We had a great week back at HPMS to start 2023! Congratulations once again to our boys basketball team for picking up a win at Dacusville this past Monday! Our girls and boys have away games next Monday against Starr-Iva, and they will host Liberty Middle at home next Thursday starting at 5:30. Please come out and support our Cubs!

Please be reminded that next Wednesday, 1/11 will be the end of Quarter 2. Please speak to your students and review their grades with them to celebrate the positives and discuss anything that they may need to work on to improve. Your help and support in this area truly makes a difference.

Wrestling Update

Congratulations to the following wrestlers for qualifying for Upperstate which will be on January 14th at Hillcrest High School:

Leelin Laburda - 1st place finish

Nathan Harris - 1st place finish

Leeland Hughes

Logan Owens

Brock Smith

James Morris

Zaiden Bohler

These wrestlers wrestled and placed at the Area 1 Qualifier which included 20 high schools.

Additionally, BHP wrestled Palmetto and Woodruff this week.

Leelin Laburda won both of his matches by pin. Nathan Harris won his match by pin. Both Leelin and Nathan still maintain a perfect undefeated record for the year. Leeland Hughes also won a match by pin.

Power Hour Notes

I also want to ask for your assistance as we re-emphasized to our students this week the importance the intervention period they have each day (Power Hour). We also made it clear that it is required that they use plug-in ear buds or headphones with their Chromebooks while completing green lessons during the first 20-25 minutes of Power Hour Mondays through Thursdays each week. This is so that they can listen to the lessons that are on their instructional level to receive that extra learning. The vast majority of our students complete and pass these lessons faithfully every week. We have the highest completion and pass rates that we've had as a school, but I believe that we can be even better. When looking at the data, there is a direct tie between those who consistently complete and pass these lessons and those who grow academically throughout the year. This is because the lessons help to fill in gaps or accelerate learning. They are only one part of the whole picture because nothing can ever replace the work of our great teachers; however, they are an essential part of the measurably excellent success we've seen at HPMS.

We will be addressing any student who is not following this expectation, and if they are not completing this essential work, they could be assigned after school detention to complete the lessons. We prefer not to do this because the time is already built into the day for them to work. As always, extenuating circumstances are understood, and we do have some students who have tested out of these lessons in math, ELA, or both. For the majority, please help us to ensure that your students are bringing the required materials to school and using this time appropriately to complete the lessons during the time they are given.

Honor Band

The following HPMS advanced band students were selected for the Anderson All-County Honor Band!

Zane Brown (7)

Lukas Fletcher (7)

David Jones (8)

Maddisyn Long (7)

Elainna Lopez-Ayala (7)

Isaac Walker (8)

Congratulations to these talented young musicians and to our Band Director Ms. Curry!

Procedural Reminders for After the Holidays

I want to provide some clarification regarding our normal procedures here at HPMS as we transition into January and request your help as we move into 2023 in upholding our policies for an orderly school environment:

• On page 3 of our handbook, we have asked that parents and families refrain from dropping off food, money, clothing, or other random items for students. As you can imagine, food and gifts in particular often create a disruption and more students requesting this from their parents. We appreciate your help in keeping our students focused.
• We also ask that parents help us to remind students that they are to utilize the proper procedures for contacting home if needed. Student phones are to be turned off and put away throughout the day. Once students have gotten permission from teachers or staff, we have phones available throughout the school for students to contact home in case of emergency, and our front office staff allows students to use personal devices if needed to contact home.
• Whenever students get new clothes over a break, they are rightfully excited to wear them at school. We appreciate your continued help in making sure students wear clothing that meets our dress code. The most common issues we see are shorts that are too short, tops that are too short and do not cover the buttocks when leggings are worn as pants, and tops that expose the midriff. The dress code can be found on page 8 of the handbook.

As always, I am happy to go into further detail if more is needed regarding the policies above. My goal is to provide clarification on these items so that we can plan ahead together and avoid confusion. We are very blessed to have such supportive and understanding families who appreciate our efforts to provide a safe and focused learning environment for your children.

Softball - 7th and 8th Grade Girls

For 7th or 8th grade girls interested in playing softball in the spring, softball weight lifting takes place on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays from 3:40-4:40 in the weight room. Please contact Coach Jennings (jjennings@asd2.org) for more information.

Our EXCELLENT State Report Card Information

CLICK HERE to view our state report card data.

Schooldigger.com Rankings

Please CLICK HERE for the state-wide middle school rankings.

Please CLICK HERE for our school's profile and data breakdown.

We also need your help in maintaining our morning procedure for students. We hold them in the hallways before 7:45AM each day, and during that time, they should be sitting silently and reading or silently and eating breakfast. We have told students they are expected to have a book of their own. They have gone to the library with teachers at this point, so they should have one. If not, please have them get a book that they enjoy for the mornings so that they are prepared. Overall, students have done a great job with this procedure, but we want to make sure that we maintain it properly as the year progresses.

Additionally, students were provided more information regarding our procedures for dress code, safety, discipline, the handbook, and many other aspects of our school environment for HPMS. We thank you in advance for working with your student to be familiar with how things are done here to make this a focused and safe school environment. I do want to ask also specifically for your help with dress code this year. Overall, everyone has done a truly great job with this; however, the main issues we have seen so far are shorts that are too short, shirts that are too short with leggings, and holes in pants that are above the inseam. Please speak with your students about this this weekend so that they can be in compliance with our procedures.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE HANDBOOK (DRESS CODE ON PAGES 8-9)

State Department Tutoring Resource

This is a great resource from the state for students and parents. The link below is a quick Screencastify video that shows how to go to the Tutor.com program through discus. (No audio)

https://watch.screencastify.com/v/xXFJ54tuo7maIx8GiJDr

Grade Level Newsletters/Agendas

Click Here for the 6th Grade Newsletter/Agenda

Click Here for the 7th Grade Newsletter/Agenda

Click Here for the 8th Grade Newsletter/Agenda

Free and Reduced Lunch Application

Please remember that lunch and breakfast are no longer provided free at this time for everyone; however, we do encourage everyone to fill out this form, regardless of your previous form status. Please view the application, fill it out, and have it returned to HPMS if you haven't already completed one!

