Iroquois Middle School

Dear Iroquois Families:

It is hard to believe that May is already here. These last months of the school year are always so busy—both at school and at home. Please remember to take a close look at the calendar in this newsletter. It contains important dates for many upcoming events.

This month also marks the time of year when we begin preparing for end-of-year milestone events as well as the upcoming 2023-2024 school year. Preparations include plans for events such as the 6th-Grade Moving-Up Ceremony, the Outdoor Education program, and our annual awards celebration. In addition, teachers and staff are working together to prepare students for their transition to the next grade-level. Many conversations, both formal and informal, occur between sending and receiving teachers and staff in order to ensure as smooth a transition as possible for our students.

Additionally, our school counselors and fourth-grade team are working together with their 3rd-grade counterparts to coordinate visits for our incoming fourth-grade students tour of Iroquois School, provide overviews of the fourth-grade program, and answer any questions students may have. We are also working to prepare our incoming parent orientations, which we will hold at the end of this month.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank our PTSA leadership team. Our success throughout the school year is dependent upon many people, especially all of our supportive parents and family members. We could not have the rich programs and events that we do without your help. In particular, I would like to extend our thanks to our PTSA representative Leslie Murphy, who will be ending her three-year commitment at the end of this year. Mrs. Murphy has done an amazing and admirable job in coordinating so many functions and events during this school year. Together with the staff, I would like to express our sincere appreciation and gratitude to her. We are so grateful for her talent, creativity, unending efforts and commitment to our school and students.

Sincerely,

Christian Zwahlen

Principal: Mr. Christian Zwahlen | christian_zwahlen@westiron.monroe.edu

Secretary: Ms. Susan Glastonbury | susan_glastonbury@westiron.monroe.edu

Main office: 585-336-0804

Fax: 585-336-3042

Website: https://irq.westirondequoit.org/

Health Office: 585-336-3091

• Nurse: 585-336-0816

Transportation: 585-336-2992 | Transportation website

District Office: 585-342-5500 | District website: westirondequoit.org

• May 1-5: Staff Appreciation Week
• May 2: Jazz Band Concert @ IHS 7:00 p.m.
• May 2 & 3: NYS Math Assessments
• May 8: BOE Candidates Night @ IHS Campus Center
• May 10: Dake Incoming 7th Grade Parent Orientation @ Dake 7:00 p.m.
• May 11: Spirit Day – Career Day
• May 16: District Budget Vote/BOE Election, 6 AM - 9 PM
  

• May 17: 5th & 6th Gr Orchestra & Chorus Concert @ IHS 7:00 p.m.

• May 19: 6th Grade Medieval Day

• May 19: 6th Grade Glow Party

• May 25: Incoming Grade 4 Parent Orientation 6:00 p.m.

• May 25: Incoming Grade 5 Parent Orientation 6:45 p.m.

• May 29: NO SCHOOL – MEMORIAL DAY

• Jun 5: 5th and 6th Gr Band & Jazz Band Concert 7:00 p.m.
• Jun 8: Spirit Day – Irondequoit Day
• Jun 8: Student Showcase Night 5:30 p.m.
• Jun 14: 4th Gr Band/Chorus/Orchestra Concert @ IHS 7:00 p.m.
• Jun 14-15: 6th Grade Outdoor Education
• Jun 19: NO SCHOOL – JUNETEETH
  
• Jun 21: Grade 6 Recognition Ceremony 9:15 a.m.
  
• Jun 21: LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

The annual District Vote is Tuesday, May 16th and there are three separate areas to consider that require three separate votes:

• The District Budget for the 2023-24 school year

• The Board of Education election (2 candidates for 2 open seats)

• The R.I.S.E. Capital Project (Proposition #1 on the ballot)

You can read more information on each by going to the May 2023 District Vote page at our website and click on the appropriate links. You also are welcome to attend our School Budget Hearing, 7 PM on Thursday, May 4 at District Office, 321 List Ave. Candidates’ Night for our two Board of Education candidates, Mr. John Vay and Mrs. Victoria Bournival, is 6:30 PM on Monday, May 8th in the Campus Center (small cafeteria) at Irondequoit HS. The session will be recorded and later published on our YouTube channel.

CLICK GRAPHIC ABOVE TO READ MORE ABOUT THEM

Dear 6th grade parents & guardians,

I am excited to introduce myself to you as your child’s future principal. As the leader of Dake, I think it is very important to make myself available to you even at this early juncture. Transitions can be nerve racking for both students and parents. I am incredibly excited to meet both your child and you, and look forward to partnering to ensure the best possible education and experience for every incoming Daker. To that end, I would like to invite you to Dake 6 go 7 Parent Night on May 10th at 7 PM. This event will include a brief presentation, time for Q & A, light refreshments, and tours of our building. Students will have an opportunity to visit and tour Dake later in the summer. We sincerely hope you will attend this important event for parents and guardians. My team and I look forward to welcoming your child and your family to the Dake community. It won’t take you long to realize that it is a special place.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Troy R. Bajardi

Proud Dake Principal

As you may remember, through our curricular review process it was determined that our K-6 Math resource requires an update. In response a K-6 Math Pilot Committee was assembled at the beginning of the school year. That committee narrowed down the search to two resources that aligned with our criteria. These resources are Math Expressions and Ready Math. Since then, the selection process entered the pilot stage. This means that participating teachers will be trying out both resources as part of their math instruction to get hands on experience and better determine which resource best meets our needs. Teachers will implement two instructional units based on the piloted instructional resources.

