August 31, 2000
Volume 10, No. 1
A reminder to all families that the speed limit on both 46th and on Hanover is normally 25 miles per hour and goes down to 20 miles per hour near the school from 7 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. Speed is monitored by radar. There are also elementary school bus stops on both of these streets for the neighborhood children who are now bussed to school. Watch carefully for small, distracted children.
Thirteen-month RTD bus passes are available for students for $62.50. Contact RTD at 303-299-6464 and ask about the Boulder Valley School District ValuPass.
Summit's Back-to-School Night for parents will be held on Thursday, September 7, from 6:15 to 8:40 PM. Informative meetings with each of your student's teachers will follow a short opening session in the multipurpose room. The program is tightly scheduled. Please pick up a copy of your student's schedule between 6:15 and 6:25 PM so that you will know where to go for each of the meetings following the opening session. We look forward to seeing you there.
Summit will soon offer shirts with the Summit logo. Look for an order form at Back-to-School night and in the next newsletter. Call Janet McDaniel with questions, 303-530-1840.
Due to the high volume of schedule change requests made during the first few weeks of school, we ask that you do not call or visit the counseling office to request a schedule change. Instead, please make your request in writing, be sure it is signed by a parent, and submit it to the office staff. Forms for this purpose may be obtained in the office. If there is a problem with granting your request, Ms. Bartley will get back to you or your student. Otherwise, your student's new printed schedule with the requested change will be delivered to your student at school. Note: Students may not change the classes they attend until they receive a new schedule from the counselor's office. Core course change requests will be processed first, and elective course change requests last. Due to scheduling conflicts and the need to balance class sizes and teacher loads, schedule change requests cannot always be granted. Please be patient as we process your schedule change.
By the time you read this we hope to have locker assignments for all students. We still do not have a target date for the delivery of the locks - we hope it will be soon. Please do not have the students leave valuables in their lockers. Students are not allowed to bring their own locks - we need to have access to all lockers. Thank you for your patience.
What a wonderful Summit Family we have!
Our move to our new location would never have been accomplished without the hard work of the parents, staff, faculty, friends, students and siblings of Summit Middle School. What a heart-warming experience to see how very much our families care about the quality of their child's educational experience.
It required many hours day after day of scraping, painting, scrubbing, mowing, unpacking, organizing and general pitching in to create order out of the chaos of the move and prepare our new home. There were so many volunteers who went way above and beyond the call of duty that it's virtually impossible to list all of you.
However, a few stellar figures stand out: Debbie Feyh made sure we were packed, Tom Jarmon got us moved, Hunter McDaniel made sure the computers worked, Gwen Aten slaved to make sure the bathroom floors were clean, and Ron Loftus will always be the whiteboard/pencil sharpener man who also secured our Summit sign. Bernie Grove worked without pause throughout the summer to orchestrate the entire show, and we had more than 60 people enjoy burgers and hotdogs at the school BBQ at end of a long, hot move-in day on August 12th.
You came and worked hard not only because you feel ownership of our new facility and wanted to make sure everything was ready to go on the first day of the new school year, but because you feel a part of this wonderful Summit Family. And all the hard work paid off. Our faculty, staff and students are now busy focusing on what counts the most - creating the best educational experience possible.
It takes a village to raise a child. We have an outstanding village of Summit Families helping our children grow. A heartfelt THANKS to all of you!
--- Julie Dotson, PVC Coordinator
Thanks also to all who have returned your volunteer forms - the response was fantastic! We are compiling the information and will be contacting you. If you have any questions, please call Julie Dotson at 303-499-8749 or email me at julia_dotson@stortek.com
We have six new teachers on our staff, the result of hard work by the Summit Hiring Committee these past few months. We extend a warm welcome to Tony Alcantara, Carola Gorschboth, Alexandra Londos, Wendy McMillan, Juilane McMurtrey, and Peter Teasdale! This has been an excellent "recruiting season," and we believe you will come to appreciate our new teachers just as we've had the opportunity to do through our hiring process.
Our committee members deserve very special recognition for their strong commitment to selecting the best teachers possible to work with our students. We can't thank these parents enough for their work with us on hiring this year: Jeanne Aguilar, Susan Becker, Jim Cederberg, Ron Goldfarb, Marti Gorman, Tom Jarmon, Eileen Patrick, Betsy Phelan, and Kathy Reims. In addition, we've had incredible support and assistance from Summit staff members Bernie Grove, Amanda Avallone, Mery Molenaar, Sharon Sikora, Cheryle Kapsak and Valerie Koch, and we appreciate the extra time and energy they have devoted to the hiring of their new colleagues.
Having Summit students join in on candidate interviews is an extremely important part of how we hire new teachers. More than 80 Summit students-- a third of our student body -- volunteered time during the spring and summer to help with teacher candidate observations. We couldn't do our hiring without them. Though too numerous to list here, they know who they are and all can be proud of their roles in supporting Summit. Several of these students participated in multiple interviews, and they deserve our special thanks.
