Principal Page
Dear Alden Middle School Families,
It is hard to believe that spring is right around the corner. The school year is going by so fast. As we close in on some warmer temperatures, our thoughts begin to focus on the end of year events. Please reference this edition of our newsletter and be sure to mark your calendar with the many important upcoming activities.
As part of our continued efforts to address and prevent bullying and promote positive character, we continue to participate in the school wide character education initiative. For the past few months, teachers have been incorporating activities around having a positive in their classroom and nominating “Students of the Month” who exemplified those traits. The week of February 10th, we celebrated kindness and caring week at Alden Middle School. In conjunction with the February trait of “Kindness”, we encouraged staff and students to participate in showing random acts of kindness throughout the week.
March is “Music in our Schools” month at Alden Middle School. On March 4th, middle school band students joined forces with the high school and intermediate school band students to have a combined concert. This was an awesome night. Thank you to Mrs. Nye, Mrs. Nieman, Mr. Larrabee, Mrs. O’Neill and all the students for their hard work and time practicing. On January 23rd -January 25th, the students performed the Middle School musical “Moana Jr”. Kudos to Mrs. Tryka, Mrs. Urso, Miss Lerner, and the students for all their hard work and time to make the performance great.
Our commitment is to provide a safe environment for our students every day. During the week of April 21st, the Middle School will take part in the ACSD Safety Week. Throughout the week, staff and students will be presented with different situations which will require them to go into one of our emergency preparedness procedures. We regularly conduct these drills, so in the event that an emergency does happen, our staff will be ready to put our emergency plans in place to ensure that all the students are safe. To go along with this year’s safety week, we will have NYS mandated lessons related to personal safety and Erin’s Law. These lessons are designed to teach students how to seek out trusted adults if they feel they are in an unsafe situation. They will be conducted at the end of June during our exam week.
Alden Middle School students will take the New York State Assessment in both English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science. The English Language Arts assessment will be administered April 8th and April 9th. The Mathematics assessment will be administered May 6th and May 7th. The 8th grade Science exam will be administered April 29th. We value the role on how these multiple assessments measure and inform us on quality instruction. These assessments are one way the district is able to determine student understanding of grade level expectations and serves as a tool to help us evaluate our programs and curriculum. We encourage all students to be here on time, get a good night sleep, eat a healthy breakfast, and try their best during the assessments.
Soon we will be experiencing warmer weather, it is important that your child is dressed appropriately for school on a daily basis. The safety and security of the students at Alden Middle School are a main priority. Please refer to page 9 in the Alden Middle School Student Handbook for additional information regarding our dress code.
REMINDER: All grades and report cards can be found on the Parent Portal. Parents and students should be using this to keep themselves updated on grades and any missing assignments. For information on the steps needed to create this account, please visit our site at www.aldenschools.org and select the Parent Portal link. If you do not know the student access ID or password, please call the Middle School at 716-937-9116 ext. 2191. In an effort to make sure that we are communicating effectively to our families and people in the community, we have added and updated many sections of our middle school website.
Sincerely,
Steven Smith