Parent Bulletin Issue 17 SY1516

8/20/2019 Parent Bulletin Issue 17 SY1516

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PARENT COFFEE - LITERACY

Tuesday, February 23

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7 ISM Upcoming Events

5 Operaons & Security

Athlecs and Acvies

Aer-School Acvies

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Guidance Oce 3

Parent Community

Associaon

MIDDLE SCHOOLMIDDLE SCHOOLMIDDLE SCHOOL

ISSUE # 17

SY 2015–2016

WEEK OF:

JANUARY 11 TO 15

Weekly Publication for Middle School Parents

Friday BulletinInside this issue:

JANUARY - FEBRUARY:

MS Upcoming Events:

CLASSROOM WITHOUT WALLS

February 15 - 19

PARENT COFFEE - ALEX LONDON

Monday, January 11

MS NEW PARENT COFFEE

Thursday, January 14

MS PLAY

January 29 - 30

G4-5 PARENT TRANSITION MEETING

Wednesday, February 3

NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Monday, February 8

NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Thursday, February 25

Dear Middle School Parents,

Happy New Year, and all the best for 2016 to you and your families. It has been enter-taining and enlightening to have so many conversaons with students and teachersthis week hearing about everyone's travel adventures or me together connecngwith family and friends during our end of semester break. It seems we have coveredthe globe over the recent break and many also enjoyed me exploring our host coun-try.

We welcome our new families that have come for the start of second semester.

Teachers are now in the process of nalizing report card achievement and learninghabit levels along with wring report card comments. Semester one report cards willbe available for parents on January 20th, 2016 - you will be able to access a pdf copyof the report card through the online parent portal and power school, in advance ofthis we will send out a guide with screen shots for how to access your child's reportcards. We will not be sending out hard copies of the report card. If you have any

quesons please contact the Middle School Oce.

We will have a Middle School new parent coee on Thursday morning from 7:45 - 9:00 in the Lile Theater. We will share with you some informaon about MiddleSchool and provide the opportunity to meet other new parents and members of thePCA.

Next week January 11-15th PCA Author in Residence, NY mes bestseller, Alex Lon-don, will be at ISM. The week kicks o with a Parent coee in the Lile Theater at8am. All welcome.

Towards the end of the month January 29th and 30th at 6pm is our annual Middleschool play. The performance this year of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' will be out-side in the High school courtyard. The weather this me of year is perfect for an out-door performance and we hope that many students and families are able to join us.

School photos ordered and taken from last semester are due to arrive this month andwill be distributed to students through their Advisory classes. Parents will be informedof the distribuon date through a future parent bullen.

NEED TO KNOW:

NICE TO KNOW:


2/8

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As we begin second semester we would like to share with parents that over the past couple of years in Elementary and

Middle School a group of parents have come together to organize aer school lessons for students to further develop

and support Mother Tongue language development. This has been parent driven with the hiring of instructors in the

language and these have taken place in Chinese, Dutch, French, Hindi, German, Spanish, and Russian. If you would like

to nd out more informaon about what classes are being oered this year or how to set up a course please contactMei Dacer our aer school acvies secretary (AFAC [email protected]) who is located in the ES oce area and she

can put parents in touch with the other parent liaisons for the dierent languages.

We are looking forward to a great second semester ahead!

Yours in Educaon,

Rachel Harrington, Middle School Principal

Amanda Pekin, Middle School Assistant Principal


3/8

Dear Middle School Parents,

The Aer-school Acvies Program for Middle School (MS AFAC) Season 1 and 2 will end January 29th. We will

be done with tryouts and CWW rst aer Season 2 nishes that is why Season 3 will start later in February.

For Season 3 and 4 acvies, please see dates below: Season 3: February 22 to March 22, 2016

Season 4: April 4 to June 3, 2016

For more info on acvies and relevant informaon on sign ups, acvity oerings, AFAC guidelines, dates and

seasons, please visit: hp://ms-acvies.ism-online.org/

The REGISTRATION FORM is lled-in online (rst come, rst served) which will go live on the blog address

above on January 11th, 4:00 pm.

ONLINE SIGN-UP DATES:

January 11 to 15, 2016 for 3rd & 4th Season Acvies

All students sll need to sign up again if they wish to connue on the year-round acvies, rst come, rst

served.

Thanks,

AFAC Oce 3

http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/http://ms-activities.ism-online.org/


4/8

Happy New Year Bearcats and welcome back to school for

2016.

