The Hawk: April 16, 2021

April 15, 2021 6:48 pm

Dear Families:

It’s been an exciting week at the middle school! On Wednesday, all of our fifth grade and seventh grade students made their “Quality Morning” presentations. For those of you new to our community, typically all students make a formal presentation of one of their projects at a “Quality Night” event 1-2 times each year. This helps students practice our school outcome of effective communication as they describe their work on their project and reflect on their learning.

This year we wanted to continue the tradition of this event, but needed to make some adaptations to hold the event during the pandemic (as this is usually a crowded event with families in attendance as audience members.) This year, older students (6th and 8th graders) were paired with each student presenting and gave them feedback about their work during a virtual event. Later this year when sixth and eighth graders make their jury portfolio presentations, the younger students will shadow their older buddy to learn more about the jury process. Teachers shared that they were impressed with both the presentations students made as well as the quality of feedback older students gave. It was great to see the success of this adapted tradition! Congratulations fifth and seventh graders!

From the Health Office: Travel, Daily Health Screenings and Pooled Testing

Return to School After Travel Policy

Please be reminded that students who travel outside the state of MA for more than 24 hours will need to be tested upon their return to the state and receive a negative result or complete a 10 day quarantine, before returning to school. Here is the complete policy.

Returning to On-Campus Learning

If your student has been a remote learner and will be transitioning to on-campus learning, they will need to complete a daily health screening every morning before entering school. The daily health screen is completed by using the MyMedBot app. Information about MyMedBot and how to set up an account was sent out to all families in January and can be reviewed in this letter. If you have not set up an account, please check your email for an invite email from MyMedBot.

COVID-19 Pooled Testing at school

Registration for pooled testing has just been made easier! Weekly pooled testing is voluntary and you may register at any time. The link for more information and to provide consent can be found on the main IACS webpage as well as here.

FAQ’s

Since announcing that IACS will open in-person learning for all grades, we’ve fielded a range of questions that we hope we can address in this document. If you have a question that is not listed in this FAQ document, please email the main office (mainoffice@innovationcharter.org) and we will add it to this list.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wm9Csxf5YNq_biQZQrvp8fxZxwFuWIxKlCNRW573MV0/edit?usp=sharing

Earth Day is Thursday, April 22nd. This list of 51 activities is a great list of activities families can do with kids to celebrate!

Community Cookbook

Food is the universal language that unites us all! To bring our IACS community together, we are gathering recipes and related stories to create a Community Cookbook! We have extended the deadline to April 30th.

It’s easy to participate – Submit your favorite family recipe in 1 of 2 ways:

a google survey has been set up to collect recipesCommunity Cookbook Entry

email kdrake@innovationcharter.org an image of the recipe or drop a hardcopy off at the main office attn: Kdrake

Once we have gathered all the recipes someone from our group will reach out to you for the related story OR feel free to submit it with the recipe.

School Breakfast & Lunch Program

IACS is offering FREE breakfast and lunch meals to ALL IACS on-campus learners. On-campus learners do not need to enroll or use a lunch account to receive free meals. Remote and hybrid learners can also receive free meals at either their town’s school or at IACS. Remote and hybrid learners, if you would like to pick up meals for days when the student is off-campus learning, enroll in this program by completing this survey. You do not need to complete the survey if you have already enrolled. Email kdrake@innovationcharter.org if you have any questions

IACS Gear

Miss Booth and the Interact Club have worked together to design limited edition IACS gear to both raise money for a local charity and promote school pride in the community. The order form will be open until April 16th and orders will be delivered to campus in the beginning of May. This order form is open to all middle school students, high school students, families, staff and community members. Please reach out to Sarah Booth, sbooth@innovationcharter.org with any questions. https://forms.diamondmindinc.com/iacs/interact?token=824870653

Thanks so much for your support-today is the last day to place orders!

Casino Night Auction Closes Tonight at 10:00pm!

Do you have your bids in? www.32auctions.com/iacs2021

There have been over 400 bids placed by 114 participants so far! I’m glad so many of you are enjoying the distraction of bidding. All of the money that is raised benefits the students of IACS, We fund things like dances, scholarships and we’ve even bought a van for the school! With this in mind, we humbly ask that if you don’t win the thing you were bidding on, but you still want to make an impact, please consider a small donation via the green donate button on the auction website. Thank you for all that you do to help us help our students and Happy Bidding!

Congratulations to the Middle School Chorus and Ms. Lane!

The MS Chorus Recording is completed and hot off the press! The recording and video is a culmination of 4 months of rehearsing and recording with the 9 Middle School Chorus Members that met with Ms. Lane each week after school on Wednesdays from January to now. We are so proud of these students. They worked through the technical challenges of rehearsing over Zoom, navigated SoundTrap which is an online recording software, and generally just "hung in there" each week with Ms. Lane and the High School Helpers. Well done!