Free and Reduced Meal Application Link

Thank you,

John Michael Hall, Principal of Honea Path Middle School

The flyers above explain how students can utilize Tutor.com for free through scdiscus.org. Also, the link below is to a video tutorial that explains how it works and what features it offers. This is an excellent resource and we want to make sure all of our students have the information needed to access it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vseB8vIXI

Arrival and General Procedures

Please continue to assist us in the mornings with drop offs. It is very helpful to us and the other parents in line if you will pull forward, at least until the end of the brick flowerbed wall out front to let your child out if you are in the front of the line. We ask that other cars behind the lead car to pull forward as well. This adds only a few extra steps for your student, but it goes much faster for everyone and helps everyone get to class on time if we can unload 4 or more students at a time out front. Students must be in the building by 7:57 in order to be counted as on time.

Dress Code Information

We appreciate in advance your help with our updated dress code for this year. I ask you to please review these for yourself and with your students. They have been covered in school with the teachers, but we greatly appreciate your help at home. The most common issues we see are holes in pants that are far too large or too high, shorts that are too short, shirts that are too short or cut too low, exposed undergarments, and shirts/tops that aren't long enough over leggings. Please also note that we also don't allow blankets/pillows to be carried or hats/hoodies worn in the building.

CLICK HERE AND SCROLL TO PAGES 8 AND 9 FOR 22-23 DRESS CODE INFORMATION

PTO

If you’re interested in volunteering to help with the PTO, or if you're just interested in finding out ways to help support our students and teachers, please contact the PTO at hpmspto@gmail.com for more information! We would love to have you involved!

COVID Contact/Positive Test Procedure

It is critical that you let us know if someone in your household has been diagnosed with COVID or your student has been named a close contact due to a contact that occurred outside of school. If you become aware of this after school hours or on the weekend, please feel free to email me at jmhall@asd2.org AND Nurse Snipes at msnipes@asd2.org. We also encourage you to call during school hours ASAP and hold your student out of school until you receive more information from us based on our guidelines from DHEC. Your help with this is critical to keeping the school safe for everyone.

HPMS Parent/Student Handbook

This is our updated version and we ask all parents to familiarize yourself with our policies and procedures.

CLICK HERE FOR THE 22-23 STUDENT HANDBOOK

Links to Information (You may have to right-click on some links to open them)

Online Registration Site

Free and Reduced Meal Application Link

If you have more than one student attending HPMS, we ask that you follow the procedure for the eldest student. If you are carpooling, we ask that you follow the procedure for 8th graders.

6th Grade - 6th grade students will be dismissed to the front car line, and we will continue to have parents pull forward until you reach your child. 6th graders will be waiting down at the end of the sidewalk in front of the 4K building (except in cases of severe weather). We ask 6th grade parents to approach the school from the Main Street side of Central Avenue. This will keep us from backing up on to 252 from Brock, and it should require very little driving out of the way to get in line. We ask that you do not attempt to turn left from Brock into the front of the school as this is against the traffic laws on that road during school hours.

7th Grade - 7th grade students will cross the road to get in cars which will be on Park Ave. on the right side of the road. Please do not block the entrance/exit to the parking lot in front of the school when you are in line. Park Ave. is wide enough that if you will pull to the right, it will still allow traffic through on Park as needed. Once you pick up your student, please turn left onto Brock Ave. to help us keep that crosswalk cleared. We also prefer that you would get in line from the part of Central Ave. that runs behind the football field to avoid backing up traffic on Park. We realize this may not be practical for all.

8th Grade and Carpooling Students - 8th grade students will go to the parking lot across the street for dismissal. To make leaving easier for you, please park in the center column of spaces in the lot. We are also asking that you turn left out of the parking lot when you leave. We realize that this is less convenient for those of you who normally turn right, but it will keep from having two sets of traffic turning onto Brock Ave. at the same time and creating a bottleneck. If you are picking up two or more students, you are welcomed to use this lot as well, regardless of grade level.

We ask that you drive carefully around the school because there will be several different valves of traffic going to and from the school.

• 1/9 - HPMS Basketball @ Starr-Iva Middle AWAY - 5:30PM and 7PM
  
• 1/11 - End of Quarter 2
• 1/12 - Liberty Middle v. HPMS Basketball HOME - 5:30PM and 7PM
• 1/13 - No School for Students - PD Day
• 1/16 - MLK Holiday - No School for Students
• 1/17 - HPMS Basketball @ Belton Middle AWAY - 5:30PM and 7PM
• 1/19 - 7th Grade Roper Mountain Field Trip
• 1/19 - Dacusville Middle v. HPMS Basketball HOME - 5:30PM and 7PM
• 1/26 - Substitute Teacher Workshop - 9AM-12PM @ District Office
• 1/26 - Starr-Iva Middle v. HPMS Basketball HOME - 5:30PM and 7PM
• 1/27 - Music Ideals Auditions at HPMS
• 2/2 - 8th Grade Job Shadowing
• 2/17 - No School for Students - PD Day
• 3/24 - Spring Pictures