GVMS Weekly Update
March 23rd, 2020
Garnet Valley Middle School
Email: stenzl@garnetvalley.org
Website: https://gvms.garnetvalleyschools.com/
Location: 601 Smithbridge Road
Phone: 610-579-5100
Twitter: @GarnetValleyMS
Weekly Update
GVMS School Community
Garnet Valley Middle School Community,
As we begin week two of our closure, we hope all of our families are safe and feeling healthy! Our teachers are sharing how much students are engaging in our optional learning opportunities. We have been so impressed with our students' initiative, motivation, and engagement in the learning process. We miss you. So we thought we would share just a little something on what life is like at home for us.
Take care and we are thinking about all of you...
Mrs. Stenz, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Weinhardt
GVMS Course Selection Update
The middle school has recently started our course selection process! On March 9th, building administrators and school counselors presented to the fifth grade student bodies of GVES and BSES. This presentation was the first of many opportunities we have to planned to help ease the transition for our incoming sixth graders.
Our annual 5th to 6th Grade Parent Transition meeting was scheduled for March 17th. While we were not able to hold this event, we are optimistic that we will have a chance to meet our incoming families sometime later this school year. We have transferred all of our course selection information over to a designated area of our website. To access this information, please visit the "Course Selection Information" portion of our website located within the "Resources" dropdown menu. This area includes:
- Copy of the 5th to 6th Grade Transition Parent Meeting presentation
- Narrated version of the above presentation
- 2020-2021 GVMS Course Selection Guide
- 2020-2021 Visual Guide for Electives
- Presentation that was shared with the 5th Grade student bodies on March 9th
- Grade-specific Course Selection Forms (pdf version)
- Link to the 6th Grade Course Selection online Google Form
Our original return date for sixth grade course selection forms was April 1st. We realize not all families were able to receive a hard copy of the course selection form at their recent fifth grade parent teacher conferences. A pdf copy of each grade's course selection form will be available on our website. In order to remain on schedule, we are asking only our sixth grade families to complete the 6th Grade Course Selection Google Form (also located on our website) by April 1st. If you have any questions or need assistance, please email Gerry Weinhardt at weinhag@garnetvalley.org.
A pdf copy of 7th and 8th Grade Course Selection forms are available online as well. Our school counselors are planning on meeting with our students and scheduling their classes together in late April. At this point, we are asking our incoming 7th and 8th grade families to begin looking at the course selection form and our course selection resources. We will be sure to clearly communicate with our families if we have to move to an online course selection form for 7th and 8th grade as well.
To access all of this information head to the GVMS website and hover over the "Resources" dropdown. From there, select, "Course Selection Information" and you should be able to view all of our course selection resources. Resources will begin going live on Monday, March 23rd.
Again, thank you for your interest and your patience as we move through this modified process and your commitment to doing what is best for our students!
A great shot of our students engaging with our committed community members!
5th to 6th Grade Transition Night
Our 5th to 6th Grade Transition Parent Meeting was scheduled for March 17th at 6:00 PM. While we love seeing all of our new families, we are unsure when we will be back in school and able to meet again with large groups of community members. Since we have had the presentation and all documents ready to go for weeks now, we have decided to record an audio version of this year's presentation. This will allow our families to access the information and start having conversations around course selection.
The link below will direct you to our Course Selection Information section of our website. This portion of our website will allow you to access our 5th to 6th presentation. We will also have our 2020-2021 Student Course Selection Guide available for families to discuss the various options we have here at GVMS. Something new for this year is the 2020-2021 Visual Guide to Electives. This presentation will provide our students with the opportunity to get quick overview of what they can expect in the various elective courses.
Click here to hyperlink to the Course Selection Information portion of the GVMS website.
If you have any questions about the presentation, please contact Gerry Weinhardt at:
Our Amazing School Counselors
We wanted to take a moment and share our list of school counselors again with the community. Please know that the GVMS Guidance Department is buzzing on a typical school day. Our counselors do an amazing job working through a multitude of issues with our students each and every school day. Even though we are not in physically in school, we ask that you remind/reassure our students that our school counselors are still here to provide support during regular school hours! Also, feel free to contact our counselors if you have any questions as we continue moving through the course selection process.
2019 - 2020 School Counselor Caseloads
Marisa Mahon - Last names beginning with A-Em
Wendy Xanthopoulos - Last names beginning with Ep-Ler
Madison Rogas - Last names beginning with Les-Rom
Christy Francart - Last names beginning with Ros-Z
Mrs. Cleary's Padlet of Learning
Links to Important Information
Garnet Valley Communities That Cares
Garnet Valley CTC Quick Tip #27 Our Prosocial Students
The results are back from the 2017 Pennsylvania Youth Survey for Garnet Valley’s 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. We also have results from 2013 and 2015.
The results of this anonymous survey are self-reported and represent 83.9% of our students.
Did you know? One of our great strengths in Garnet Valley is that 92.8% of our students participate in pro-social activities. PAYS (2017) tells us that this fosters healthy development and helps create connections with peers and adults in our community who engage in prosocial behaviors. Helping others also helps us feel less helpless and builds our sense of worthiness. Students need only look to their parent/care givers, school staff, and employers to see pro-social behavior in action. Our fund for helping others through the GV CTC has grown to $4726.00 and is still growing, thank you! This fund is providing gift cards for necessities in our Garnet Valley community. What can our students do to continue their outstanding pro-social ‘way of being’ in the world?
Call to action… Ask your student how they would like to reach out to others safely. Reaching out to others with technology is native to them. Ask them who they would like to check in with or recognize. Consider fellow students, neighbors, family members, teachers, counselors, and principals. All will appreciate an email or text or tweet, of appreciation and acknowledgement.
Share the facts about COVID-19 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/talking-with-children.html
https://sites.google.com/garnetvalley.org/gvsd-coronavirus/home
Access mental health help if needed
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13ju6pGVNZhLqq0bE-nfwfzyv_UqKtA8u/view
Garnet Valley Middle School
Email: stenzl@garnetvalley.org
Website: gvms.garnetvalleyschools.com
Location: 601 Smithbridge Road
Phone: 610-579-5100
Twitter: @GarnetValleyMS