The Scots' Scoop
Highland Park Middle School's Weekly Family Newsletter
August 27, 2023
Translations
ENGLISH
Prefer a language other than English? You can open the newsletter link and click a button on the right (on a computer) or at the bottom (on a mobile device) to have it translated into many different languages. Please know that the translation function may be inaccurate or incomplete. If you have any questions, please call us at 651-293-8950.
SPANISH
¿Prefiere un idioma que no sea inglés? Puede abrir el enlace del boletín y hacer clic en el botón a la derecha (en una computadora) o en la parte inferior (en un dispositivo móvil) para traducirlo a muchos idiomas diferentes. Tenga en cuenta que la función de traducción puede ser inexacta o incompleta. Si tiene alguna pregunta, llámenos al 651-293-8950.
SOMALI
Ma waxaad doorbideysaa luuqad aan aheyn af-Ingiriis? Waxaad furi kartaa lifaaqa wargeysyada oo guji batoonka midigta (ee kumbiyuutarkaaga) ama xagga hoose (ee taleefankaaga gacanta) si aad wargeyska ugu tarjuntid luuqado badan oo kala duwan. Fadlan ogow in natiijada turjumaaddu ay noqon karto mid aan sax ahayn ama aan dhammaystirnayn. Haddii aad wax su'aalo ah qabtid, fadlan naga soo wac 651-293-8950.
HMONG
Puas xav tau ua lwm hom lus? Nej qhib txoj kab mus rau hauv daim ntawv xov xwm thiab nias lub pob ntawm sab xis hauv lub koos pis tawj, los sis yog lwm hom twj no ces nyob hauv qab, ces yuav muaj txhais ua ntau hom lus. Nco ntsoov tias cov lus txhais no yuav tsis raug txhua lo los sis txhais tiav tiav. Yog nej muaj lus nug, thov hu rau peb ntawm 651-293-8950.
KAREN
ကျိာ်ဂုၤဂၤတခါလၢနအဲၣ်ဒိးအီၤ လၢအတမ့ၢ် အဲကလံးကျိာ်န့ၣ်အိၣ်ဧါ. နအိးထီၣ်ကွၢ်လံာ်တၢ်ကစီၣ်ပှာ်ဘျးစဲ ဒီးစံၢ်လီၤဖဲ ပှာ်ဘျးစဲအဖီခိၣ်ဖဲစုထွဲတကပၤ(လၢခီၣ်ဖၠူထၢၣ်ဖီခိၣ်) မ့တမ့ၢ် စံၢ်လီၤဖဲတၢ်ဖီလာ် (လၢနလီတဲစိ ဖီခိၣ်) ဒ်သိး တၢ်ကကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤလၢကျိာ်အဂုၤအဂၤအဂီၢ်သ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. ဝံသးစူၤသ့ၣ်ညါလၢ လံာ်လၢ တၢ်ကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤန့ၣ် ကအိၣ်ဝဲဒီး တၢ်အကမၣ် မ့တမ့ၢ် တၢ်တလၢတပှဲၤသ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. နမ့ၢ်အိၣ်ဒီး တၢ်သံကွၢ်တဖၣ်န့ၣ်, ဝံသးစူၤကိးပှၤဖဲ 651-293-8950 န့ၣ်တက့ၢ်.
Welcome Back to School
The Scots' Scoop is Highland Park Middle School's newsletter to families and goes out every Sunday at 6pm. Be sure to read it weekly for important news and updates.
Important Upcoming Dates
- Thursday, August 31: New Student Orientation & Open House, 8am-2pm. *See section below titled "New Student Orientation & Open House, Thursday August 31" for specific information for each grade level.
- Monday, September 4: No School, Labor Day
- Tuesday, September 5: First Day of School
Welcome Back Letter from Principal Andrastek
Welcome Back to School!
Dear Highland Park Middle School families:
Welcome to the 2023-24 school year! I am so excited for all of you to be a part of our Highland Park Middle School (HPMS) community! Thank you for entrusting us with your child's education and well-being. The HPMS staff is ready, able, and eager to serve your child and your family; we want your child to thrive in middle school!
