October 31, 2024
from Paul Errickson, Middle School director
Mark Your Calendars
- Friday, November 1: No Classes, Grading Day
- Sunday, November 3: Taste of Ninth Grade, 11 AM-12:15 PM, Family Commons
- Sunday, November 3: PreK-G12 MPA Preview, 12:30-2 PM
- Saturday, November 16: MS Tech Day, 9 AM-1 PM, Black Box
- Sunday, November 17-Saturday, November 23: Fall Campaign
- Thursday, November 21: Give to the Max Day
- Thursday, November 21: Give to the Max Day Assembly, 2-3 PM, Lansing Sports Center
It is hard to believe that we are wrapping up our first quarter of the school year! While the weather hadn’t shown signs of changing (until today), your students have already exhibited a ton of growth. There has been a lot of learning, with many successes and some failures (“We learn more from failure,” we remind them) so far this school year, and we will capture your child’s first quarter marks to share them with you on Monday, November 11. We encourage you to sit down with your student and look through their quarter one grades and comments in Schoology for areas of commendation and areas of potential growth.
Heading into November and the second quarter, we have some exciting changes and our i-Term registration ahead. Please keep an eye out for the 2025 i-Term Brochure and sign-ups coming out in early November. This year, along with some of the old favorite offerings, we have some exciting new opportunities if your child is looking to travel (New York, National Parks) or just wants to stay home and learn more about the science of death or knitting.
Our MPA Middle School i-Term provides students in fifth through eighth grade with a unique opportunity to embody MPA’s mission of thinking independently and learning joyfully by participating in a one-week enrichment experience. i-Term courses are designed to provide inquiry-based, experiential learning beyond the classroom. The project-based, focused nature of i-Term offerings enables students to learn more in an area of passion and experiences beyond a normal school setting and be exposed to new ways of being in the world. We hope to send you the brochure and sign-up form within the next week or two.
And we are making our schedule even better. This week, we talked with our Middle School about a change in their flex/recess times making the schedule more effective and inclusive. Our amended schedule will include flex time in the morning for all students (10-10:20 AM) after their first two classes. This is exciting because it will allow us to WIN (What I Need: students report to advisors and are able tofor help, the library, maker space, etc., go to teachers to get what they need out of this time) and club time on alternating days with all students together. We will also continue to have recess every day in the afternoon. We hope to end the week with an added, optional recess time during flex in the morning block.
During our recent Students & Screens program for parents, we talked a lot about the need for our adolescents to have more unstructured, autonomous playtime, and we feel as though providing these blocks in our students’ day helps them to be more balanced and well-rounded. With close to 40 parents and some Upper and Middle School student experts in the audience to share their experiences, we talked through the challenges that our students face these days with social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.
We heard firsthand about how our MPA students feel about the pressures of social media, screen time reductions, and when they feel as though our middle schoolers should be allowed to have a phone and social media—most students agreed that phones should wait until eighth or ninth grade, and social media should definitely not be allowed until the Upper School. We hope to host more of these Student & Screen events throughout the school year so we can share more up-to-date research and firsthand student accounts with our parents.
Important Information
- If your student will be absent, late, or needs to be excused early from school, please contact Middle School administrative assistant Ashley Riihiluoma at msoffice@moundsparkacademy.org. This email will also go to Ms. Meras and Mr. Errickson.
- Middle School Study Hall is back! We will, once again, offer an after-school study hall for Middle School students on Mondays and Thursdays from 3-4 PM in rooms 150-151 with Ms. Meras. There is no charge for study hall. This is a quiet, independent space to get homework completed. Students will be dismissed at 4 PM to be picked up, or they will go to Panther Den (charges for Panther Care will apply). If a student needs to be picked up before 4 PM, parents may text their student when they arrive, and the student will be dismissed. Questions? Reach out to Ms. Meras at pmeras@moundsparkacademy.org.
- Quarter one ends today, Thursday, October 31. There are no classes tomorrow, Friday, November 1, and students will start quarter two on Monday, November 4.
- Invite a friend to explore MPA! The MPA Preview is the perfect way to share MPA with a friend, neighbor, or family member. If you know someone who is exploring schools or interested in MPA, please share the following information and link to RSVP.
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- Taste Of Ninth Grade, November 3, 2024, 11 AM-12:15 PM: This event includes lunch and the opportunity to learn more about MPA’s ninth-grade program. Students will engage in a hands-on, collaborative activity while parents participate in a Q&A about life in MPA’s Upper School, college counseling, and more. When this event concludes, students and families will then join the PreK-12 Preview event. Families can RSVP here!
- PreK-12 MPA Preview, November 3, 2024, 12:30-2 PM: MPA Previews are signature PreK-12 events designed to introduce families to the faculty, students, and families who make MPA the exceptional learning community that it is. Visitors will hear from a variety of perspectives, be engaged in conversation with academic leaders, experience mini-lessons taught by expert teachers, and leave with a much better understanding of the MPA way. These events are for family members of all ages to attend together and will include division-specific time. Families can RSVP here!
