Announcements

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

It’s teacher’ appreciation week and my goodness are we appreciative of our fabulous teachers here at SMS.  The theme this year is “SMS Teachers are the BEST in the West!”… come on by to say “howdy” to our teachers, see our doors decorated with wanted posters, our western themed staff room, and Friday we will have our staff picture taken with a tractor brought over by RDO Equipment just for us!   Our teachers are simply incredible and we really appreciate all the hard work and effort they put in to making Sandstone such a great place to work and learn!!!

 

 

Up Coming Events

 Don't miss out on these dates..

  • 5/9 – 5th Grade visits to SMS
  • 5/9 – 5th Grade Transition Parent Meeting, 6:30pm
  • 5/23 – Career Exposure Afternoon, 12:45 – 3:15pm
  • 5/23 – Spot Light on Sandstone, 4:00 – 6:00pm
  • 5/23 – Spring Outdoor Band Concert, 6:00pm
  • 5/27 – No school – Memorial Day
  • 5/30 – 6th Grade Field Trip
  • 5/30 – Spring Choir Concert, 7:00pm
  • 5/31 – BEST Reward Activity
  • 5/31 – Healthy Choices Day
  • 6/3 – 6th & 7th Grade Year End Assembly, 2:20pm
  • 6/4 – 8th Grade Recognition Assembly, 9:30am
  • 6/4 – 8th Grade Celebration, 6-8pm
  • 6/5 – Benchmark Carnival – Student’s Last Day        

Writing for Success

Each year some of our students participate in the Rotary Essay Contest sponsored by local Rotary Club.  The essay’s theme is the “Four Way Test” which asks students to put a morality test on a situation that they, their family, or friends have been through.  This is an extremely hard essay for most of our students to write and we are sure proud to say that two of our students were runners up in the competition, each earning $25.  Reed Middleton and Joshua Clayton, SMS 7th Graders, each were honored and had the opportunity to read their essays at a recent Rotary Luncheon. 

 

 

 

                 

Yay Hermiston Education Foundation!!!

Congratulations go out to three Sandstone middle school teachers who were awarded HEF grants a few weeks ago!  Tracy Hodges (ELL Teacher) and Amber Utter wrote their grants for IPads.  Wendy Ross (Life Skills Teacher) wrote a grant for a garden for her students.  We really appreciate the time and effort these great teachers put in to improving their classrooms and learning experiences for their students.  Congrats!!!

 

 

Sports Schedules

Are you looking for an up to date sports schedule? You can now find our middle schools and High School sports schedules on the Columbia River Conference website. You can also register to be notified of any schedule changes through out the season. Please click here  to be directed the the website or you can go to www.columbiariverconference.org.

Are you missing a pair of glasses?

The office is getting quit a collection of glasses turned into them. If you are missing yours or know of another student missing theirs please stop by Mrs. Wilson's window and see if any of them belong to you.

To get your new Parent Power School Log In:

Ø Go to http://powerschool.hermiston.k12.or.us/public/ and click on “Create Account”

Ø  Complete all information and create your own, unique User Name and Password

Ø  Enter the Student’s Name, Parent Access ID and Parent Password

_________________________________

 

Para recibir su nueva Entrada al sistema de Power School Paternal:

 

Ø  Vaya a http://powerschool.hermiston.k12.or.us/public/  y haga clic en “Create Account”

Ø  Complete toda la información y crea su propia, único Nombre de usuario y Contraseña

Ø  Entre el Nombre del Estudiante, Identificación de Acceso y Contraseña

 

 

 

Educator of the Year – Jill Miller

 Structured Learning Teacher at SMS has been selected as our 2012-13 Educator of the Year.  Jill exudes patience, kindness, and compassion which is proven in her daily interaction with her staff and students.  She has an amazing gift for finding and developing every student’s talent and strengths.  She makes the classroom a positive learning environment, and inspires the students to want to do their best.  Her position requires her to coordinate with many different departments and ESD entities, and she does so with great professionalism.  Jill never hesitates to communicate with parents with positive feedback as well as problem solving.  She does a great job of making sure her Instructional Assistants feel they are an important part of their team.  She is an all-around, complete package teacher.

 

Thank You School Board Members –

The staff and students at Sandstone Middle School would like to thank our School Board members for their service to our district.  We will be honoring Jason Middleton as our School Board Member this month.  We are looking forward to inviting Jason into our school to tour some of our classes, attend an assembly, talk to our students about what the role of a school board member is in our community and school system, and we might have a few surprises in store as well.  Thank you for all you do to make the Hermiston School District such a great place to work and learn School Board Members!

 

SMS Students Giving Back –

Our students proved, once again, how phenomenal they are by exceeding our expectations for the annual canned food drive for the Hermiston Christmas Express.   Our goal was 5430 items which was 10 items per student. Our students brought in a total of 6742 food products to give to the great program ran by the Hermiston Police and Fire Departments.  Our top three food providers were:  Maribel Marin (1000 pounds), Madelyn Juul (800 pounds), and Ivana Pena (199 items).  SMS Social Studies Teacher, Lance Hawkins’, class won the class competition by bringing in a total of 1317 items which was 54.9 per person. 

We are really proud of our students and their thoughtfulness in helping to support those in need in our great community.  A big thank you goes out to SMS Leadership Teacher, Sandy Wise, for organizing this year’s Canned Food Drive again!

 

Band Against Bullying!!

 It sure is great being a Desert Hawk!  There are so many exciting things going on in our building right now.  One of the biggest is our HERO anti-bullying intervention.  Mr. Usher, Mrs. Wise and our leadership students are leading the charge on this year’s Band against Bullying program.  All Desert Hawks in our building are welcome to take a pledge during their lunch break to be a HERO and help stop bullying and harassment in our school.  The HERO acronym stands for the following:

Help

Encourage      

Respect

Others

Any student who takes this pledge, will receive a bully band that symbolizes their pledge to Help, Encourage and Respect Others.  Congratulation to all those students who choose to do the right thing!