Returning to her 4th year at HPMS as assistant principal is Ms. Hibaq Mohamed. Ms. Mohamed is the administrator for our 7th grade Jets team, and our 8th grade Tecolotes and 8th grade Sharks teams. New to our HPMS administration team is Ms. Lois Pantoja. Ms. Pantoja is the administrator for our 6th grade Pumas and 6th grade Eagles teams, and our 7th grade Lobos team. More information about both Ms. Mohamed and Ms. Pantoja can be found here.
At HPMS and Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS), our mission is to inspire students to think critically, pursue their dreams, and change the world. This means providing challenging and engaging instruction in welcoming classroom environments that represent and respect the diverse backgrounds of our students. This way, every student can feel seen, empowered, and ready to find joy in learning.
All of us at HPMS look forward to seeing your student on Tuesday, September 5, 2023! The first day of school is exciting for students, families and staff alike. It can also be overwhelming. Below is information to know so you can help your students be ready for the first day.
I’m so proud to be part of this wonderful school community. All of us at HPMS want to assist you and your family in any way we can.
Sincerely,
John Andrastek, Principal
Highland Park Middle School
Student Schedules
Student schedules can be viewed in the Student Portal on Campus, as well as in the Campus Parent app (be sure to download this app if you have not already!). Please direct any questions about student schedules to HPMS' school counselors:
- Nou Katzmarek, Grade 6 nou.katzmarek@spps.org (651) 744-3400
- Elisabeth Mulvaney, Grade 7 elisabeth.mulvaney@spps.org (651) 744-3399
- Danielle Seifert, Grade 8 danielle.seifert@spps.org (651) 744-7582
New Student Orientation & Open House, Thursday August 31
Please join us at our new student orientation and Open House to welcome students and families to a new year on Thursday, August 31, 2023. Please view the following times to see when you should come to orientation (if you are new to Highland Park Middle) and when to attend Open House:
Lunch is provided by the school for 6th -8th grades, students and families, from 12:00-1:00pm, in the cafeteria.
8:00am-12:00pm NEW 6th Graders Orientation only: Orientation for 6th grade students & parents/guardians begins at 8:00am (please arrive between 7:50am - 8:00am).
Students separate from parents/guardians upon entering the school building & go through orientation from 8:00am - 11:45am led by teachers and 7th & 8th grade student WEB leaders - students will have breakfast to go during this time, as well.
Parents/Guardians meet in the auditorium from 8:00 - 9:00am for parent orientation; at 9:00am, parents are encouraged to leave the building until the end of student orientation. At 11:45am parents may return to reunite with their student in their student's Foundation class (Foundations teachers will connect with parents/guardians via email to provide their room numbers prior to August 31.)
Click here for more detailed information about 6th grade orientation.
New 7th & 8th Graders only: Orientation for new 7th and 8th grade students and their parents/guardians takes place at 11:30am - 12:00pm in the school auditorium.
All Students & families Open House: All new and returning students, and parents/guardians, from 12:00pm - 2:00pm. Students and families may come and go as they please to visit classrooms and get familiar with the school and staff.
Open House concludes at 2:00pm.
School hours
School Supply List
Outside food and drinks
Students may bring a beverage bottle and bag lunch from home. However, food and drinks from, or brought to students, from establishments and food services (e.g. restaurants, DoorDash) are NOT permitted.
Cell Phone, Earbuds, & Electronic Devices
School Bus Transportation
Students will receive a postcard in the mail with transportation information by the end of August. The postcard lists details about where and when to get on and off the bus. Please arrive at the bus stop five minutes before the bus is scheduled to pick up your child. Track the status of your child’s bus on our school’s website or the Bus Status app.
If you have not received a postcard by August 30th and believe your student is taking the bus, call the Transportation Office at (651) 696-9600 OR you can view your child's bus information in the parent portal (Campus Parent) using your guardian username and password (see One Stop page if you do not know your username and password at spps.org/onestop).
