Greetings Kent Community,

This past week we worked to empower Kent students to take action in improving their school, their community, and their world through a variety of Be the Change Week activities. During Be the Change Week, we examined individual journeys of students, staff, and community members, while building empathy for and understanding of diverse life experiences.

On Monday, eighth grade student leaders facilitated a full-school assembly rich with stories, songs, and poetry. Select students and staff members shared personal and professional journeys that helped shape their worldview, and perspective, as well as their identity.

During advisory on Tuesday and a special advisory session on Thursday, each Kent Falcon reflected on a past or present personal journey of growth, and how that journey has shaped their own identity and view of the world. On Wednesday, all eighth graders worked with their advisories for a full day, intense experience of self-reflection, and community building. During opportunities class on Wednesday, fifth through seventh graders heard from community speakers sharing diverse stories of personal, professional, and physical journeys.

We hope that students concluded this week with a stronger sense of self, a broader world perspective, and an understanding of the power and positive influence they hold. We will revisit this theme of "journey" throughout this year through a variety of activities both inside and outside of the classroom, including our Whole School Read of Alan Gratz’ book, Refugee.

I’m proud to be a part of a school community that emphasizes the social and emotional health of our children, and the intentional development of contributive citizens and positive change agents.

Be the change you wish to see in the world, Falcons!

Dear Families,

We are excited to be partnering once again with Good Eggs online grocery to raise money for a Kent Middle School project. This year, our fundraising efforts will be directed toward our One-Book-One-School initiative. If you haven't already heard, we are bringing author Alan Gratz to Kent Middle School this spring. In advance of his visit, our entire school will read his novel, Refugee. In it, Gratz weaves the stories of three different main characters and time periods, and "all three young people will go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge." Our Be the Change week, which begins on Monday, will introduce the theme of journey and that will remain our focus this year in our social and emotional learning curriculum.

Our Good Eggs fundraiser began October 1st and ends November 30th. If you haven't used Good Eggs before, I encourage you to check it out and use the new customer discount. If we get 20 new customers to join, Kent will receive a $500 fundraising bonus. Our school's code is FALCONS2018.

As always, we remain extremely grateful for our community's support of our school.

Hello and welcome to the Counselors’ Corner! The school year had a good and busy start! Middle school is definitely a time that is ripe with opportunities to explore and talk about socially and emotionally related topics!

General Info: A counselor’s role is to assist in clearing the way for each student to have a happy and educationally successful year. Sometimes issues with work habits, friends, behavior, stress, difficulty managing schoolwork, busy schedules, or events taking place outside of school surface. We encourage you to let us know if there are any major changes and challenges in your family life (such as illness or divorce) so that we can be alerted and, hopefully, more sensitive to your child’s needs during a difficult time. Please feel free to contact us if you have any worries about your child. Also – we want to urge you to contact us if your child feels he/she is being bullied. We have a very unique and effective way of dealing with bullying that really has turned students’ lives around. Please do not wait too long before contacting us, as we are interested in helping to alleviate any undue suffering. We are very happy to try to help so our students feel safe and supported here at Kent Middle School. (See below for more information about Solution Teams.)

Meeting with individual students and their parents is, of course, a big part of a counselor’s job. We encourage students to take the initiative to sign-up to see us using the counseling box in the main office, as well as outside the Counseling offices. We are also very fortunate to have our fantastic counselor interns, Laura Bolles and Suzanna Brown this year. Laura and Suzanna are here to help us provide consistent and ongoing school-based counseling support for our Kent students.

Meetings: We encourage you to contact your child’s teacher directly, if there is a concern or question in a specific class. If you feel there is a need to meet with all of your student’s teachers, feel free to email either Heidi or Corey and we will facilitate putting a meeting on the calendar. These “all-call” meetings are held at 8:00 a.m. in one of our conference rooms. We also meet with the entire school staff by grade level at Guidance meetings, which take place twice per month after school on Wednesdays. Guidance meetings give school staff an opportunity to discuss students about whom we may have concerns or questions. We may also be contacting you to come meet with your child’s team to put together a plan to better support their academic success.

Advisory: Advisory is a time for your child and his/her teacher and classmates to talk about socially-emotionally related topics relevant to their grade level. Feel free to ask your child about these discussions. The themes are organized accordingly:

• 5th Grade: Who Am I and How Do I Organize My Life?
• 6th Grade: Leaving the Nest - How Do I Advocate for Myself and Others?
• 7th Grade: My Social Circles, My Community
• 8th Grade: Building My Future

Bullying and Solution Teams

As most of you know, we have a special protocol for how we deal with bullying at Kent – the Solution Team Approach. For more information, please check out our new Kent Middle School School Counselor website here.

• Please do inform us if your child is being bullied, even if you do not think a Solution Team is the right fit for your child’s situation - as we would like to assist in making sure that all students feel safe and supported, while at school.

Upcoming Events:

• Teens in Transition Parent Information Letter to be mailed: Week of October 1st
• Teens in Transition Parent Information Night: Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. in the Kent Library
• Teens in Transition for 8th graders: November 16, 2018 at Kent, November 19-20, 2018 at Branson.