 

 

Check Mate!

Chess Club started the year off with THE RIGHT MOVE!  Sandstone’s chess club gained momentum last year as we sent three students to compete in the state tournament, in Portland.  Two of those students have returned this year and we can definitely feel their leadership and experience pushing us to a new level.  Students from any grade level can participate in chess club and we have players who are just beginning to those who have many years of experience.  Sandstone’s chess club meets every Tuesday after school and our players are motivated by their enjoyment of the game and sharing their interest with one another. 

 

Sandstone Student Leaders at Funshop

 

 Hermiston was well represented as over 60 student leaders from both Sandstone and Armand attended an OASC Funshop in Pendleton on October 17th, 2012. Students were actively engaged as nationally recognized presenter Stu Schaffer, out of California, presented his “Traveling Junk Show”. His program teaches students how to build spirit and connections in fellow classmates and how to improve school climate.

 

In addition, student leaders continued to find value in community service as they walked through seven different service learning projects one of which is shown here, BooBoo Bunnies. (These are made from washcloths and ribbon…you wet the bottom of the bunny and freeze them. Then you put them on the booboo to help it feel betterJ.)  Students can make the bunnies and take them to a local preschools or daycares.  Thank you to ASB Advisor Sandy Wise and SMS Counselor Caleb Salmond for chaperoning the students on this great event.

 

New Staff Members

We are really excited about our three new Sandstone Middle School staff members this year.  Please help me in welcoming:

Lisa McElroy has joined us as the Science Teacher for Team Mazama.  She will be teaching 7th & 8th grade students Science and Exploratory here at SMS.  Before she came to us she taught 11 years for the Umatilla School District as a Science and Elementary teacher.  

                    

 

 

Morgan Wilson is a new Educational Assistant in our Life Skills program.  She will be working with Teacher, Wendy Ross, to help our 6th – 8th grade Life Skills students to not only build their academic skills but their skills to be successful in life.

 

Caleb Salmond, our new counselor has been an excellent addition to our office staff at SMS.  Will be focusing this year on student emotional and academic success, career education, drug/alcohol use & bullying/harassment prevention, and other duties as assigned J.

Mrs. Wick Scholastic Book Orders

 

Click Here to place your book club orders. Every parent order earns FREE BOOKS for our classroom!

Activation Code: LBV78

Professional Development

ALMS and SMS joined forces for the Oct. 12th State In-Service again this year to create a fabulous morning of learning how to hone the professional practices of our teachers.  We started out our morning with department meetings where our teachers discussed their curriculum maps and generated ideas on how to incorporate more Constructing Meaning and C.L.E.W. strategies into their lesson plans.  Our Counselors and Deans of Students worked on how to create a more comprehensive drug, alcohol, and tobacco prevention program at the middle school level.

            The rest of the morning the teachers were given the opportunity to choose which trainings they would like to participate in.   With the help of our HSD Educational Services & Special Education Departments, IMESD, and our own teachers we were able to offer 10 different trainings to choose to take in three 45-minute sessions.

            Trainings included:

·         Putting a Face on Learning Disabilities  -- Arta Jones (HSD Special Education)

·         Promethean Board Flip ChartsRob Doherty, Sandra Rice, Brooke Palzinski, and Royceann Taft (ALMS Science Teachers)

·         Writing & Implementing Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Support PlansClint Kittrell (HSD Behavior Specialist)

·         EasyCBM Reporting ToolsTani Houk (HSD TOSA)

·         Working with Students Identified with High Functioning AutismSusan Rodgers (ESD Autism Specialist)

·         New Technology in Social Studies AdoptionRich Harshberger (ALMS Social Studies Teacher) & Lance Hawkins (SMS Social Studies Teacher)

·         Literacy StrategiesSharon Dunlop (Retired HSD Language Arts Teacher)

·         Data Tools for Tracking Behavior in the ClassroomClint Kittrell (HSD Behavior Specialist)

·         Working with Habitually Disruptive Students in the ClassroomClint Kittrell (HSD Behavior Specialist)

·         Active Expressions Rob Doherty, Sandra Rice, Brooke Palzinski, and Royceann Taft (ALMS Science Teachers)

It was a great day for our teachers and we have had a lot of positive feedback about how great the presenters did giving their pupils valuable tools to take back and implement in their classrooms.

 

 

Catching a C.L.E.W

We are in our second year of catching C.L.E.W.’s at SMS where we focus on the areas of:

            Critical Thinking

          Literacy Strategies

          Engagement of Students

          Writing Across the Curriculums

Our goals, peer observations, supervisor observations, and weekly email reminders all are focused around the four categories of C.L.E.W.  We are catching C.L.E.W.’s left and right and doing some pretty great things instructionally because of it!

 

Parent PowerSchool Instructions

To get your new Parent Power School Log In:

 

Ø  Go to http://powerschool.hermiston.k12.or.us/public/ and click on “Create Account”

Ø  Complete all information and create your own, unique User Name and Password

Ø  Enter the Student’s Name, Parent Access ID and Parent Password

_________________________________

 

Para recibir su nueva Entrada al sistema de Power School Paternal:

 

Ø  Vaya a http://powerschool.hermiston.k12.or.us/public/  y haga clic en “Create Account”

Ø  Complete toda la información y crea su propia, único Nombre de usuario y Contraseña

Ø  Entre el Nombre del Estudiante, Identificación de Acceso y Contraseña

 

 

 

 

 

Fall Sports

Fall Sports Schedules are now online.