If you have questions or comments about the Summit hiring process, please get in touch with us.
--- Barbry Hogue (665-3798) and Cinda Graubard (444-4851), Co-chairs, Summit Hiring Committee
Watch upcoming newsletters for new teacher biographies and a report on the professional development activities which members of our faculty participated in over the summer.
Seventh grade American History students will be participating in the National History Day Research Project. This year's theme is "Frontiers in History: People, Places, and Ideas." More information is available at http://nationalhistoryday.org/NationalHistoryDay/2000_theme.htm. History Day will be introduced in all American History classes on September 22. Projects will be due on December 5. More information will follow.
--- Ms. Kapsak
All athletes are required to submit to the office a sports physical report, a parent permission form, and an athletic insurance waiver form.
Interscholastic Sports:
8th grade only - for football, soccer, basketball, and volleyball. 6th, 7th, and 8th grades may participate in track and wrestling.
Participation Fee: $60 per sport or a maximum of $150 per student/$200 per family in one year.
Intramural Sports:
Participation fee: $20 per sport.
Extramural Sports:
My name is Juilane McMurtrey and I am thrilled to be here at Summit working as your Library Media Specialist. With your help, I have been working hard to create a dynamic, well-stocked resource center for your students' use. My hope is that the library will soon become a place of comfort as well as of learning, and that we will explore the world of information together here.
I would like to thank everyone who has donated books, as well as those of you who have taken used books down to the Bookworm Used Bookstore and donated the credit to Summit. We are slowly but surely building a collection!
However, we have now used up all of the credit available. I would like to invite you to take your used books to the Bookworm and to donate the credit to Summit. This has been a great way for us to get books (and for you to clean off your shelves)! The Bookworm is located in the small mall to the west of Albertson's at 28th and the Diagonal.
We also have a need for educational software and videos. If you have any that you are no longer using and would like to donate, please call me at 303-499-9511 or e-mail me at juilane_mcmurtrey@ceo.cudenver.edu.
At this point, the library has NO encyclopedias. If any of you have a set to donate that is good quality and less than 6 years old we would love to take it off of your hands.
Finally, we have registered Summit with an educational products website that will give the school a $250 gift certificate for Barnes and Noble book purchases if at least 50 people register on their site as potential customers by September 30th. The form requires no personal or financial information and it is possible to indicate that you don't wish to receive e-mail advertisements. This seems like a painless way to benefit the library. As is always the case with Internet adventures, please look through the site before registering to be certain you wish to participate.
If you have access to the Internet and you wish to participate, go to http://www.schoolpop.com. Click on "register" and indicate "Summit Middle School" in Boulder as your school. Then fill out the form. If 50 Summit families register by September 30, we will receive the certificate.
Again, thank you all so much for your continuing support and volunteerism. Together we will build a library to be proud of!
The Mapleton YMCA has a supervised after-school teen program for 6th through 12th grade students. The program is offered five days a week between 3:00 and 6:00 PM at the YMCA facility at 28th and Mapleton.
Teens have their own snack and game room where they can play billiards, air hockey, foosball and listen to their favorite CDs. There is a computer lab where they can catch up on their homework with the help of volunteer tutors from the University of Colorado. Teens are also allowed to use the climbing wall, play basketball and racquetball, and go swimming during this time.
The cost of the program is $17 a month. The YMCA can arrange a pickup van if there are enough students enrolled in the program. Other possibilities for transportation are carpooling or arranging a Kidz Karz pick-up from Summit.
To sign up for the program, call Mike Eubank at 303-443-4474 x 216 or 303-442-2778 or visit the facility at 2850 Mapleton Avenue. To arrange possible carpooling, please call Summit parents Rebecca or John Hess at 303-443-9286.
Weekly classes for 6th through 12th graders are available to provide help with learning styles, time management and organizational skills, note taking, test taking, and memory skills. Parents attend (free) with students.
Cost is $125 for 5 classes. For more information call Gloria Frender, 303-530-3195.
The American Red Cross offers babysitting certification courses for students 11-15 years old. The courses include: basic childcare, first aid, accident prevention, emergency response, and appropriate toys and games for different age groups. Call the Boulder County Branch of the American Red Cross at 303-442-0577, for current course dates.
Upcoming Summit Board meetings will be held on Mondays, September 11, 25 and October 9, 23 at 7 PM in the Library.
The Parent-Teacher Hotline is a free service offered by the Boulder Daily Camera. Summit uses this service to allow parents to keep track of their students' homework assignments. Students should use this service only as a backup to their Daily Planner. The Hotline should also be used as a reliable source of homework assignments when students are ill.
Call 303-938-9090
Faculty Extensions:
Summit Administrative Extensions:
To save both trees and the cost of postage, we would like to deliver as many copies of Summit News electronically. Please send an e-mail to marthagorman@att.net to indicate how you wish to receive the newsletter, per the brief questionnaire attached to this newsletter.
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/univ_school/summit/