I want to thank our Fine Arts faculty for guiding the girls through their musical adventures this year—bravo to Bonnie Jean Coleman, Ilana Lemke, Yung Fang Ludford, and Vilma Peguero. Thank you also to Carmen Doubrava, Stephen Hill, and Susan Hubbard for the support they offer these organizations.

IMPACT TESTING FOR SIXTH GRADE: Sixth grade parents, IMPACT testing (baseline concussion measurement) will begin for your daughters during study hall periods in the near future. All rising seventh graders go through this testing so that we have a baseline profile for our athletes, and you may view the School’s concussion protocol at this link.

POETRY SOCIETY WINNERS: As mentioned last week, we’ve also received the names of our Texas Poetry Society Contests winners from Hockaday. Middle School students consistently win numerous awards in these contests thanks to hard work, talent, and the ongoing support of their English teachers. Poems are written by each child in Middle School and entered in various contests to compete with thousands of students throughout Texas. Congratulations to all who entered, all who placed, and to our English faculty!

INCOMING MEETING FOR PARENTS OF RISING 7th GRADERS: This meeting will be held on Monday, April 18 for rising seventh grade parents. The meeting includes parents of new and returning students and are for parents only of current students and parents and students new to the Hockaday community. Arriving around 5:45 p.m. will provide you time to visit and have some refreshments before we start the meeting at 6:00 p.m. We ask that you please wear your Hockaday nametag. This is a marvelous opportunity for returning parents to meet and welcome new families who are joining our school community. You will also meet the seventh grade parent representatives to the Hockaday Parents' Association and learn about the fantastic academic programs from our Middle School teachers.

EIGHTH GRADE COMMUNITY SERVICE: Our eighth graders, their peers from St. Mark’s, and advisors will be spending this Saturday, April 16 at the Texas Trees Foundation to complete community service hours. The girls are to meet at Hockaday at 8:00 a.m. in the Forest Lane parking lot and return there to be picked up at noon. Girls should please wear jeans (no shorts or leggings) and closed-toed shoes. Work gloves are highly recommended. Click here for more information. This is a required event for our students; please contact me if your eighth grader has a schedule conflict. Girls who are unable to attend on Saturday, April 16 must make up three community service hours. They may either choose a service project of their own, or Laura Day and I can provide suggestions and opportunities.

CHEERLEADER TRYOUTS FOR CURRENT 8TH GRADERS: All current eighth graders, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors are welcome and encouraged to try out for the cheerleading squad which will cheer for St. Mark’s next fall. Mock tryouts in Hicks Gym at St. Mark’s will be held on Thursday, April 14 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Lastly, official tryouts are in the same place on Friday, April 15, and they will begin at 4:45 p.m.

If you have any questions about the tryouts or about cheer in general, your daughters may contact any of the rising senior cheerleaders: Brooke Balthrope, Grace Bush, Sam Galardi, Megan Hudspeth, Erica Jones, Jordan Lazenby, Catherine Merrick, Emma Paine, Kristen Romano, Elinor Sachs, or Hannah Sung. With questions about logistics, you may email Coach Kiki Pennington (kikipennington79@gmail.com).

THIRD TERM INTERIMS: This afternoon you will receive an email notification that interims are open for your viewing. If you do not see an interim report, your daughter did not receive an interim. Parents whose daughters are receiving interims have received phone calls from teachers.

ERB TESTING: All Middle School girls will take the ERB tests on the mornings of Wednesday, April 20 and Thursday, April 21. Shortened, regular classes will be held on both afternoons. ERB, Educational Records Bureau, is the highly respected educational organization which designed these evaluation tools. These learning assessments provide the school and your daughter’s teachers with valuable diagnostic information about areas of strength and those areas needing further attention. Teachers find this data most useful in working with individual students. Once again this year, the girls will be taking these tests online. Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders will use their own laptops, and fifth graders will use computers provided by the School. There is no special preparation needed for any ERB tests except to be sure the girls get a good night's sleep and eat a nutritious breakfast. 

We ask that you not schedule any doctor or dentist appointments on those mornings; we do not provide make-ups as we value and study the longitudinal implications of these assessments rather than the results in any individual year. When you receive the results of these assessments in June, a detailed interpretation of your daughter’s scores will be included. Please keep in mind that these percentiles and stanines indicate how your daughter performed on certain tests on a given day; they should not be considered an indicator of her future academic success. Our faculty will give the girls specific information about testing locations and procedures as the time draws closer.

STUDENT COUNCIL ELECTIONS: Fifth through seventh graders have already filed for 2016-17 Student Council offices. We try to provide a “real” election experience in that the girls file for office, engage in a primary process, obtain a nomination, and then run for office. Each candidate who is nominated is informed about guidelines and presents a campaign speech for peers in grades five through seven. Eighth graders do not vote as they will be in Upper School next year. The process ends with our Student Council Installation on May 6. Current fifth graders may choose to run for Treasurer; current sixth graders may choose to seek out the offices of Speaker of the House or Secretary; current seventh graders run for the office of President with the runner up moving into the office of Vice President.

ALUMNAE DAY: The girls are required to wear dress uniforms tomorrow because of Alumnae Day. If your daughter is attending the luncheon with you, please make sure you have notified Ellen McGowan in the Middle School Office and have your child sign out from the Office when she meets you.

LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL CALENDAR: It is time to send out notification regarding the last month of school as you begin to make plans for May and summer. I have included the times girls need to arrive at school for special events and rehearsals. Due to construction, Eighth Grade Graduation and all other spring and end-of-school events will be held in Penson Athletic Center. As a result, students in grades five through seven will attend Eighth Grade Graduation on Friday, May 27 this year because of the larger venue. Please make your late-May /early summer plans according to the dates and times in this link. 

UPCOMING EVENTS: Next week Latin students will enjoy the annual Roman Banquet at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 19. And… as next week draws to an end, our seventh graders will take off on their trip to New Mexico on Sunday, April 24 and return on Thursday evening, April 28. Seventh graders do not attend school on Friday, April 29. Seventh grade parents, please be sure you have turned in all forms and checked over the packing list carefully. Please contact your daughter’s advisor if you have any questions. Finally, please remember that there will be no classes on Friday, April 22 due to a teacher in-service day.

My best,

Linda Kramer

Head of Middle School