Dear Fairfield Families,

I am excited to introduce our new monthly Middle School Newsletter! This newsletter will serve as a key way for us to stay connected, share important updates, and celebrate the incredible work happening within our school. Each month, we will highlight student achievements, upcoming events, and initiatives that support our mission of fostering a positive and engaging learning environment. Our goal is to keep you informed while also showcasing the dedication and success of our students and staff.

We believe that strong communication between school and home is essential for student success, and this newsletter will be one of many ways we keep you engaged in what’s happening at Fairfield Middle School. I encourage you to visit my Principal’s Page for additional updates and information. Thank you for your continued support—we look forward to sharing the great stories of our school with you each month!

Mr. Hoffacker

🎉 Congratulations to the January Knights of the Month! 🎉

These students are selected by their teachers for best representing the qualities of a Knight,

by being Respectful, Responsible, and Ready to Learn!

Pictured above, starting in the back from left to right:

Joshua Paddock-7th grade, Adelynn Weatherly-7th grade, Cody Simmons-8th grade,

The PBIS program is a proactive approach to creating a positive and inclusive school environment, aimed at promoting the wellbeing and success of all students. By emphasizing positive reinforcement and teaching desired student behaviors, our program strives to prevent behavioral challenges and foster a supportive culture where students feel valued, respected, and engaged in their learning, that nurtures academic excellence and personal growth. PBIS creates schools where all students succeed.

The Middle School PBIS Team is planning this year's Knight-A-Thon. The funds raised from the Knight-a-Thon help to support our positive behavior rewards such as our tubing 🛷

and bowling 🎳 field trips, and lunch at Ventura's 🍕. We are planning an exciting end-of-year field trip for those students who have consistently shown positive behavior and have been respectful, responsible, and ready to learn all year. Our PBIS plans events for students, teachers, and staff to promote a positive learning environment for all students. 🚀

This month, the school counselor will be concluding our career development series, SmartFutures, for students in grades 5-8. Throughout this program, students explored, including identifying their skills, interests, and abilities, conducting career research, understanding the importance of teamwork, developing decision-making skills, and learning the fundamentals of resume writing.

March 13th - Early Dismissal for Students / Teacher Inservice - PM

March 14th - Teacher Inservice

March 20th - End of 3rd Marking Period & 1st day of Spring

March 21st - Start of the 4th Marking Period

4/4 - 7th Grade Field Trip

4/15 - Spring Break Evening Dance - 6:30 - 8:30

4/16-21 - Spring Break

4/23-5/2 - PSSA Testing

Student Council meets on the first Thursday of each month 📅

🔨In the works:

• Spring dance on April 15th
• Spring Spirit Week
• Teacher Appreciation Week

• Fundraisers

Student Council is excited to have an evening dance on April 15, 2025, the day before spring break begins. Student Council helps defray costs for field trips, hosts special events and takes a significant role in the spirit and culture of our middle school.

🎉 Mrs. West accompanied students to the K'nex Competition at LIU#12. The students had to research Sustainable Development Goal #9, identify a problem within the goal, and then develop a solution to their identified problem. There were a total of 26 teams to compete against. Each team had two hours to build and then give a presentation of their product, design journal, and hand drawn blueprints. The Middle School Teams did a great job and we are so proud of our students! 🏆

Mrs. Heidi Reinecker (Elementary and Middle School music teacher) generously volunteered her time as the head chaperone for the Ski & Snowboarding Club, which met on Tuesdays throughout January and February. Participants covered the cost of lessons, rental gear, and lift passes at Liberty Mountain Resort, with many students hitting the slopes for the very first time! Laughter filled the air as they embraced the challenge of learning a brand-new skill.

Mrs. Ute Cline (High School foreign language teacher) and Mrs. Heather Jones (Middle School interventionist) also joined as chaperones for this snow-filled adventure. Here’s a group of 7th and 8th graders who took to the slopes for snowboarding!

🏀 Mr. Hocker, our dedicated Middle School PE teacher, organized an exciting and entertaining sporting event that highlighted the athleticism of both Fairfield Area Schools’ staff and students. Teachers and staff volunteered to take on some of the Middle School’s top basketball players in a friendly yet competitive game.

While the staff ultimately secured the victory, the students had the last laugh as they watched their teachers battle post-game soreness. 😩

A big shout out to Mr. Hocker for putting together a fantastic event—it was a true crowd-pleaser!

The High School Musical, "The Addams Family," will be performed on Friday, March 7, at 7:00 PM, and Saturday, March 8, at 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM. Three members of the Middle School student body will be joining the high school cast for this exciting production. The show brings to life the eccentric Addams family as they navigate the unexpected challenges of Wednesday Addams introducing her new boyfriend to the family. Don't miss this entertaining and spooky-fun performance!

Keep scrolling for this month's trivia question

and check out more great information on the way!

📐Math Update: Celebrating Hard Work & New Challenges Ahead!

🎉 IXL Leaderboard Success! 🎉

What We’re Learning 📏

on adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing fractions!
✅ Decimals & Data Analysis: Up next, we’ll dive into decimals and data analysis.

How You Can Help 💗

Thanks for being a part of their math journey! 🧮🚀

ELA Update: Exciting Challenges & Essay Writing Ahead!

