CONFERENCE DAY TOMORROW: Spring conferences tomorrow are a great opportunity to review your daughter’s progress this year and revisit goals set in the fall. Please remember that all students are asked to attend these conferences with their parents. All conferences are 25 minutes in length with a five-minute break in between for teachers. In addition to conversing about the girls’ progress, sixth grade families who have not sent in your language selection form for next year will be asked to complete the form at the conference. Seventh grade families will have some final paperwork to complete for the New Mexico trip, and eighth grade families will be planning class schedules for ninth grade.

EIGHTH GRADE MUSICAL FOR FALL OF 2016: The completion of the new fine arts facilities this summer will offer many fabulous opportunities for our rising eighth graders next fall as they will be the first to put on a major production in the new auditorium! As announced last week, the Class of 2021 will show off their talents when performing in Seussical, another first for our Middle School. In addition, Linda Page has agreed to be our play mom for this endeavor. She will be recruiting volunteers quite soon (especially creative folks for costumes), and I hope that you’ll be able to say yes when she calls!

COMMUNITY SERVICE: Continuing our community service efforts, our seventh graders, their peers from St. Mark’s, their advisors and I will be spending the morning of Saturday, April 2 at Goodwill Industries, completing their required community service hours. The girls are to meet at St. Mark’s at 8:15 and return there to be picked up at 12:30. They should please wear jeans (no shorts or leggings) and closed-toed shoes. Click here for more information. As this is a required event for our students, please contact me if your seventh grader has a schedule conflict. Girls who are unable to attend on Saturday, April 2 must make up the four community service hours missed. They may either choose a service project of their own, or I can provide suggestions and opportunities. I’ll be sharing more information in upcoming communications about our eighth graders’ required community service on Saturday, April 16.

PARENT EDUCATION SERIES: Please remember that our Inclusion and Community Parent Education Series continues with Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee, Seattle Girls’ School Outreach Specialist. Ms. Lee will meet with parents both on Wednesday, March 30 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. in the Hicks Meeting Room and Thursday, March 31 from 8:30am to 10:30 in the Hicks Meeting Room. The scope of her conversation will focus on “parenting with identity in mind.” Questions to be considered are as follows: How do we develop a sense of identity? What messages have we internalized about ourselves and others? What are the differences that result in one person having a healthy self-identity and another person experiencing own-group shame and hatred? Learn how we can instill positive self-identity in our children and coach them to be positive influences on others' identities.

TECHNOLOGY MAINTENANCE: The week we return from Spring Break, the Hockaday technology department will be performing routine maintenance on seventh and eighth grade student laptops in preparation for upcoming ERB testing. The technology department will take up the seventh graders’ computers on Tuesday, March 29 and return them on Wednesday, March 30; eighth graders’ laptops will be collected on Thursday, March 31 and returned on Friday, April 1. Teachers will design lessons and homework assignments that do not require laptops on the days when the technology department is working on each grade’s computers, and the girls will have no homework over Spring Break, greatly reducing the need for their laptops. This maintenance will include:

 

  An external hardware inspection for broken components

 

  Software and operating system updates

 

  A full laptop reimage

 

The technology department will provide all students with training and assistance to back up any data not already stored on the Hockaday servers; indeed, seventh and eighth graders will soon meet with technology faculty to discuss the process. Through this maintenance process, all laptops will receive software updates as well as the latest security updates and patches. By providing this type of regular maintenance, our student laptops will better support the academic needs of our Hockaday students. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Jason Curtis at 214.360.6386.

 

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. 

See you at conferences tomorrow and have a safe and lovely Spring Break!

Head of Middle School