While instruction in pilot classrooms may be different from other classrooms during two instructional units, we have worked with teachers to ensure high quality mathematics instruction continues and that every child’s needs are met. Students in every classroom will be working towards the same NYS math standards no matter which resource is used.

After completion of the pilot teachers will provide feedback and the committee will make a final recommendation to the Board of Education at the end of the month. We look forward to sharing more with you once an official selection is made.

CKLA at K-2 UPDATE

This Fall, we began our implementation of our newly adopted foundational literacy resource, CKLA Skills Strand for grades K-2. The Skill Strand of CKLA program is anchored in science of reading practices, bringing to our students tools and protocols that are aligned with research-based best practices for fostering reading and writing skills. This program has been integral in ensuring that every student is accessing technically proficient literacy instruction. Research informs us that reading instruction requires direct and explicit instruction in order for students to construct accurate knowledge to support their ability to decode, or read, unknown words. Some of the topics and concepts your may have studied this year includes letter names and letter sounds, breaking words down into the individual sounds, finding the right letter/letter combinations that create those sounds, and decoding new words by applying their knowledge of letters and sounds. As students master these and other reading skills, they become more fluent as they read sentences and even whole books.

One of the most important aspects of this learning is ensuring students have texts in which they can apply it. The CKLA Skills Strand program provides our teachers with beautifully illustrated decodable texts. Students are excited to be reading decodable texts that look like chapter books. The stories are engaging, and students are making real connections with the diverse characters represented across the many stories. This is the first and very important step our students take in developing their identity as a reader, and our youngest learners are finding success and joy in this pivotal learning. We are so proud of all of their hard work this year!

Those are the qualities that make for a successful Odyssey of the Mind team. And for the first time in 14 years, two West Irondequoit teams have qualified for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals and both teams are from Iroquois Middle School! Our teams will compete May 25-27 in East Lansing, Mich., on the campus of Michigan State University with traditionally more than 600 teams from around the globe.

The fifth- and sixth-graders are raising money to offset the cost of their trip. Click more below to read more about their journey or to donate!

• READ MORE: bit.ly/OTM_WIStory
• DONATE (via GoFundMe): bit.ly/GoFund_OTM

Team members are sixth graders Anasophia Cartagena, Matthew Crane, Mitchell Getz, Conrad Kamola, Marta Kauffman, Peter Rinella and Oliver Sherwood.

Team members are fifth graders Christopher Dys, Henry Elias, Joseph Giglio, Elijah Lineman, James Pittinaro, Henry Spencer and Finnean St. Croix.

4th Graders

NYS mandates an updated physical for 5th grade. If your child has a physical this year please send a copy to the health office; any physical after 9/1/22 qualifies.

Documents may be faxed 336-3042 or emailed mimi_buerkle@westiron.monroe.edu.

5th Graders

NYS mandates all 6th grade students have the Tdap vaccine prior to the start of 6th grade. If your child child has a physical and receives the Tdap vaccine please send in a copy to school.

Documents may be faxed 336-3042 or emailed mimi_buerkle@westiron.monroe.edu.

6th Graders

NYS mandates the Meningitis vaccine for entry into 7th grade along with an updated physical. Please send your child’s updated physical and Immunization record into the health office.

Students wanting to play fall sports need to have an updated physical on file to begin summer captain’s/preseason work out.

As a reminder students may not return to school until they are free from fever, diarrhea and vomiting, without the use of medications, for a full day after being sick.

Please call ALL absences and time out of school for vacations or other commitments, to the health office at 336-3091 or email to jill_bellanca@westiron.monroe.edu

For your student’s safety, students are only allowed to participate wearing sneakers when playing in PE and recess. Please let your child know they can not participate in recess without proper footwear, that includes outside on the fields and basketball courts.

Applications are due May 12th

Our district’s outdoor classroom, Helmer Nature Center, is turning 50 during the 2023-2024 school year and we'll be witnessing a total solar eclipse in Rochester on Monday, April 8th, 2024. To celebrate both unique events, HNC is holding a contest to design a special nature center logo for next school year. We are asking any West Irondequoit CSD students to help us design this once-in-a-lifetime logo!

Click here to learn more and see the submission form and read Helmer’s Spring newsletter at this link.

Parents/guardians,

Do you:

• Have a new cell phone number or email address?

• Have a new work phone number?

• Need to update your emergency contacts?

Be sure to keep your child's school informed of any changes to your phone numbers or emergency contact information. Update info directly parent portal or send in a note with your child. Thank you!

The West Irondequoit CSD has a TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE BASE that features a plethora of helpful information, including items such as Frequently Asked Questions, tips on solving issues and user guides on Infinite Campus and learning platforms such as Seesaw and Schoology.