In today's Connection:

• Mr. Mela's Message
• Dates to Remember
• Thanksgiving Recess
• Frozen Fundraiser Pickup Change
• Scholastic Book Fair
• 2022-23 Winter Sports at ECMS
• A Message from the ECMS Health Office
• ECMS Sock Collection Drive for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness
• Food Drive for the Sudbury Community Food Pantry
• Curtis Is Going to Washington in 173 Days!
  
• ECMS Private School Application Procedures and Guidelines
• Curtis 2022-2023 MATHCOUNTS Competition
• Curtis Schedule
  
• Lunch Menu for the Week of 11/14-11/18
• CPO News
• Contact Us

Dear Parents and Guardians:

Tomorrow is a day to say thank you and to honor all those who served honorably in the military. It’s easy to take for granted that we live in a country where we can be free and where we can enjoy our friends, families and all of the opportunities we have been provided. It’s important to take time to reflect on the sacrifices that our veterans have made for all of us and to express our appreciation.

Enjoy the weekend,

Jeff

Friday, November 11 - No School - Veterans Day

Wednesday, November 16 - 12:45 Early Release: Parent/Teacher Conferences; 5-6:30 pm Frozen Fundraiser curbside pickup

Wednesday, November 23 - 12:45 Early Release: Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 24 - Friday, November 25 - No School - Thanksgiving Recess

November 28 - December 2 - Scholastic Book Fair

If your family will be traveling for the holiday and your child will miss any school, please call into our absence line -- 978-443-1071, press 1.

Pickup for pies and cookie dough will now be IN PERSON in the CAFETERIA on Wednesday Nov. 16th at 5-6:30pm. It will no longer be curbside.

Volunteers are still needed from 3-7pm. If you are able to volunteer, please sign up here.

The Book Fair is coming! Curtis' in person Book Fair will be taking place November 28 through December 2 this year, with online shopping starting on November 21. As usual, all purchases go to support our library!

If you would like to get a jump on things, you click here to check out our website. The site will give you a preview of some of this year's books, as well as offer you the opportunity to set up an eWallet for your student. We are also looking for lots of parent volunteers to help the fair go smoothly! If you are interested in joining us, you can sign up here. Any questions, contact Jessica Moore.

Welcome to the winter sports season at ECMS! We have an online sports registration process to register students for 7th and 8th grade boys and girls basketball. Our online registration is through FamilyID (www.familyid.com). FamilyID is a secure registration platform that provides you with an easy, user-friendly way to register for our sports, and helps us to be more administratively efficient and environmentally responsible. When you register through FamilyID, the system keeps track of your information in your FamilyID profile. You enter your information only once for each family member for multiple uses and multiple programs.

The winter sports offerings are:

• 7th/8th grade girls basketball

• 7th/8th grade boys basketball
  
  

The $195 athletic fee must be paid by check made out to “Town of Sudbury” and given to your child’s coach after the rosters are finalized. Practices will be from 3:20 -4:30pm Monday thru Thursday. The game schedules can be found on the ECMS Athletics under the individual sport. Team updates and any cancellations of sessions due to weather by 1pm on that day may also be found on this website.

The tryouts will begin on during the week of November 28, 2022:

The tryout schedule will be on the sports website by November 16, 2022

To be able to try out, Family ID must be fully completed. Students will also have access to the locker rooms..

BEFORE YOU REGISTER:
Have your child’s latest physical exam from within the last 13 months available to upload during the registration process.

INFORMATION NEEDED TO REGISTER:
It will be helpful to have the following information handy to allow for accurate completion of your online registration:
Doctor information
Health insurance information

REGISTRATION PROCESS: Our sports registration process is now open and will close on Nov.16, 2022. A parent/guardian should register by clicking here.

Follow these steps:

1. To find your program, click on the link and select the registration form under the word Programs.

2. Next click on the blue Register Now button and scroll, if necessary, to the Create Account/Log In green buttons. If this is your first time using FamilyID, click Create Account. Click Log In, if you already have a FamilyID account.

3. Create your secure FamilyID account by entering the account owner First and Last names (parent/guardian), E-mail address and password. Select I Agree to the FamilyID Terms of Service. Click Create Account.

4. You will receive an email with a link to activate your new account. (If you don’t see the email, check your email filters (spam, junk, etc.).

5. Click on the link in your activation Email, which will log you in to FamilyID.com

6. Once in the registration form, complete the information requested. All fields with a red* are required to have an answer.