📚 IXL Leaderboard Competition!

The IXL Leaderboard challenge is in full swing, and the competition is fierce! Students are answering questions on grammar and reading comprehension, with prizes for the top 20 competitors. The challenge runs until March 12, and students can continue practicing at home to climb the leaderboard!

✍️ Essay Writing in Action!
After reading a short story, students are now learning how to construct an essay to respond to a writing prompt. We’re excited to see their ideas take shape as they develop their writing skills!

📖 How You Can Help:
Encourage your child to keep reading at home—every page helps build confidence and comprehension.

Thank you for your continued support! 📚✨

Mrs. Kozack's WIN class has been researching inventors and innovators. 🔬

The students have researched inventors of their choosing such as Dean Kamen (Segway), Nikola Tesla, and Bill Gates. They will participate in a Shark Tank project where they research a "problem" and create an invention or innovation to address it. They will create a prototype of their design as well as give a three-minute speech to promote their design to get "sharks" to invest. Each design the sharks choose to invest in will get a prize!

Our 6th-grade students are feeling incredibly grateful for the amazing support from our community! Thank you for participating in our fundraiser, "Lincoln for a Lincoln."

Your generosity allows us to partner with local organizations to enhance students' learning and camp experiences. 🤠

Recently, students competed in a T-shirt design contest for camp, and after a vote, the winning design was selected! 🥇

📚 ELA: Students are working on research projects and honing their persuasive writing skills.

🧮 Math: Students are diving into ratios, rates, algebraic expressions, and statistical analysis.

🌦 Science: Using data to predict weather outcomes, students competed in a digital Great Air Race—congratulations to Block 3 for finishing first place!

Thank you for your continued support

in making this year engaging and enriching for our students! 🚀

Science isn’t limited to science class—just ask our 7th-grade ELA students, who have been immersed in a Literature Unit exploring the theme "Terror and Wonder in Space."

As part of their studies, students read a science-based article weighing the pros and cons of human settlement on Mars, a mission NASA aims to achieve by the 2030s. They also watched NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s video, "7 Minutes of Terror," which highlights the tense, high-stakes journey of a rover descending from Mars' atmosphere to its surface.

Building on this foundation, students analyzed the introduction to an argumentative text on the Challenges for Space Exploration, examining rhetorical devices used in persuasive writing. Next, they will dive into the classic Twilight Zone teleplay, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," which explores human behavior in the face of fear and the unknown.

Through these engaging texts and discussions, students are wrestling with a compelling question: Is space exploration an awe-inspiring venture or an unsettling challenge?

This upcoming month, students will be working on understanding proportions and percentages and working to utilizate their understanding to solve real world problems. Students will be working towards being able to write, graph, and solve proportions as well as determine if real world relationships are proportional or not based on different sets of data. With percentages, students will work with converting and ordering percentages, fractions, and decimals, solve percent equations and proportions, and solve percent increase/decrease problems, find percent error in experiments, determine the markup/discount/tax/tip, and solve simple interest problems. We are 6 and 1/2 months down, three to go, we got this!

Meanwhile, in WIN class, students delved into the works of Shakespeare this quarter, studying his influence and literary style. Attached is an original sonnet by Paisley Goetz, beautifully crafted about softball.

Softball in the fall.

Fall is cool, The leaves are falling,

No more time for the pool, The crickets are crawling,

Softball is fun, Nothing as cool as feeling the breeze,

School work has to be done, Surrounded by trees,

Time to hit and run, Don’t be called out, Surrounded by the sun,

Run without a doubt, Nothing like softball in the fall,
In the end it's all up to the umpire’s call.

📐 Math Class Highlights

✅ Recent Accomplishments:

• Mastered square roots of perfect squares and used them to solve equations.

• Explored cube roots, evaluating expressions and solving equations with them.

🔢 Coming Up Next:

• Geometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem and its real-world applications.

• Understanding irrational numbers and approximating square roots.

• Using the Pythagorean Theorem to identify right triangles and calculate distances in the coordinate plane.

We are so proud of our students for their hard work and dedication to these concepts!

📊 Algebra Class Highlights

✅ Recent Accomplishments:

• Explored zero and negative exponents and their properties.

• Evaluated exponential functions and tackled real-life problems.

• Graphed exponential functions and applied them in problem-solving.

📈 Coming Up Next:

• Investigating exponential growth and decay functions.

• Solving exponential equations using various techniques.

• Identifying and graphing geometric sequences and expressing them as functions.

These accomplishments reflect the hard work and dedication of our students and we couldn't be more proud! Keep up the great effort! 🚀

• Go old-school! Handwrite a note, send it in with your student. ✍🏻
  
• Send an email! 📩 To Mrs. Wheeler at wheelers@fairfield.k12.pa.us.
  

Don't Forget: Students are allowed 10 parent notes per year for absences.

You'll need to complete an Educational Journey Form. Students are allowed 5 educational journey days per year. Please submit your Educational Journey Form to Mrs. Wheeler at least 10 days prior to your trip.

Pennsylvania ranks fifth in the nation for maple syrup production, making close to 900,000 gallons a year. It takes roughly 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of maple syrup. That means 36 million gallons of sap are collected each year!

What was Fairfield named for a brief time in April of 1798?

Come back next month to find out!