New Bell Schedule

Here is a link to the new bell schedule as of 4/26.

The schedule looks largely the same with a few key differences:

Wednesdays: There will be classes on Wednesdays; they will not be asynchronous. Wednesday will be a shortened version of our current schedule. All Wednesdays will be a 12:25 early release schedule.

We are piloting a new morning WIN block. WIN stands for What I Need. Some students will stay within the advisory cohort classroom and will have the option of a guided study hall to catch up on any missing assignments, work on revisions, clean out or organize backpacks and/or inboxes, work on portfolio work or jury presentations. Students might also work on extension work, read, or practice math via their IXL account. Teachers will also be offering extra help during WIN block so students might work within a small group extra help session.

For students that are remote, they will log on to any extra help sessions they schedule with their teacher via Zoom, but otherwise will have a mid-morning break for catch up from 9:20-9:50 every full day.

Health & Safety Protocols

For families and students that are transitioning from remote to hybrid or fully in person campus on 4/26, please review this slide presentation with embedded videos to get familiar with the covid-related health and safety protocols at school.

What to Bring to School

Students will need to bring their charged computer and charger to school each day, headphones, a water bottle, some paper and writing utensils. We are not using lockers this year, so having a backpack to carry all belongings will be important as well.

FAQs about the Return to School

For the most part, students will continue to be having class in their advisory classroom (along with their partner advisory) with teachers rotating to their classrooms.

There will be at least 3 foot spacing in the classroom (or more depending upon what percent of the class stays remote) and 6 foot spacing at lunch. Lunch will take place in the cafeteria, auditorium, and outdoors under tents. All students will have some opportunities for outdoor lunches two days/week and indoors two days/week.

You may change your child’s status at any time. Please just email Federico Pereyra to change your child’s status and await a response, especially if your child is switching from remote to in-person (hybrid or 5 days) so we can be certain they have seat assignments in the classroom and at lunch.

We will continue to offer movement breaks and outdoor mask breaks throughout the day. We’ll have some outdoor time during lunch and occasionally during advisory. We aren’t having recess this year as we’re trying to keep groups from mixing, especially in an unstructured way like recess.

Miss Picture Day? Want to be in the Yearbook?

If you missed both picture day and retake day, students can still be in the yearbook! Please submit a head shot to msyearbook@innovationcharter.org. Please include the student’s name and advisory.

Middle School Yearbook

Order your copy now price is $27. MS Yearbook order form

Change of Status?

A reminder that if you’d like to change your child’s status (from remote to hybrid or fully in person, etc.), please contact MS Dean of Students, Federico Pereyra at fpereyra@innovationcharter.org. We ask for 2 weeks notice. Thanks!

Welcome Back Video – Reminders

Bell Schedule starting April 26th

Folder Containing Resources for Requesting Classes for the 2021-2022 School Year

Grade 12 Community Service

Seventeen seniors along with their advisors, came together on Wednesday, April 14th to assist Tyngsboro Parks and Recreation with maintaining the community softball field on Lakeview Avenue. Wearing masks and maintaining safety protocols, the students picked up trash, raked the field and spent forty minutes digging out and relocating first base. Many thanks to all who came out on a gorgeous day to perform community service. Special thanks to: Mike Knight from Tyngsboro Parks & Rec for meeting up with the group and overseeing clean up, IACS facilities team for providing clean up supplies as well as to those who participated in the clean up including senior advisors (Anna Cynar, Emily Goldstein, Bill McCarthy, Stephanie Kelly) and members of the Class of 2021 (Alyssa Abramo, Katy Baird, Jack Benoit, Jordan Boyle, Delaney Brown, Nam Bui, Hope Coleman-Plourde, Gautham Giridharan, Hudson Guilmartin, Emily Huoth, Demetrios Malvers, Penelope McDonald, Georgia Row, Nathan Smith, Isabel Stanley-Kemler, Adrienne Tuleja and Sali Vo).

College Counseling Webinar

Navigating the College Search for Students Who Learn Differently presented by Ferne Bork of Landmark College. May 4th at 7:00pm via Zoom (link to be provided after registration).

Designed for students and families, this webinar will give you the tools you need to determine college fit and will help you prepare for a successful transition. Ferne will provide information about what to consider, the questions to ask, the legal landscape, and the wide range of accommodations, supports, and programs that exist in post-secondary education today. You’ll hear a little about Landmark – where it fits among the many options- and get plenty of time for questions.

Ferne Bork is the Regional Enrollment Representative for Landmark College and mom of a student who has ADHD.

Senior Project Spotlight

Alyssa Abramo organized a craft fair for her senior project and it was held last Friday. It was a beautiful spring day and the fair was enjoyed by all; she even had IACS musicians (Andrew Shapiro, Tyler Donkoh-Halm, and Tom Bojsen) playing live music. I don’t know how she knew that it would be snowing a week later, but she picked the perfect day for it! Congratulations Alyssa.