7. Click the Continue button when your form is complete.

8. Review your registration summary.

9. Click the green Submit button. After selecting ‘Submit’, the registration will be complete. You will receive a completion email from FamilyID confirming your registration.

10. Athletic fee in the amount of $195.00 must be paid by check made out to “Town of Sudbury” and given to your child’s coach when the team’s roster is finalized..

At any time, you may login at www.familyid.com to update your information and to check your registration(s). To view a completed registration, select the 'Registration' tab on the blue bar.

SUPPORT:
If you need assistance with registration, contact FamilyID at: support@familyid.com or 781-205-2800 x1. Support is available 7 days per week and messages will be returned promptly.

If you have any medical questions, please contact the Curtis Health Office at 1-978-443-1071 x 7528 or x7509. For schedules or cancellations, please visit the ECMS athletics website. General inquiries regarding fall intramural sports, please email David Jurewicz.

Sincerely,
David Jurewicz
Director of Athletics

While we have seen minimal influenza activity in town to date, there is now widespread flu activity across the country, especially in the South.

What can you do to stop the flu?

1. Get vaccinated! It is not too late to get your seasonal flu vaccination! While the vaccine begins to create an immune response immediately after receiving the vaccine, peak effect is about two weeks post vaccination. Get your vaccine now to be fully protected. Pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens offer vaccination, as do most physicians offices. A flu vaccine may not completely prevent you from contracting the flu but will often minimize symptoms and hospitalization
2. Know the symptoms of the flu! This graphic helps distinguish flu from the common cold:

3. Practice good hygiene! Encourage covering a cough or sneeze with a tissue or using your “cough catcher” (sneezing/coughing into your elbow). Perform hand hygiene by sanitizing or washing with soap and water after coughing/sneezing, before and after eating and after using the restroom.

4. Stay home when sick! SPS illness policy requires students to remain out of school for 24 hours after a fever (defined as a temperature >100.4) without the use of fever reducing medications and for 24 hours after the resolution of vomiting or diarrhea and tolerating a normal diet. If you’re in doubt, keep them out! Illnesses spread rapidly through schools in the colder months. If your child isn’t feeling well enough to learn they should remain at home until they are feeling better. If they are diagnosed with influenza they must remain out of school until 24 hours fever free and symptom improvement. As we know, COVID 19 is still also circulating and the isolation guidelines remain. Contact the health office for guidance if your student tests positive.

Please help us keep our schools healthy for all students. Thank you and stay healthy!

Curtis is hosting a food collection drive that will start this Monday, November 14th, and run through Friday, December 2nd. The collection drive has been organized by the Curtis Angels and will benefit the Sudbury Community Food Pantry and the hundreds of families the Food Pantry supports.

Most needed items are: canned diced tomatoes and sauce, pasta, condiments (salad dressing, mayo, ketchup), full size snacks (cookies, crackers & chips), baking items (cake & brownie mix, oils), and soup. Holiday items: stuffing, boxed mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, canned corn and canned green beans.

A collection bin will be located in the front lobby at Curtis. Please contact Curtis Angels Faculty Advisor Ivar Henningson if you have questions. On behalf of the Sudbury Community Food Pantry, thank you for your support.

Have you registered yet?

Reminder to 8th grade families: Register now for lower monthly payments.

To register your 8th grader for the civics trip, go to Worldstrides AND Family ID.

To seek financial aid, use the D.C. Scholarship Request Form.

For other information and links, please visit the ECMS D.C. Website.

If your child is applying to private school, please contact your child’s grade level school counselor so that we can help facilitate the process. To ensure that this process is efficient and expedient, please follow these guidelines:

• Prior to submitting any forms (electronically or on paper), please ensure that your child contacts their teachers and the counselor to ask for their recommendation.

• Most schools are using on-line platforms for applications and recommendations. Please notify the grade counselor which schools your child is applying to and the platforms that these schools use.

• If the applications require paper forms, they should be dropped off at the ECMS main office to the attention of the grade level counselor. Please do not send any paper recommendation forms directly to teachers; the grade level counselor will distribute these to teachers.

• In order to send records and recommendations to the private school, we must have a signed release from a parent or guardian. This is usually provided with the private school application form or may be part of the on-line platform.

• We request that you submit all forms as early as possible to allow teachers and counselors ample time to complete recommendations. Please be aware of the following timeline for submitting forms to the grade level counselor:

By December 1, 2022 for a January 1, 2023 deadline
By December 15, 2022 for a January 15, 2023 deadline
By January 3, 2023 for a February 1, 2023 deadline

• In early spring after you have heard from the school’s admissions department, please contact the grade level counselor to inform us of the application outcome and private school decisions for your child.