The S2 pracce schedule which runs unl the end of Janu-ary is posted on noce boards around school and on the

ATAC blog schedules page.

Season 3 (S3) tryouts will begin rst week of Feb, an-

nouncements will be posted on noce boards aer the

break. ATAC S3 sports for MS are Badminton,

Track&Field, Mixed Touch and Co-ed Soball. For HS S3

sports are Golf, Track&Field, Soball and Badminton.

Upcoming events:

Jan 8 HS Basketball teams at Faith

Jan 9 Varsity touch at Faith (am games)

Jan 9 Varsity tennis at CSA/MS tennis at ISM

Jan 15 HS Basketball at Brent

Jan 16 Puma Touch League Finals at Brent (all teams)

Jan 16 ISM HS swim invitaonal

Jan 20 IASAS Send o assembly/send o lunch.

Jan 27-31 IASAS Rugby/Touch at JIS, Tennis at ISB,

Swimming at SAS, Basketball at ISKL

Feb 1-5 S3 tryouts week for MS/HS teams

Feb 11 S2 HS sports awards night

ISM Robocs Results. Congratulaons to ISM Robocs

team members who parcipated in the Vex champion-

ships at Taipei American School just prior to the semesterbreak. The ISM freshman team was part of an alliance

that won tournament champion. The sophomore team

won the 'Amaze Award' and as our strongest team was

chosen to represent ISM at the World Championships in

Kentucky, USA in April. See full results at- blog post of the

results here.

Freshman team (tourney champs): Mack Crowe, David

Zhang, Jericho Bangue, and Yupang Yuan. Sophomore

Team (winners of Amaze award and World Champ

spot): Ashish Tutakne, Ishan Pradhan, Aayush Gupta,

Abhinav Bathula.

Well done to our ISM Table Tennis juniors and midgets

teams who won the silver and champion tles at the local

PRADA Table Tennis tournament for 2015-16 before the

holiday break. Champion Team members- Joshua G, Alex-

is B, Takao S, Apoorv P, Sirpi, and Shamir.

Silver Team members - Johsua T, Iasson.B, Tigha. M,

Charles. T, Chris T, Ashwin B.

For our Sailsh swim team program please check the Sail-

sh blog for informaon. hp://sailsh.ism-online.org/

Please note the pracce mes for ATAC programs for SY15-16 are as follows: ATAC all year round teams- 3:15-

4:30. See schedule for our All year round

teams program here...

All HS seasonal teams pracce from 3:05- 4:50pm each

day. MS seasonal teams pracce 3:15-4:45pm. In order to

clear the campus prior to 5pm all aer school programs

will conclude by 4:50pm or earlier. The last bus is

4:55pm this is due to the ever increasing trac concerns

in our area.

Parents and students please take some me to peruse

the ATAC blog it has a wide variety of informaon and

links to our sports and acvies program. If you have any

quesons regarding the compeve program of sports at

ISM aer reading the informaon on the blog please send

an email to [email protected] and I will endeavor to

assist you as best I can.

The ATAC game schedule pdf which is updated regularly

by Triz Gonzalez (ATAC Athlecs Coordinator) gives the

most up to date informaon on where/when and who

our Bearcat teams will be playing throughout the school

year. Access to the game schedule is now via the ISM par-

ent portal not via power school as in the past. A naviga-on guide is available here. ATAC Game Schedule Users

Guide. Access the parent portal via this link, log in with

your user name/password and then look for the ATAC

Game Schedule tab under the le side quick links. Don't

forget to refresh the pdf page each me it opens so you

access the most current schedule. Please note this sched-

ule does change oen and at short noce due to involve-

ment with many local schools and organizaons. Check it

regularly for the most up to date informaon. For security

purposes....access to the ATAC game schedule pdf must

be linked via the secure parent portal and details should

not be shared with non ISM community members.

Bearcat Den- drop by our fantasc spirit store. Bearcat

Den hours of operaon- 7am-4pm Mon-Fri.

