Parents and teachers must remember that numerous end-of-year activities (both in and out of school) compete for students’ time, energy, and commitment in April and May. Your daughters’ teachers will focus on the girls’ motivation, the key source of engagement, as we continue to offer a spring filled with challenge, curiosity, creativity, cooperation, self- reflection, and recognition. Master Teacher suggests the following tips to parents for helping your daughter thrive and remain successful during the spring. I would also add that having conversations about reports cards at the end of the year can be extremely beneficial when focusing on what went well for each child, what didn’t work out as she would have liked, what strategies might need to be changed for the start of the next year, and support that can be given over the summer.

SEVENTH GRADE COMMUNITY SERVICE: Continuing our community service efforts, our seventh graders, their peers from St. Mark’s, their advisors and I will be spending this Saturday morning, 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 p.m. 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 the 2^nd 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.

EIGHTH GRADE COMMUNITY SERVICE: Our eighth graders, their peers from St. Mark’s, and advisors will be spending the morning of 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 12:00 p.m. Girls should please wear jeans (no shorts) 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 the 16^th must make up the four community service hours missed. They may either choose a service project of their own, or Laura Day and I can provide suggestions and opportunities.

CORNERSTONES STUDIES/ROSETTA LEE: I hope that many of you were able to attend presentations by Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee, Seattle Girls’ School Outreach Specialist this week. The scope of her conversation focused on “parenting with identity in mind.” Questions considered were 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? How we can instill positive self-identity in our children and coach them to be positive influences on others' identities. Teachers and I also met with Ms. Lee during her visit and will incorporate some lessons on dealing with differences and an adolescent’s growing self-awareness into our Cornerstones Studies during the last few months of school. In addition, our Kids Stand Up elective will be emphasizing inclusion through several initiatives.

TECHNOLOGY MAINTENANCE: The Hockaday technology department has been performing routine maintenance on seventh and eighth grade student laptops in preparation for upcoming ERB testing. The technology department took up the seventh graders’ computers on Tuesday, March 29 and returned them on Wednesday, March 30; eighth graders’ laptops were collected this morning and will be returned on Friday, April 1. Teachers have designed lessons and homework assignments that do not require laptops on the days when the technology department is working on each grade’s computer. This maintenance has included:

 

  An external hardware inspection for broken components

 

 Software and operating system updates

 

 A full laptop reimage

 

The technology department provided all students with training and assistance to back up any data not already stored on the Hockaday servers. 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.

 

FIFTH GRADE OLYMPICS: Moving ahead, we are looking forward to the Fifth Grade Olympics on Friday, April 8. Fifth grade parents are invited for all or parts of the day and should gather in Penson Gym (not the girls’ classrooms except for team moms) for the opening ceremonies which begin at 8:15 a.m. Fifth graders will come to school ready to participate in Olympic competitions designed by the P.E. Department. Each girl will be assigned a country and will compete both individually and as a member of that team for the day. Please have your fifth grader report to school at the regular time wearing her country’s t-shirt, P.E. shorts, and tennis shoes. The T-shirt will be given to each girl prior to the event. Goff’s Hamburgers will be catering lunch for the girls and faculty in Tarry House; more details are coming soon.

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. Interested eighth graders may attend the information meeting in the St. Marks Commons on Tuesday, April 5 at 6:30 p.m. It’s not mandatory but is very informative and will help your family understand the St. Mark’s cheer program. On Monday, April 11, and Tuesday, April 12, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., mandatory clinics will be held in Hicks Gym at St. Mark’s. These will be followed by mock tryouts in Hicks 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.

ERB’S: 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.

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: In addition to the above mentioned events, Middle School choirs and orchestras have upcoming concerts the week of April 11; all of Hockaday will enjoy Alumnae Day on Friday, April 15; we’ll have an Incoming Parent Meeting for rising seventh grade families on Monday, April 18; there will no classes on Friday, April 22 due to teacher in-service; and current seventh graders will leave for their New Mexico trip on Sunday, April 24. And…seventh graders will journey to the Perot Museum and the Dallas Holocaust Museum on Thursday, April 7. Don’t forget to send a sack lunch—no nuts, please. Busy times as we move towards the end of the year!

My best,
Linda Kramer