News from Oasis

Dear Middle School Parents,

Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year, and greetings from the OASIS team. We've spent time with your middle school student over the past couple of weeks and wanted to give you a glimpse into our discussions. This email will highlight a few of the ways our department intends to partner with you, as well as offer you a few ways you can work on academic success with your child at home.

Guided Study Hall and Support at Home

Guided Study Hall

The Academic Success team desires to collaborate with all the middle school teachers as we strive to adequately prepare students for high school at CVCA. As a part of our program, we offer the MS guided study hall daily in the cafeteria, and we are very grateful for this space to provide students with several different support options during their guided study hall time.

Study Hall Support Options

Collaborative Study Hall

The objective of the collaborative study hall is to support students as they learn to foster healthy work and study habits with the freedom to choose what they wish to work on or study, and allow them the opportunity to do this in collaboration with other students.

Middle school students in good academic standing (not on academic watch or probation) are assigned to this study hall where they are expected to actively engage in academic activities first. As long as students are able to behave appropriately and maintain good grades, we recognize that it is both important and healthy for them to learn how to manage their time, so students are permitted to work with their peers as they do homework and study for assessments.

The teacher(s) assigned to the collaborative study hall side will be responsible for seating charts and attendance, as well as be available to help students look up their assignments on Canvas, answer basic academic questions, and work alongside students as they develop good time management skills and study habits. Students may also ask to move to the quiet study side for certain circumstances such as make-up testing or accessing additional support offered by grade level, content-area, or OASIS teachers.

Quiet/Supported Study Hall

Some students benefit from regular, additional academic intervention/support, including those under academic watch or probation. This side of study hall must be quiet and conducive to reading, studying or making up assessments. Students may not work together unless they are granted special permission, as this side of study hall is reserved for individual work time or targeted academic support as determined by the OASIS teachers.

Make-Up Assessments

Make-up tests and quizzes will be managed by the Middle School OASIS instructors. Classroom teachers will ensure that each quiz or test is clearly labeled with the teacher’s name, the student’s name, and the study hall period the student will make up the assessment. If the assessment is on Canvas, classroom teachers will provide the access code on the test code spreadsheet. If no access code is provided, the student will have to make up the assessment another time.

Expectations and Structure

Guided Study Hall provides an optimal time and place to complete work, study for upcoming assessments, and receive help when needed. This is best accomplished if students are quiet, engaged in their work, or patiently waiting for a teacher’s help.

Some features that help us support this learning environment include arriving on time (seated when the bell rings), assigned seating, no cell phone usage (consistent with the entire Middle School), and structure of the period (first half is quiet study time; second half is collaborative).

Policies

When one or more students are disruptive, and we have to step in, optimal learning opportunities are compromised. If a behavior issue arises, this is the process that will be followed:

Tardies

Students not in their seats when the bell rings will be marked tardy. The third tardy will result in a warning and email home, and the fourth tardy will result in a lunch detention.

Behavior

Teachers will first address the student(s) involved. Typically, one or two warnings are given to redirect the student to actively and quietly working and advise the student that if the behavior continues, it will result in an email home.

If the behavior persists after a couple of warnings, the teacher will reach out to you by email to let you know what happened so you can partner with us, speak with your child at home, and follow up with us afterward.

If the disruptions continue, teachers will issue a lunch detention and notify Mr. Scott Iannetta, the Middle School Principal.

Support at Home

To practically and proactively support your child from home, it is crucial that you are aware of what is going on in your student’s classes every week.

Canvas

We recommend accessing your student’s Canvas account at least 1-2 times a week.

Pair Your Accounts

If you haven't already, explore the Parent Resources section on My CVCA. Included there is a section titled, "Canvas LMS" which contains information and steps to help you pair your account with your student’s account.

Calendar View

Help your student develop their executive functioning skills by looking at the days and weeks ahead and planning for any projects or assessments, as well as noticing what nights they have the most homework.

Academic Planner

Use Canvas to check your child’s academic planner to verify if they are keeping up on assignments.

Grades Tab

Use the “grades” tab in Canvas to check grades and look for any missing assignments.

Regular Check-Ins

Each week, ask your student to show you what they are working on and ask them to give you a summary of what they are learning in their classes that week. Open a dialogue by asking your student questions like, "What feels easy right now and why do you think that is?" or "What feels challenging?" and then ask for more information about why it’s so hard.

Set Up for Success

Habits like the ones being modeled in Guided Study Hall and those mentioned above help your student learn to process what he/she is doing in each class and to more effectively self-monitor. As you understand your student’s unique perspective toward each class, you can also notice any ties to or discrepancies between what is said about a class and what the grade demonstrates about the student’s mastery of the information for that class. As concerns or questions arise from your conversations, you can then also reach out to your child's teacher for more information, ready with the knowledge of how your child is seeing and experiencing things.

On behalf of the Middle School Academic Success team, we hope that your student will experience tremendous academic, spiritual, and emotional growth this year. As the year progresses, we look forward to walking alongside you further as together we support these students.

Partnering with you,

Laura Chadima

Director of Academic Success

lchadima@cvcaroyals.org

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

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