HP Post

We welcomed our 6th graders back on August 26th and 7th and 8th graders joined us on the 27th. 456 students joined us and we continue to welcome new students. Our enrollment is defintely up as we buck the trend of declining enrollment.

6th Graders were greeted by staff and our phenomonal WEB students. They particpated in an assembly, small group activites, tours of the building and even squeezed in their classes. It was a positive day full of energy. A special thank you to our staff WEB team, Amanda Coggins, Michelle McMillan and Heather Cooper. Their hours or preparation are greatly appreciated.

7th and 8th graders joined us the next day and the school felt complete again. Students spent the first few days going over school wide, and classroom, expectations. We strongly encouaraged staff to use the first few days of school building community in classrooms and ensuring everyone understands what behaviors we want to see at Harrison Park.

We are excited to see how the year unfolds. The possiblities are endless and your scholars will help make HP a special place to learn and grow.

We are striving to make some shifts in our traffic patterns for drop off and pick up. If you have been in the frey of drop off, or pickup, you know that there is a lot of traffic and this increases the likelihood of a accidnet or injury.

• DIVISION STREET ENTRY- We are asking people coming from Division onto 87th to utilize the cafeteria parking lot for drop off and pickup. This allows you to safely pull out of the street up to the building so your student does not have to cross traffic to enter the building. From here students can enter the cafeteria, after 9:00, or opt to walk on the sidewalk to the front of the building and wait to enter the building with others. We have two staff members assigned to this area. Drivers can safetly loop through the parking lot and head back to Divison with a simple right hand turn. After school students can wait safely in this area and enter the car without crossing into traffic. Drivers can then loop through the parking lot and get to Divison, often before the buses depart at approximately 4:07.
• STEPHENS/NORTH ENTRY- For those people coming form Stephens street or from the north, we ask you to enter the front parking lot to pick up your student and to take a left hand turn back towards Stephens upon pickup. A staff member can help facilitate this turn safely.
• OTHER OPTIONS- We also encourage families to utilize street side parking north of the school near the baseball fields on Stephens. Your scholar can safely utilize the sidewalk to your vehicle and again avoid crossing the street or being in heavy traffic. You may also want to explore pickup on 85th, the street behind the school.

We ask that you avoid the following:

• Dropping kids off in the middle of the street and having them cross unassisted. This creates a threat to them and clogs up street traffic.
• Making U-turns in the middle of the street to head in the opposite direction. This is a safety issue for pediestrians and is increases the chances of accidents.

We want to keep traffic clear from the front parking lot to the cafeteria parking lot to ensure students are safe and to help keep cars moving. We will continue to remind people as they drop off and pick up students. We appreciate your support with these changes that are designed to keep all students safe.

We made the decison to make a few shifts this week to staff schedules. We orginally planned for three sections of 8th grade Social Studies and two sections of Mandarin Social Studies. It became clear another section of 8th grade SS was needed as Ms.Chapman's classes were in the 36-38 range. With no additional saffing on the horizon, we were able to make a few changes to add another section of 8th grade SS. This impacted a few other classes as well. We have communicated directly with parents/guardians of impacted students and do not anticpte any additonal changes. We appreciate your understanding in ensuring we can balance all classes to reasonable levels.

It is a different story with our 300+ 7th and 8th graders. We made efforts to make it work, but ultimately, the lunch line was long and many students were not even seated by the time we allowed the first group outside. On the upside this solved a seating problem! The issue became very clear on our first indoor day when we had too many kids in the cafeteria, gyms, etc. Ultimately, this makes supervision difficult and overcrowding makes everyone grumpy.

Friday, we gave 8th graders the opportunity to decide if they would like to eat lunch first and then go outside or vice versa. They overwelmingly voted for this option.

What this means

Starting today (Tuesday the 8th), 8th graders will go to the cafeteria after 4th period. 7th graders will head outside or to the library if it is open. Halfway through the 34 minute lunch period studens will swap locations and 8th graders will head outside and 7th graders will come to the cafeteria.

We met with both grades this morning to let them know of the changes. We will continue to finetune this and make minor adjustments based on student suggetions and needs. Please feel free to reach out to Principal Dickey at ldickey@pps.net if you ahve questions or concerns.

Hello Harrison Park Families,

The PTA is excited to welcome all families to the Harrison Park MS PTA group. We welcome all levels of family involvement and support for a mix of activities this school year. We start with a PTA meeting on Wednesday, September 9, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm (library door to the far left of the main entrance) to introduce ourselves, discuss the budget, parent-supported events, and updates. Please come and hear what we have planned. All are welcome.

You can join the PTA to vote on the budget and support HP PTA for $16.00 per year at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1llNiaU06pRWuedW8FJbFnspTJ2dz_nNA8jERQaBbqf8/viewform?edit_requested=true. Thank you for completing the Google and Zeffy portions.

Upcoming events being organized:

PTA Garden Committee first meeting on Thursday, September 24. Time and location TBD.

PTA meeting Wednesday, October 14, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm in the Library.

(Placeholder Event) Wednesday, October 28 - Pending approval and adult support.

No Stuff November 1st to 30th fundraiser.

Fall Indoor Plant Sale Monday, Nov 23 and Tuesday, Nov 24 during Teacher Conferences in the school lobby.

Parent-supported food and snacks for Teachers during conferences on Monday, Nov 23 and Tuesday, Nov 24.

Parents supporting Staff at Winter Carnival Friday, December 18. Time TBD in the school gyms.

PTA Clothing Center is looking for adult volunteers on Thursday, September 10, on the Marshal Campus (around the side toward the loading docks) any time between 9:30 am and 1:30 pm. All help is welcome. Just show up when you can.

To make these and other incredible PTA-sponsored events successful, we need the generous volunteer efforts from the wonderful Harrison Park community. Your HP PTA Board members this year are volunteer co-presidents Joanna Beatty and Lisa Williams, Secretary Melissa Curry, and Treasurer Darcie Bell. We have volunteer positions for Communications, Fundraising, and a co-Treasurer partner. This will be discussed at this Wednesday's meeting. The board plans to meet once per month in addition to the regular PTA meetings.

The HPT PTA Board and volunteers look forward to meeting and working with you this school year!

9th- PTA Meeting @ 6:30 in the library

16th- Early Release Day, 1:45 departure for students

18th- Principal Coffee Chat @ 9:30

21st- SUN After School Program begins

23rd- Curriculum Instruction, TAG, Title Night @ 6:00

25th- 6th Grade Mixer (Tentative)

29th- ESL Parent/Family Night @ 6:00

30th- AVID 8th U of P Field Trip