Drop-Off and Pick-Up
School Drop-off
Please enter the parking lot off Montreal Avenue and proceed to Door 20. Once you are in front of Door 20, please have your student exit the vehicle immediately. We experience a lot of car traffic in the morning at drop-off, so we need to be as efficient and safe as possible.
Please do not drop off your student in the parking lot at any point until your car gets closest to the school building, nearest to the sidewalk to Door 20. We want students to be safe. Dropping off students in non-designated areas creates an unsafe environment.
During the morning at drop-off, feel free to drop off your student along Montreal Avenue, with your car facing east (school building side of the street) as there is a sidewalk, and students may walk to Door 20 via the sidewalk that runs along the parking lot curb to enter the building.
Upon leaving the parking lot, you may only turn right onto Montreal Avenue, as the line of cars leaving with you backs up very quickly.
You may not drop off your student along Snelling Avenue at any time, as this is a busy bus zone for both morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up.
School Pick-up
Follow the same procedures as listed above. However, you may not park on Montreal Avenue at the end of the day, as Montreal Avenue becomes a bus zone for our school buses.
Meals & Application for Educational Benefits
Application for Educational Benefits
The Minnesota Free School Meals Program provides all students with ONE FREE BREAKFAST and ONE FREE LUNCH per school day. *Students will be charged for single item purchases, such as milk and second meals. The prices for single item purchases can be found at here and on the website at spps.org/ns.
While all in-person students will receive free breakfast and lunch under Minnesota's Free School Meals program, it remains critical that all families complete an Application for Educational Benefits each school year. These applications determine how much funding your child's school receives for educational programs and supports. Additionally, eligible families can qualify for other benefits. The application can be completed online at schoolcafe.com/spps. Paper applications are available at school.
Student Rights & Responsibilities and School Safety
SPPS strives to create welcoming schools where each and every student is seen, known and valued. There are rights students are guaranteed when they are at school as well as responsibilities that accompany those rights. Read the Rights & Responsibilities Handbook.
Attendance is an important part of student success. We realize there are many reasons that a student may be absent from school. If your child will be absent from school, please notify the school at your earliest convenience. Communication between home and school is a vital component to a positive school experience.
Safety is of the utmost importance at our school and district. Families, students and staff can use the MySPPS app to “Send a Tip” and confidentially report unsafe behaviors in school to SPPS Security and Emergency Management.
Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) School Report Card
Each year, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) provides an online report for each public school in Minnesota. To look up the MDE Report Card for HPMS, click here.
Immunizations
Please check in with your health care provider to make sure your child’s immunizations are up to date before school starts in the fall. Visit spps.org/immunizations or call our school nurse for more information.
COVID-19 Guidelines
Families should familiarize themselves with SPPS’s COVID-19 Student and Family Guidelines, which cover prevention strategies, health screening and monitoring, and isolation guidelines.
Face masks are optional in all SPPS buildings and on school transportation when community levels of COVID-19 are low or medium in Ramsey County. Masks are required when community levels are high. This applies to all staff, students and visitors (ages 2 and older), regardless of a person’s vaccine status, unless a student has a qualifying exemption. SPPS will notify families and staff if COVID-19 levels are high and masks become required.
If your child is exhibiting any symptoms, do not send them to school, even if they are fully vaccinated. Report the absence to the school’s front office and submit a report to the COVID-19 Reporting System the same day for next steps.
Find more information on COVID-19 guidelines for the 2023-24 school year, including vaccines, COVID-19 tests available to students, field trips and more at spps.org/covid.
Translations
Volunteering at HPMS
About HPMS
At Highland Park Middle School, our mission is to:
- Provide our students with a sense of community and global perception in a nurturing and caring learning environment,
- Help students acquire the skills necessary to value themselves, and take pride in their accomplishments, and
- Develop respect and understanding of other people and their cultures.
Website: https://www.spps.org/highlandms
Location: 975 Snelling Ave S, Saint Paul, MN, USA
Phone: (651) 293-8950