Greetings Frelinghuysen Middle School Community,
It was a pleasure to see so many of you at Back-to-School Night last week. I hope the night’s program, the classrooms, and our teachers’ presentations were helpful and positive, and that you are excited for a successful year of learning at FMS.
A focus of my presentation was the School-wide Homework Program that we are instituting this year at FMS. Our goal is to create a homework system that focuses on the foundational skills that students need to be successful in high school, college, and career; that provides complete transparency around homework expectations for students and parents; and that values wellness in our children and in our families by limiting the volume of homework assigned nightly. This FMS Homework Program One-Pager and Calendar summarizes the program and the rationale behind it. I encourage you to review it as a family and to become familiar with it. You will notice that as a school community we will be deeply focused on reading, and writing in response to the texts we read. We will work to build our students’ academic vocabulary through the use of a weekly grade-level vocabulary list. Math homework will be independent practice of the skills and concepts learned by students that day in class. We believe this program will enable us as a school to best prepare our students for the rigors of high school and beyond. We also believe that it will improve your ability to support your child at home. In November, I will invite parents to the school to provide feedback on how you believe the program is going. Until then, I encourage you to read your child’s Night Writes, review their math homework, and practice their weekly vocabulary words with them. Thank you for the partnership!
- Please be sure to activate your Parent Portal account. The PowerSchool Parent Portal is a way for you to get real-time information about your child’s attendance and grades in every class.
- Please take a moment today to activate your Canvas account. Canvas is another valuable new tool the entire FMS community – including parents and students – will be using this year. All FMS teachers will be posting their assignments and tests/quizzes on the Canvas Calendar on a weekly basis. This will enable you and your child to see exactly what their homework and test/quiz schedule is each week for every one of their classes.
- As part of their Parent Education Series, the MEF is sponsoring an important presentation by nationally-known speaker, John O’Sullivan entitled Changing the Game: Helping Our Children Achieve Excellence in Sports and Life. For more information about this October 25th event, follow this link.
Have a fantastic week!
Mr. Uglialoro