Honed in on Academics and Improving Skills This Time of Year

Dear Escalante Middle School Community,

February can be a tricky month in middle school for students. At risk of sounding a bit like Scrooge, I often wish I had the authority to ban Valentine’s Day entirely because of the drama it can bring to our students. As a staff, we are very honed in on academics and improving skills this time of year. We hope to inspire students to craft high quality History Day projects, essays, and math skills. I imagine our students are feeling that academic pressure a bit, and when we throw Valentine’s angst and the ebb and flow of typical middle social anxiety on top of it, it is no wonder that February tends to be our most intense discipline month.

Because we do have some big academic deadlines on the horizon, parents can really support their kids by checking in on their History Day progress and creating time and space for them to catch up if they have fallen behind. The day before the History Day projects are due tends to be riddled with hysteria, and students become overwhelmed with the consequence of procrastination. Our social studies teachers are great about sharing timelines and resources out on Google Docs, so if you’d like to see where your child is at, I’d highly recommend that you ask your child to walk you through their progress.

If you find that first crushes or Valentine’s angst is impacting your child, we don’t necessarily have a Google Classroom for that! However, here is a link to an article that gives some pretty good guidelines for how to have those conversations with a tween.

https://www.familycircle.com/teen/tween-dating/

As always, thanks for all you do for our community.

Jeremy Voss
EMS, Principal

Published February 8, 2019 Print