Banks Middle School

Dear Families,

Thank you to the many families who donated to our Banksgiving food drive! BMS won the district wide competition, with 7th grade bringing in the most food, with over 400 items! We also had a great turnout for Treats for Troops, collecting 40lbs of unused Halloween candy to send to our active service members. Yearbook, Leadership and FACS students also created over 120 paracord items to send to active duty military.

We also recognized the 99 students at our November assembly who made Honor Roll for Quarter 1, with 27 of those students having a 4.0 GPA, we are so proud of our students who have worked so hard for these academic achievements!

Read on for updates on the following topics:

• The Student Health Survey is next week for 6th & 8th graders - see below for details and opt out information.
• Book Fair starts this coming Monday!
• Choir and Band Concert 12/17!
• Updated Club information - HW club is now on both Monday and Tuesday, we also have a new chess club flyer with winter dates.
• Save the date! BMS STEM fair January 15th from 5-7 pm - fun for the whole family!
• Winter Craft Fest @ BMS on 12/17 from 3:15-4:30 pm for BMS students
• Winter Drawing Contest
• Spirit week dress up days

Best wishes,

Caitlin Everett

Banks Middle School Principal

Dec. 8-12: Book Fair in the Library

Dec. 10: Girls Wrestling Meet @BMS Gym after school

Dec. 12-14: Banks Drama Program presents "Clue" - see below for details!

Dec. 15-19: Spirit Week w/dress up days (see below)

Dec. 17: Craft Fest in the BMS Cafeteria - 3:15-4:30 pm

Dec. 17: Band and Choir Concert @ 6 pm in the BHS Gym

Dec. 19: Spirit Assembly

Dec. 22 - Jan. 2: Winter Break

Jan. 15: BMS STEM Night, 5-7 pm

6th and 8th grade students will be participating in the Oregon Student Health survey next week. Information regarding the survey can be found here. Survey questions can be seen at:

6th grade

8th grade

Additionally, if you wish to opt your child out please complete this google form or contact the office. Thank you!

we are having our annual Book Fair next week! If you would like your student to participate, you can set up an ewallet here. There is also an option to donate funds so that other students can participate if they are unable to. As a benefit of the fair, Scholastic gives back 25% of all proceeds to support our library! The attached flyer has additional information.

Thanks to our awesome PTO and the phenomenal Ms. Reckers, we are now offering a second day of HW club. If your student needs help with math or a quiet place to complete homework after school, just complete the permission slip below and have them come to Ms. Reckers' room after school on Monday or Tuesday. Our hope is that each participating student will choose one day to attend so we have capacity to add more students with this second day. The permission slip is attached below.

Also, thank you to Mr. Kok for his facilitation of Chess Club! Chess Club will be continuing on this winter, and you can find those dates on the updated winter permission slip below. It is not to late to join! Chess Club meets after school on Wednesdays in the library.

Historically, BMS has offered an annual science fair where student display their science fair boards. We are so proud of our student's work on these projects, but we noticed the night wasn't very well attended, and the event didn't feel very interactive. Thanks to our amazing science team, we have dreamed up a new program, STEM Night! This will be a fun, engaging, and interactive evening! We will have OMSI there with interactive displays, and our 8th graders will be there displaying their Rube Goldberg engineering projects, which the audience can test out and interact with! We will also have all of our 7th grade science fair projects on display. We'd like to invite not only our school community, but elementary and high school families to this fun evening.

The event will take place on January 15th from 5-7 pm, we hope to see you there!

Do you enjoy crafting? Need some gift ideas? Come join BMS Leadership students from 3:15-4:30 in the cafeteria for some fun winter crafts and community building! Open to BMS students only

Monday: Lazy Day

Tuesday: Teacher-Student Swap Day

Wednesday: Superhero Day

Thursday: College Wear (Oregon Rivalry- Ducks vs Beavs)

Friday: Ugly Sweater

Save the date! We will be holding a family information night for Outdoor School on February 24th from 6:30-7:30 pm. Our 6th graders will be going to Outdoor School April 14-17 this year at Camp Cedar Ridge in Vernonia. This is the same site we went to last year and requested again because of the awesome experience and programming they provided to our students. There is much more information to come, and we will hold a family night in the winter to share details and answer parent questions. For now, if you want to learn more you can check out this FAQ for parents.

Yearbooks are on sale now! They are $25 and you can order here.

Yearbook Photo Share: Families can submit any photo to be in the yearbook. We rely on photos from the community because our staff cant be everywhere. Weekend sports, band/choir concerts, students with pets.... we would love to use your photos! https://photos.jostens.com/TMZT36

BMS Student Leadership is continuing their BottleDrop fundraiser this year as a BottleDrop Give organization and participating using “blue bags”.

Once you fill the bag, you can:

1) Have your student pick up a blue bag with QR code sticker from Ms. King

2) Return it to Mrs. King full of cans/bottles and she will take it to a BottleDrop

3) You can also return it to a BottleDrop location and make sure they scan the BMS Leadership QR code.

If you shop at Fred Meyer you are now able to support our PTO by enrolling in the Community Rewards program with Fred Meyer. Once enrolled, they will contribute $ to the PTO for all eligible purchases.

Signing up is easy. Visit https://www.fredmeyer.com. Once logged into your Fred Meyer account, you can search for Banks Middle School PTO either by name or "VI069" and then click "Enroll". New users will need to create an account, which requires some basic information, a valid email address and a rewards card.