Best Regards,

Mark Pekin

Director of Athlecs and Acvies

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http://robotringo.blogspot.com/http://robotringo.blogspot.com/http://robotringo.blogspot.com/http://sailfish.ism-online.org/http://sailfish.ism-online.org/http://sailfish.ism-online.org/http://sailfish.ism-online.org/http://atac.ism-online.org/schedules/all-year-round-teams/http://atac.ism-online.org/schedules/all-year-round-teams/http://atac.ism-online.org/files/2011/08/ATAC-Game-Schedule-Users-Guide.pdfhttp://atac.ism-online.org/files/2011/08/ATAC-Game-Schedule-Users-Guide.pdfhttp://atac.ism-online.org/files/2011/08/ATAC-Game-Schedule-Users-Guide.pdfhttp://atac.ism-online.org/files/2011/08/ATAC-Game-Schedule-Users-Guide.pdfhttp://atac.ism-online.org/schedules/all-year-round-teams/http://sailfish.ism-online.org/http://robotringo.blogspot.com/http://robotringo.blogspot.com/


5/8

A few reminders from Operaons and Security

Access and parking within the campus are im-

portant security and safety issues. For the well-

being of all members of the ISM community, those

entering the school campus are requested to take

note of the informaon and procedures outlined

below.

Vehicular Access

During drop-o and pick-up mes, vehicles may

enter the campus through Gates 2 and 3. Those

entering through Gate 2 should proceed to the

drop o area and, once the student has alighted or

boarded, they should exit via Gate 1. Those vehi-cles entering through Gate 3 must turn into the

covered parking area and use the designated drop-

o areas. All vehicles must exit through Gate 1.

Please note that Gate 2 may only be used by those

drivers and passengers who have an ISM ID card

and who are in a vehicle displaying a valid ISM ve-

hicle scker.

Alternavely, vehicles entering through Gate 3 may

park in the covered car park. The spaces reserved

for parent-driven cars should only be used by those

vehicles which are driven by parents themselves.

Vehicles in which parents are traveling, but which

are driven by a driver, should not use these spaces.

Rather, they should park elsewhere in the covered

car park or make use of the outside spaces next to

the power center.

Visitors to ISM must enter through Gate 3. There is

an area for short-stay visitor parking near Gate 1.

The Pedestrian Gate

The pedestrian gate is located in the perimeter

fence mid-way between Gate 1 and Gate 2. There

is a paved area between the road and the perime-

ter fence, allowing easy access to the gate. The

pedestrian gate is solely for the entry of members

of the ISM Community at the beginning of the

school day. It will only be open between 7:00 am

and 7:45 am (8:00 am to 8:45 am on Wednesdays).

Due to parking restricons, and in the interests of

security, it will not be open in the aernoon forpick-ups. During the me it is open, it will be un-

der the supervision of members of the ISM Guard

Force.

Drivers should stop adjacent to the paved area and

students should alight from the right side of their

vehicle. The driver should then move o, clearing

the space for other vehicles dropping o students.

Under no circumstances should a student be

dropped o from the middle lane. This is danger-

ous as the student would need to walk in front ofanother vehicle. Drivers are reminded that trac

regulaons forbid parking on the roads around

ISM. Therefore, vehicles should only be stopping

for the brief me it takes for a student to alight.

Drivers must not wait for anybody to return to the

vehicle.

ID Cards

ID cards should be worn at all mes while on cam-

pus. If you have not been issued an ID card, or you

have lost it, you should obtain one by vising thesecurity oce and compleng the appropriate ap-

plicaon form.

Vehicle Checks

The pracce of inspecng vehicles will connue.

During o -peak hours, all vehicles will be checked

before they are allowed to enter the campus.

During peak hours (drop o and pick-up mes), all

vehicles without valid sckers and randomly select-

ed vehicles with sckers will be asked to undergo

an examinaon.

Whether an examinaon is conducted or not, it is

important that the security sta at the gates are

able to idenfy the occupants of vehicles entering

the campus; therefore IDs must be clearly dis-

played. Vehicles with nted windows must roll

down windows to allow a clear view of the interior

of the vehicle.

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6/8


7/8

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Dear ISM Parents,

New York Times bestselling au-

thor, Alex London, will be at ISM

January 11-15, 2016, kindly

sponsored by the ISM PCA.

He will be working with grades 3

-12 during his week with us. He

has wrien numerous tles forelementary, middle, and high

school students, both con

and noncon.

Please join us for a Parent

Coee on Monday, January 11th

at 8am, to hear Alex give an

overview of his books, purchase

tles, and have a chance tohave them signed for you or

your students.

REGISTRATION LINK

You don't want to miss this

event!

Kind regards,

ISM Professional Learn-

ing Oce

http://bit.ly/AlexLondonParentCoffeehttp://bit.ly/AlexLondonParentCoffeehttp://bit.ly/AlexLondonParentCoffee


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Documents

Parent Bulletin Issue 17 SY1516