River Valley Middle School

Dear Families,

As we partner together for a successful school year, we want to share an important update about how Indiana measures school performance and—more importantly—how we use these measures to support your child’s individual growth.

Indiana has introduced an updated K–12 school accountability framework built around the Graduates Prepared to Succeed (Indiana GPS) vision. This model takes a broader, more student-centered approach to education. Rather than evaluating schools solely on single test scores, the new framework measures the whole educational journey—focusing on academic mastery, individual skill development, career readiness, attendance, and year-over-year growth.

Key Focus Areas of the New Model

1. A Focus on Growth

   The state’s approach centers on treating every child as an individual priority. Success isn't just about whether a student meets a single test benchmark on one day; it’s about whether they are consistently moving forward from where they started. Every step of progress counts.

2. Valuing Skills Beyond Standardized Tests

   Along with foundational reading and math, the new model recognizes essential real-world capabilities—such as communication, collaboration, work ethic, digital literacy, and early high school milestone progress (like 9th-grade credit completion and career pathway exploration).

3. Targeted Support and Early Intervention

   By tracking student progress at key milestones, we can quickly identify where a student is thriving and where they may need additional help. This allows us to provide targeted assistance—whether that means extra reading practice, math intervention, language support, or advanced coursework—before a student falls behind.

Why Growth and Targeted Assistance Matter

When schools focus on growth, every single student matters equally. High-achieving students are challenged to reach even higher, while students working toward proficiency get the tailored interventions they need to bridge gaps.

Targeted assistance ensures that help isn't "one size fits all." By relying on continuous progress data rather than a single annual score, teachers can adjust classroom instruction in real time to meet your child’s unique learning needs.

Upcoming Schedule and Classroom Adjustments

To make sure every student receives the exact support they need, you may notice some adjustments to student schedules or classroom assignments in the coming days.

We do not make these decisions lightly, but rather base them carefully on:

• Student Academic Needs: Matching students with specific intervention or enrichment groups based on recent assessment data.

• Balanced Class Sizes: Evening out numbers across classrooms so teachers can provide more direct, individualized attention.

• Targeted Resources: Aligning student schedules with specialist support (such as reading or math interventionists).

These intentional updates ensure our learning spaces are structured to give every child the best environment to succeed.

How We Partner Together

You play an essential role in your child’s growth journey. Here is how we can work together:

• Review Progress Reports: Look at progress indicators beyond letter grades, including growth trends, attendance, and skill development.

• Stay in Touch: Reach out to your child's teachers if you notice areas where your child feels challenged or extra excited.

• Encourage Daily Attendance: Regular attendance is one of the strongest predictors of steady growth and academic success.

Our goal remains simple: to ensure every student leaves our classrooms prepared, confident, and equipped for their unique path forward. Thank you for your continued support and partnership. For more information, please click on the link below.

Dear RVMS Families,

River Valley Middle School is excited to launch our newest school-wide fundraiser through Vertical Raise!

Our goal for this fundraiser is simple: to give directly back to our students. We are working hard to fund reward field trips throughout the school year—including potential trips to places like Extremenasium, Soar-n-Bounce, the movies, and more!

By raising these funds, we can tremendously cut (or cover) the out-of-pocket costs for parents, making these memorable experiences accessible to all of our students.

How You Can Help Right Now (In Less Than 5 Minutes!)

The Vertical Raise platform works best when we reach a broad audience of family, friends, and community supporters. We ask that you please take a few minutes to log into the platform and enter valid, high-quality email addresses and phone numbers of relatives, family friends, and local supporters who might be willing to sponsor our school.

Why quality contacts matter:

• The more authentic contacts entered, the more funds we raise for student rewards.

• Email addresses and phone numbers are kept completely private and used only for this direct campaign.

• It costs nothing to enter contacts, but it makes a massive impact on lowering field trip costs for your family!

Thank you for taking the time to put in good contact information and supporting our RVMS team.

Together, we can make this a fun, rewarding, and memorable year for all of our students!

Join Us for Our First PTO Meeting!

Welcome to a new school year at River Valley Middle School! We are excited to invite all parents, guardians, and family members to our very first PTO meeting of the year.

Our PTO plays a vital role in supporting our students, teachers, and school community through events, teacher appreciation, and school improvements. We would love to have your voice and ideas involved!

Meeting Details

• Date: Tuesday, August 11th

• Time: 6:00 PM

• Location: River Valley Middle School – Media Center

We Need Your Help!

We are actively looking for enthusiastic parents and guardians who are interested in volunteering their time. Whether you have an hour a month or several hours a week, every bit of help makes a big difference for our kids and staff.

Why get involved?

• Connect with other RVMS families and leadership.

• Have a direct, positive impact on your child's school experience.

• Share your unique skills, ideas, and energy.

Come hear about our plans for the year, ask questions, and learn how you can get involved—no long-term commitment required just to attend!

We look forward to seeing you there!

If you can’t make the meeting but still want to volunteer, please reach out to Brooke Valentine at lbthomas03@gmail.com.

We just wanted to make sure this information was passed out ahead of time, especially as we gear up for our after school events to start.

• Daily attendance of all students who are enrolled in the Greater Clark County Schools is required in accordance with state law and corporation policy. Students are expected to attend school regularly in order to derive maximum benefits from the instructional program. The responsibility for regular school attendance by a student rests with the student and his/her parent or legal guardian. If a student will be absent, please call 812-288-4848 ext. 24141 or email pknoebel@gccschools.com. Please note, a student may have 10 absences excused with parent notification. After that, a doctor's note or other documentation will be required.

• Students are allowed to bring cell phones to school, but must keep them turned off and put away. River Valley Middle School is an “Away for the Day” school. You can find more information on this at https://www.awayfortheday.org/. Students needing to call home during the school day must do so in the main office during lunch or in the classroom with his/her teacher’s permission. Cell phones are never to be used to take photos or videos at school. Students failing to abide by this policy will result in school consequences.

Shoutout to Mrs. Chavies, who has worked really hard to get our Chromebooks distributed to students. If your child has not received his/her device, please make sure your child is registered. After today's distribution, almost all students should have received their devices.

We have several of our sports teams who are selling spirit wear. Please purchase directly from these websites.

Football Team

Boys Soccer Team