Arcola Weekly News
Arcola Intermediate School, 2/25/2022
The Arcola Home and School Association invites students to attend a skate night at Oaks Center Ice on Thursday, March 3rd, from 6:00 - 8:00 PM. Spots are limited, so sign up by February 22nd to reserve your place! The cost is 10 dollars and includes skate rental. Please see the Skate Night attachment below for sign-up information. Let's skate!
· On February 17, the Arcola Philanthropy Club presented a check for $550 to a representative from the Montgomery County SPCA as the result of their “Airheads for Animals” campaign. For the first two weeks of February, students could buy hearts for their friends during lunch. Club members attached the hearts to bags of Airheads candy, mostly donated by teachers and staff, and delivered them on Valentine’s Day. Because most of the SPCA’s funding comes from donors, they were extremely grateful for the gift and it will be put to good use supporting the day-to-day needs of the animals in their care.
Yearbooks are still on sale. We only have about 100 left so please order quickly. You can find the information on Arcola’s website under activities or outside Mr. Haley’s room. This is the best way to remember this year.
February 28: 8th grade Arcola students will participate in the course selection process with the assistance of Arcola and High School counselors and administrators. Please contact Mrs. Berardelli with any questions at sberardelli@methacton.org.
It’s scheduling time for 8th Grade students! This past week, 8th Grades entered their course requests for 9th Grade into PowerSchool. The portal will be open for making adjustments to selections until March 25. Any 8th Grader still confused about the scheduling process should reach out to Ms. Berardelli in the Counseling Office. Parents and guardians are always welcome to contact Ms. Berardelli as well (x30203 or sberardelli@methacton.org).
Tuesday, March 1, is Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD), a grassroots annual global awareness event where some people choose to be more open about their own self-harm/self-injury, and awareness organizations make special efforts to raise awareness about it. Self-injury is any deliberate, non-suicidal behavior that inflicts physical injury to a person’s own body. It is essentially a coping mechanism that enables a person to deal with intense emotional distress. It may also be used to stimulate feeling in a person who is feeling numb. If you discover that your student has been self-injuring, you may understandably feel a mixture of anger, shock, guilt, and worry. Try not to panic or overreact – your child is not alone, and neither are you. Contact your student’s school counselor for help and resources.
As part of our continuing focus on career awareness and career pathways, Arcola will be hosting our annual STEAM Day (career day) on Tuesday, April 12, with the focus on the STEM and Arts fields. We are in need of volunteers to speak to our students about their own careers. More information on how to volunteer can be found here: https://www.methacton.org/Page/471.
Finally, attached to this newsletter is the March issue of Parents Still make the difference!, a newsletter focused on helping you improve your student’s success in school. Also attached is the March issue of Daily Learning Planner, a list of daily topics that will also help your student do well. We hope you enjoy both!
The Methacton School District is once again partnering with the GIANT Company on a special school program to help support our students. From now through February 28, 2022, GIANT customers can “ROUND UP AT THE REGISTER” to support the Methacton Backpack Program. Customers at the local GIANT can “round up” their grocery total at the register and the cumulative total of all the “spare change” donated will go into a fund for the Methacton School District. Last year, this fundraiser awarded more than $6,600 to the Methacton Backpack Program.
Methacton Backpack Program
The Methacton Backpack program is up and running in each of our buildings and serves district families in need with supplemental food and non-food items. This program helps create food stability for breakfast and lunch when our students are not in school. Weekly, the program sends home a bag of breakfast, lunch, and snack items for the weekend and holiday breaks for students in Kindergarten through 12th grade. Families who qualify for free/reduced meals are eligible to participate in the Backpack Program. Please contact the school counselor if you would like to register your child for the Backpack program.
In order to continue to sustain the program please consider contributing and donating items to the program. Items can be donated directly to the school or you can place an order through Amazon and ship it directly to our school from the Amazon page.
Methacton Backpack's Amazon Wishlist
Please remember to select, “No Weekend Delivery.”
What items can I donate?
Individual Serving Food Items
· Single serving boxes of milk (shelf-stable/not refrigerated)
· Mini cereal boxes
· Canned soup (cans with “pop tops”)
· Oatmeal Packs or cups
· Applesauce and fruit cups
· Chef Boyardee, Hormel, Dint Moore Meals, etc.
· Easy Mac Cups
· Cracker packs
· Sweet snacks: Fruit snacks, pudding, granola bars, individual bags of cookies, etc.
· Salty snacks: pretzel packs, goldfish crackers, popcorn, etc.
· 100% juice boxes
