Since it is only a short time before we are back in full swing, I hope that you make the most of these last days of summer and continue to find time to be with family and friends. What follows are some important items to keep in mind as you prepare for the start of the school year:

The purpose of this conference is to provide an opportunity for your child’s advisor to meet with you to introduce her/himself and for you to learn more about her/his role as an advocate and liaison. This meeting also helps to establish a positive foundation for the year and allows all parties to start to get to know each other. This is especially useful for new families and for fifth and sixth grade families as the meeting will provide you with a sense of what is new and what to expect. This conference is also an opportunity for families to discuss any goals or concerns that they may have. Students are expected to participate in these conversations.

On the first day of school, we will run an abbreviated morning schedule during which students will meet their teachers. Following lunch and recess, the welcome conferences will begin. When you arrive for the conference, your child will be waiting for you in the lobby. You can leave with your child after meeting with her/his advisor. Your child may also remain until the end of the day and will be dismissed at 3:15PM. We hope that all families will be able to participate in these meetings on this day.

If you have specific questions about any of the above items, please do not hesitate to contact me before the start of the school year. Whether before school starts or during the year, my door is always open and I look forward to hearing from you. The following are a few other important items to keep in mind as you review the handbook:

• The official start of the school day for Middle School students is 8:15AM. Morning homeroom will run from 8:15-8:30AM. It is important that students arrive to school on time. Please remember that students who are late to school and who do not have a note from their parent/guardian will be expected to make up this time at the end of the day.
• Over the course of the year, you may receive from middle school faculty members email notifications related to homework, lateness or disciplinary matters. I have posted online a document that contains copies of these letters of communication. We recognize that these letters have a formal tone, but we feel that they contain important information that you should know about your child’s progress. In addition, this information allows for better coordination among Middle School faculty members. It is helpful if you read these letters now so that you are familiar with their form. You can access the letters on the MS News page on LREI Connect.
• LREI (or the School) will communicate with all families each week. Many of the announcements in these weekly communications will also be available through LREI Connect, our password protected web site. Please take time each week to read the information we send home and also find time to become familiar with the ways in which LREI.org can help you stay up to date on all that is going on in your child's school day and in the larger LREI community. For information on how to login to LREI Connect go to http://tinyurl.com/3jasggt.

As I mentioned in the spring, we welcome Jeff Lisciandrello, Saber Khan, David Lee, Suzanne Cohen Aaron Ford and Susan Glass to the Middle School community.

Fifth and sixth grade art teacher and former arts department chair Melissa Rubin who was on leave this past year has decided to continue work that she started while on leave and not return to LREI. This was a difficult decision for Melissa who has been a member of the LREI community for 18 years. During those years, Melissa has contributed to the life of the school in ways too numerous to recount here. While always an advocate for the arts, she has also been a firm believer in the power and purpose of middle school students and their ability to engage meaningfully in the world. Melissa has been a wonderful colleague and deeply committed to the ongoing professional development of the faculty at LREI. Her work in all of these areas has made LREI a better place for students and teachers and her daily presence will be missed. That said, we are excited for Melissa to begin the next stage of her journey as she continues to focus on her own work as a practicing artist and on directing the Bertha Anolic Art Award program. You can follow Melissa's work at http://melissarubinart.com/. I'm sure that Melissa will also find ways to continue her relationship with LREI.

Amidst travels, spending time with families and friends, and reflecting on the past year, many middle school faculty members spent time this summer focusing on their curricula, pedagogy and on life in school in general:

• Fifth grade core teachers Heather Brandstetter and Wendy Bassin worked on a Summer Program Grant to connect our study of ancient civilizations to foundational ideas in the field of archeology. This will help students to better understand how we construct knowledge about the past. This work was done in conjunction with researchers from the NYU Department of Archeology and is a collaboration that we hope to solidify through this initial work.
• Sixth grade core teacher Lynne Cattafi and Middle School librarian Jennifer Hubert Swan used a Summer Program Grant to develop a series of conversations with middle school girls around issues and problems specific to being an adolescent girl in a society full of mixed messages about their bodies and identities. The conversations aim to develop inter-grade relationships and use as inspiration female heroes from the past and present.
• Lynne also attended a week-long seminar at the Cullman Center entitled, “Food Writing,” which explored a wide range of literary genres and the role of writing about food as a is window onto history, experience, and character. She also continued work on a grammar and writing book.
• Matt McLean, general and instrumental music teacher, was also a recipient of a LREI Summer Program Grant that he used to further refine our Young Composers and Improvisers Workshop program by creating an interactive iBook to support our music composition curriculum. He also worked on creating materials for an online instrumental music practicing system that can be used by all LREI instrumentalists. Finally, he set up iTunes U course curriculum for all of the MS Music classes. This will allow band students and music class students to follow the curriculum on an iPad with the iTunes U app.
• Jeremiah Demster, fifth and sixth grade science teacher, ran the Summers at LREI robotics program, which served as a great gear-up to this year’s work with the middle school robotics team.
• Meg Arthurs, fifth and sixth grade art teacher, participated in the Materials for Arts workshop “From Pulp to Fiction.” The workshop explored the history, production, and uses of paper with connections in social studies, science, math, and language arts.
• Susan Glass, vocal music teacher, taught at the NYU Summer Kodaly Institute, which is a summer immersion course for music teachers focused on the Kodaly approach to music education. The culminating event was a final concert, involving all the participants in the program, with the Participants' Chorus conducted by Susan.
• Deborah Damast, lower school and middle school dance teacher, co-wrote an early childhood dance curriculum for the 92nd Street Y called "Wonderdance" and taught the first teacher training summer institute in July at the 92Y. In August, Deborah taught a children's choreography workshop for 3 weeks at the Yard in Martha's Vineyard, where she was a featured dancer in the historic performance "From the Horse's Mouth - The History of Dance on the Vineyard". Deborah also researched media for her middle school dance classes and explored somatic techniques and therapeutic approaches to dance training.
• Elizabeth Simmons, seventh grade core teacher, began her graduate program at City College focused on Transformative Literacy with the course, "Fluent to Experienced Literacy.” The program seeks to explore expansive notions of literacy and the intersections of literacy and inequities for the purpose of developing equitable educational structures and practices.
• Matthew Rosen, seventh grade core teacher, continued his graduate studies at NYU this summer spending much of the summer reading and writing about the “global novel,” novels pitched to a worldwide audience but written in English, often by or about post-colonist subjects. This will inform his work with the seventh grade core curriculum as colonialism and its impact is an important focus of student inquiry.
• Sara Momii Roberts, eighth grade core teacher, participated in the Democracy Walk-Professional Development Workshop that traced the evolution of citizenship within American history. Through talks with scholars and a visit to key NYC historical sites, participants considered the changing assumptions regarding civic rights from the 17th through the 21st century. The workshop modeled the democracy walk teaching technique of site exploration.
• Michelle Boehm, eighth grade math teacher, attended the Center for Innovative Teaching's “Visual Algebra” workshop. In the workshop, participants explored the use of manipulatives for basic symbol manipulation, use of Geoboard lattices for slope and radicals, parallel axes representation for functions, and the several distinct visual paths to the quadratic formula.
• Michelle and fifth grade math and seminar teacher Ana Chaney served as docents at the Museum of Math's, “Street Math” exhibit on Governor's Island.

A most impressive list and reflective of the commitment that LREI faculty have to their own continued professional growth. Rest assured that whether connected to the projects noted above, or through the day-to-day work that the teachers have planned for students, we have many thought provoking and challenging activities planned for the coming school year.

A few final reminders:

• Summer Reading— If you are not sure if you have completed all that you had to do, check out the summer reading section of our website—http://libresources.lrei.org/mssummerreading.
• Middle School Sports—Practices for Middle School soccer, volleyball, and cross-country will begin the week of September 10th. You can access the game and practice schedule at on the school’s website (select “Athletics” from the “Our Program” section of the navigation bar). Fifth and Sixth grade intramural soccer will begin the week of September 17th. Practices days and times for all teams will be posted by the first day of school if not before. Questions about the seventh and eighth grade teams should be directed to Athletic Director Peter Fisher at pfisher@lrei.org. Questions about the intramural program should be directed to Middle School PE teacher and Intramural Coordinator Larry Kaplan at lkaplan@lrei.org.
• Middle School Chorus and Jazz Band—The Little Red Singers (grades 5-8) meets once a week on Tuesdays from 11:00AM-11:40AM. High School chorus director and Middle School vocal music teacher Susan Glass directs the chorus. Seventh and eighth grade jazz band members meet during the performing arts elective period. Fifth and sixth grade jazz band members meet on Fridays from 2:15-3:15PM. Information about the Monday and Wednesday morning band class for students who want to learn to play a brass or woodwind instrument will be forthcoming. Middle School music teacher Matt McLean directs the various band programs.
• New Parents—you are asked to attend our LREI 101 workshop on Wednesday, September 12th at 8:45AM and we hope that you will also attend our New Parent Reception cocktail party at the school hosted by Board Chair Amy Zimmerman that evening. More information to follow.
• LREI Medical Forms—please make sure that you return all medical-related forms to the School Nurse before the first day of school. For fifth and sixth grade families: Please make sure that you also complete and sign the Ashokan Trip Health Form.
• Ashokan—Fifth and sixth graders will leave for their three-day outdoor education trip to the Ashokan Center in the Catskills on Wednesday, September 12th. Please read and complete the forms that are enclosed in this mailing. A parent informational meeting about the trip will take place on Friday, September 7th, at 8:00AM in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria.
• Middle School Curriculum Night—Tuesday, October 2nd at 6:30PM. All are invited to attend.

Among the many highlights of the Middle School program are the overnight trips taken by each Middle School grade. The fifth and sixth grades begin our trip program for the year with their annual journey to the Ashokan Outdoor Education Center. Forms for this trip are included in this mailing. In late-October, seventh graders will travel to Williamsburg, VA as part of their study of Colonial America. Eighth graders will travel to Gettysburg, PA and Washington DC in May as a part of their study of American history. The registration forms for these two trips can be accessed though the MS News page on LREI Connect. All children will participate in these grade-level trips. In addition, our optional foreign language trips to China (for 7th and 8th grade Mandarin students), and France and Spain (for 8th grade French and Spanish students) will take place over Spring Break. The projected cost for these trips is approximately $2,500. Trip coordinators will be in touch with you about registration information at the beginning of the year. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions about the payment for your child’s trip(s).

That’s all for now. With the start of school just around the corner, I hope that you make the most of these last days of summer and that you return with interesting experiences and stories to share as we embark on new and exciting adventures in the fall.

See you soon,

Mark Silberberg

Middle School Principal