• Please direct any questions about the status of recommendations to the following counselors.

Procedure for applications requiring direct mail:

• Include a large (10 x 13) stamped standard mailing envelope for each school with the forms, so that we are able to mail them out quickly when the applications are complete.

• On each mailing envelope, include a postage amount of $2.94.

• Print the specific name and address to whom we are directing the application.

• Leave the return address blank as we will fill this in indicating that the materials came from Curtis.

- Terry Miller, Grade 6 ext. 7513

- Jennifer Hymes, Grade 7 ext. 7512

- Ivar Henningson, Grade 8 ext. 7511

Thank you very much for your assistance and cooperation with this private school application process.

ECMS Counseling Department

Attention all math lovers!

The MATHCOUNTS Competition is coming back to Curtis again this year! This competition series will be in person. All in-school students of Curtis 6th - 8th graders are eligible to participate in a school level MATHCOUNTS practice competition. Following that, a group of up to 12 selected students will be representing Curtis Middle School at the Chapter

Competition.

What is MATHCOUNTS?

The MATHCOUNTS Competition Series is a nationwide middle school

mathematics competition that provides students the opportunity to compete

in-person against and alongside their peers.

The competition is held annually at the school, chapter, state and national

levels. This will be the sixth year that Curtis Middle School will participate

in the competition. Our goal is to have fun, build confidence, and improve our

critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Registration and Cost

School Practice Competition

Date: TBD before end of January 2023(after school time or weekend)

Cost: free

How/when to register: Complete the registration form here by Nov 20th

Chapter competition will be held in February 2023.

Registration fee for Chapter Competition: $30 / student

A group of up to 12 students per school will attend the Chapter Competition.

Who leads the Chapter team?

The Curtis MATHCOUNTS team will be lead by volunteer Curtis parents. There are no weekly meets. There will be online or in-person practice sessions before the chapter competition for the school group. This year’s coaches will be Mr. Yi Hou and Sophia Hou.

Please contact Yi Hou at yihou@hotmail.com with any questions.

Please click here to view the SPS 2022-2023 School Calendar.

Please click here to see the complete Curtis schedule for this school year.

Curtis Directory

You can still purchase online access to the Curtis directory and make a donation to

Direct Appeal in one easy step. Online access for the directory is $10 and you will

have access right after you place your order. Visit this link to get Directory access

today !

Direct Appeal

Please consider a tax-deductible donation to the CPO to help support Curtis’ cultural, creative, and educational programming. The CPO supports a variety of programs and initiatives, including cultural enrichment, the 1:1 computing program, the Curtis Messenger newsletter, student scholarships, student social events, technology, end-of-year activities, classroom curriculum aids for teachers, UA supplies, recess equipment, uniforms for school sports teams, library furniture, the student counseling department, the tile project in the school hallways, outdoor beautification projects, and much more. These are all important additions to the Curtis community and they truly improve the students’ experience at Curtis Middle School. This is all possible because of the generosity of the Curtis parent community.

We suggest a $75 donation—but no donation is too small—and all are appreciated! Also, please check if your company offers a matching donation. Click here to donate.

Please note that donation acknowledgment letters will be provided by request only. If you require a letter for tax purposes, please email a request to cpotreasurer@gmail.com.

(You can also make a donation when you order your directory!)

Lost & Found

Please remind your student to check the Lost & Found in the cafeteria for missing items. There are a lot of clothes, shoes, bags and water bottles and other items that need to go back home. On our Facebook page you can find a recent post with videos/photos of items in the Lost & Found. It is important to note that there are multiple sizes of several items, so please check before taking what is yours.

CPO Facebook Page

The CPO Facebook is a great resource to get information and ask questions. Please remember to answer the required questions to be approved. This is important for us to keep the membership contained to Curtis families.

Curtis Gear

The Curtis online store is now open with lots of Curtis spirit wear and gear, including clothing, hats, bags, and more!

8th Grade Events and Washington DC Trip: VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

We are still looking for volunteers to form a team to help with various aspects of the DC trip.

Additionally, we need a team of parent volunteers to start planning the 8th Grade events including the end of the year Social.

Please reach out to the 8th Grade Co-Chair Nalini Luthra via email nluthra647@aol.com if you would like more information or sign up to help.

CPO Messenger

Please share this newsletter with others who are new to Curtis and encourage them to sign up for their own copy!

Learning ~ Respect ~ Responsibliity

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