It is the time of year when we start to do some re-teaching of skills where we find groups of students or individuals need some reinforcement. During the next week, we will start doing some re-teaching of our expectations in the cafeteria. Our 6th-grade group is showing good decision making for the most part, but our 7th and 8th-graders need to work on some skills. Some negative behaviors we see include:

• Throwing food
• Making an intentional mess on the table or floor
• Swearing, including directly to our lunch supervisors
• Refusing to follow the directions of the lunch supervisors
• Not following expectations while outside

Each of the assistant principals will meet with their grade level students at the start of lunch to reinforce our expectations. We know that our students have the ability to act appropriately; we just need to reinforce the skills.

If your child cannot act appropriately in the cafeteria, some consequences may include:

• Ongoing re-teaching of skills
• Lunch detentions
• Building supervised study
• Parent support in the cafeteria (lunch with a parent to reinforce skills)
• Suspension (for extreme or chronic issues or students who are abusive to adult supervisors)
• Or other consequences that may be determined by administration

We work with our lunch supervisors on how to politely request that students follow expectations as well as how to de-escalate issues. We have a strong group of supervisors who enjoy working with our students and are effective at supporting our students in the cafeteria.

Please take the time to reinforce our cafeteria expectations with your RedHawk so that all students can have a calm and relaxing lunch.

We received a GREAT BIG thank you from Lakewood School in Carpentersville for their Scholastic Book reading program. Because of generous donations from dozens of WMS families, we got almost 1300 books into the hands of kids who normally can't afford books.

Thank you, RedHawk families!

Remember: Social and emotional learning (SEL) enhances students’ capacity to integrate skills, attitudes, and behaviors to deal effectively and ethically with daily tasks and challenges. There are five core competencies that can be taught in many ways across many settings.

The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The ability to understand social and ethical norms for behavior and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.

• Perspective-taking

• Empathy

• Appreciating diversity

• Respect for others

Here is a Video link for an overview.

PLEASE COMPLETE THE GOOGLE FORM BELOW

October 30, 2019

Digital Citizenship
Thompson Middle School Cafeteria
6:30-8:00 p.m.

CLICK ON THE APPROPRIATE GOOGLE FORM BELOW TO REGISTER