a learning environment where students choose their partner and then choose a project that they are truly interested in learning more about. Imagine students being allowed to set a personal learning goal, and then being allowed to work to achieve the goal in a set amount of time. Imagine a place where students are able to present their project to their peers and talk not only about their successes, but also about the struggles they faced along the way and how they addressed them. Imagination meets reality. That is the learning environment that occurs in the STEAM lab everyday at Hadley Middle School. Our fourth quarter fifth graders have learned the foundation of our STEAM class and have just begun their first project. They are required to complete a project that addresses computer coding. Some popular coding choices are these two free websites that allow students myriad opportunities to learn: code.org and scratch.mit.edu. Feel free to check them out. The websites offer challenging lessons and activities for students of all ages. Other popular choices for fifth grade STEAM projects continue to be the 3D pen, 3D printing, Sphero robotics, and our simulation software SimCity and Car Mechanic Simulator. Our sixth graders are beginning their final project for the semester. They have grown in their ability to collaborate with one another, to communicate effectively with their partners and to manage their time as they work to achieve the goal they set for themselves. We are very proud of their successes. The popular sixth grade projects are the 3D pen and 3D printing, and more complex simulation software such as Cities Skylines and No Limits Roller Coaster Builder. Many of our sixth graders have developed an interest in movie making, and they are creating wonderfully creative short films using green screen technology, iMovie, or Stop Motion Animation. We look forward to seeing what they produce in the coming weeks. Full STEAM ahead! 4

Hadley Middle School Activities to Keep Kids’ Brains Active in Summer These fun activities cover all subjects and grades; there truly is something for everyone. And, if you have your own summer adventurers at home, this list can rescue your kids from the boredom and blahs of rainy summer days. This year, do more than amuse and entertain your kids and hope for the best for your students, keep their minds working all summer long! Its summer – that time of year when teachers bid farewell to students, hoping their gleefully escaping charges don’t forget everything they’ve learned during the school year. It’s also the time of year when nervous parents take on the challenge of keeping their children physically busy and mentally active during long summer days. Many of the activities listed link to online resources. In most cases, however, the activities can be completed even by those without internet access.  Teach kids to cook with the step-by-step lessons and recipes at Cooking with Kids. The site also includes mea urement reminders, safety tips, and suggestions for involving kids in the cooking process. Or check out your local library or book store for one of the recommended Heritage Cooking for Kids: Taste History books and try out recipes from Colonial days, the Civil War, and the Lewis and Clark expedition.  Make homemade Bubble Solution and experiment with such unique Bubble-Blowing Tools such as strings, milk con- tainers, and garbage can lids.  Read aloud The Paper Crane by Molly Bang. Then introduce the art of paper folding by printing and following the instructions for How to Make an Origami Crane.  Cool down by making Ice Cream in a Bag. The simple technique produces delicious ice cream in about 5 minutes. What ice cream varieties will you and your child concoct?  Staple together pieces of plain paper or use a notebook to help your child make a cartoon flip book. Kids draw a sequence of cartoons and simulate motion as they “flip” through the pages. (Note that the first image in the series should be at the bottom of the stack of pages, and the illustrations should progress from bottom to top.) How to Draw Cartoons or The Complete Cartooning Course by Steve Edgell, Brad Brooks, and Tim Pilcher, offer simple instructions for drawing cartoon figures.  Learn about national parks from the comfort of your own home and encourage your child to complete online activi- ties and become a Web Ranger. Materials are grouped by age and include cool awards and a membership card.  Start a rock collection. Collecting Rocks, a Web site by the U.S. Geological Survey, offers advice to help the no ice collector gather, identify, and store neat rock specimens. The Audubon Society Pocket Guide Familiar Rocks and Minerals North America will help children identify and label the rocks and minerals they find. 5

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Hadley Middle School School Social Worker By: Lisa Haglund Today’s children are growing up in a high-tech world. According to a 2015 national survey by Common Sense Media, 53 percent of children 8 to 12 have their own tablet, and 24 percent have their own smartphone. Among teenagers, 67 percent have their own smartphone. American parents believe they have an important role to play in helping their children develop safe, healthy habits for technology use. According to 2017 results from the American Psychological Associa- tion’s annual Stress in America™ survey, 94 percent of parents say they take at least one action to man- age their child’s technology usage during the school year. Yet despite the effort, 48 percent say that regulating their child’s screen time is a constant battle, and 58 percent say they worry about the influ- ence of social media on their child’s physical and mental health. American Psychological Association. 2019 -TALK TO YOUR CELL PHONE COMPANY: Some carriers provide parents with the option to receive all texts from their accounts. -Apple has a new SCREEN TIME feature that allows parents to place time and app restrictions on their child’s ac- count and receive reports on phone time usage. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-wealth/201703/why-social-media-is-not-smart-middle-school- kids -These links reference school law, a full and partial presentation that is very similar to the Internet Safety presentation that was held on April 9t at HJH and a few Monitoring Software Apps for Parents to consider.  ILCS Cyberstalking  ILCS Cyberbullying  ILCS Harassment by Telephone  Keeping Kids Safe Online Presentation (full)  Keeping Kids Safe Online Ted Talk (Tedx Talk)  MyMobile Watchdog  WebWatcher 7