August 13th, 2013

Dear Parents/Guardians:

Welcome back to the 2013-2014 school year. We are excited about the beginning of the school year and I have some important information for you. For parents who are new to Newton Middle School I send a weekly update out to parents, usually on Thursday or Friday afternoon depending on my schedule. The update includes important information regarding Newton and what is happening in our building.

As with any new school year we do have a few personnel changes. Please help me welcome the following new staff members:  Brian Wyckhuyse, Asst. Principal, Joan May, Science, Kelly Stice, Science/Math, Renee Sullice, ESL, Julie Miller, Para, Becki Ratliff, Para. We are currently in the process of hiring a .5 social studies teacher. The person we hired in June resigned last week so we will be interviewing candidates to fulfill this position on Friday. This position is for one section of 6^th grade social studies and three 8^th grade social studies sections.  If your child does not have a teacher listed for social studies on their schedule we should have this position filled very quickly. We do have a substitute lined up for next week who is a regular person in the building.

We will be conducting schedule pick up for all students this Thursday, August 15^th. Please check the front of our website for more detailed instructions. If you cannot attend on Thursday please arrive at Newton on August 19^th at 7:30 am with your student in order to receive the student schedule, pay fees etc.

The link to our school supply list is located on the front page of our website; please access that for supply lists for each grade level.

The first day of school for students is August 19^th. Sixth grade students will begin at our normal scheduled time which is 7:54. Our seventh and eighth grade students will begin on our late start schedule and will report to school at 9:54.

This year our administrative team will supervise and work with the following teachers and grade levels:

Mrs. Barrett:   6^th grade

Mr. Wyckhuyse:  7^th grade

Mr. O’Tremba, 8th grade

I want to remind parents that we will not make changes to student schedules unless there is a scheduling error on our part. We do not take requests for specific teachers for content areas. Any changes to schedules that are made will be done the first two weeks of school. Please check for any errors on the student schedule.

We are looking forward to another successful school year and we are ready to get started. If you have any questions/concerns feel free to contact me.

Respectfully,

James O’Tremba

Principal, Newton Middle School