HMS Connection

Welcome Back!

Hello HMS Community!

I hope you've all had a wonderful summer and are as excited for the new school year as I am!

As we prepare for another great year at HMS, I encourage you to take a few moments to look through this newsletter to find questions to many of the questions you may have about the middle school, school procedures, and coming events.

Enjoy the final days of summer vacation, and we'll see you very soon!

Mr. Smith

• Arrival Procedures - For the First Day and all year long!
• Attached you will find a map of the HMS property to assist you during the morning drop-off. Please help us to keep all students safe by following these traffic patterns every day.
• Grade 6 students will enter Hingham Middle School using the main entrance and proceed directly to their homeroom.
• Grade 7 students will enter Hingham Middle School using the gymnasium entrance and then proceed down the back hallway, passing the cafeteria, and up the back staircase by the woodshop.
• Grade 8 students will enter through the side doors closest to the athletic fields and use the main staircase.

• Homeroom
• Homeroom is the student's A block class. In some instances this will alternate between odd and even days. Students should report to the Day One A block class on the first day of school.

• Student Schedules
• Students will be given the most up-to-date version of their schedule during homeroom on Wednesday, but they are strongly encouraged to check it on X2 this weekend, as some changes have been made to improve class size.

• Lockers and Lunch Times
• Students will be given this information during their A block classes. In some rare instances, an old locker number may appear in the student portal on X2. Please disregard this. We are currently updating this field.

HMS Cellphone Expectations

While the decision as to when you should provide your child with a cellphone is not an easy one to make, and will certainly vary from household to household, we recognize that middle school is often the age at which families take this leap.

In order to help mitigate the impact that these devices have on our students during the school day, HMS is adopting an "off and away during the day" approach. It is our hope that this will help students free themselves from the distractions that come with cellphones, and focus more on their studies and face-to-face interactions with their peers.

What does "off and away during the day" mean?

In simple terms, it means just that; between the hours of 7:30 and 2:00, and while riding on Hingham Public School Buses, students will be expected to turn of or silence their phones, and secure them in their lockers and leave them in backpacks while on the bus. During the first days and weeks of school, we will be reminding students during the morning announcements to place phones in their lockers.

If a student has a cellphone on their person during the school day, they will be reminded of the expectation and given the opportunity to place their phone in their locker. Students who need to be repeatedly reminded of this expectation will be referred to an administrator, who will work with the student and parents/caregivers to come up with a solution.

Any student who needs to contact a parent during the school day should come to the office and ask to use our phones to do so. Students should avoid doing this during instructional time.

We thank you for your help in making the Hingham Middle School a place where students can focus on learning and their friends, and not on their devices.

These expectations can be found in full in the HMS Handbook, and will be reviewed with students during our Handbook Assemblies at the start of the school year.

We thank you for your support in helping us to minimize the distractions these devices cna cause during the school day.

In the next few weeks, HMS will begin offering late bus transportation on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, leaving HMS between 3:10 and 3:30. Along with this, we will begin running the many after school activities, programs, and clubs that make our school such a vibrant place.

Each day our Daily Notices highlight what is scheduled after dismissal, and each week we will begin adding our Week-At-A-Glance document to the HMS Connection. Additionally, we will share a directory of our clubs and activities along with contact information, meeting times, and general descriptions of what students can expect if they should choose to participate.

Clubs have previously included . . .

• Lego Robotics
• PAW (Poets, Artists, and Writers)
• Adventure Club
• Ski Club
• Ambassador Club
• Art Club
• Cooking Club
• HMS GSA Group
• Coding Club
• Yearbook
• Future Cities
• Various Intramural Offerings
• World Language Club
• Grade Six Homework Club
• Grade Seven and Eight Homework Club
• And many, many, more!

There is no long-term commitment, and students can join at any point throughout the year.

These activities and clubs are supported through our HMS Activity Fee. As a reminder, all families are asked to pay this fee each year. These funds help to defray costs associated with after-school clubs and activities.

You can complete this process by clicking here to find the Unipay site.

Please enter “Hingham School Department” where prompted for "City/Town/Department", select “MS Activity Fee” and complete the required fields.

Should you prefer to pay by check, you can complete the attached form and return it to the HMS office.

This fee is separate from the PTO dues.

If you need assistance with this or any other school related fees, please do not hesitate to reach out to either a school administrator, a school counselor, or any faculty member you feel comfortable with.

Thank you!

As you are most likely aware, our students are assigned to academic teams; three per grade. The various team names and the teachers who make them up can be found below.

As you prepare for the start of your time at HMS, we want to provide you with some information that might help you better understand what the day looks like and how to read a typical schedule.

The Basics

HMS follows a four day cycle with seven blocks per day. Each block is approximately 47 minutes long.

Core academic classes (math, science, social studies, and English) meet every day.

World language, music classes, STEM/Literacy Lab meet every other day, all year long.

Art meets once every four days for a semester. Students have art for either terms one and two or three and four.

Most students will have direct studies on two out of four days. These are typically with one of the students core academic teachers, and is an opportunity to get a head start on homework and long term assignments, as well as a chance to connect with teachers if they have questions.

What’s New?

For those who have had students go through HMS before, you will notice some changes to our schedule and offerings.

Physical Education will meet twice per cycle for three terms of the year. During the fourth term, PE will be replaced with DARE, which focuses on making positive choices and avoiding unsafe situations in life. DARE will also meet twice per cycle.

Wellness is a newer class for grade six students, and will meet once every four days for one semester. This class will provide students with tools and skills needed to support their social and emotional growth and development. Art will be in the student's schedule for the opposite semester.

We are also pleased to share that we are able to reinstitute our Exploratory Classes for grade six students this year. These classes include Media Literacy Exploratory, Family and Consumer Science Exploratory, Industrial Arts Exploratory, and HMS 101. These classes are designed to provide students an introductory experience in some of the elective classes they can choose from in the future, as well as build on important executive functioning and digital literacy skills. Classes meet once per cycle and switch every term.

Services and Supports

Special education services and classes, as well as general education support classes like math lab and reading lab, vary greatly from student to student, so if you have questions about your child’s specific services, please do not hesitate to reach out!

The image below is an example of what you might see in Aspen when looking at a student’s full schedule. Click on the image to expand it for a better view.

We hope this helps you and your child better understand our school and what the day looks like!

• Personalization of devices and custom stickers are not permitted on the Chromebook devices. The Chromebooks are HPS property and should be treated just like a textbook.