RMHS Student & Family Newsletter

September

9/15 - School Committee Meeting (7pm)
9/16 - Student Advisory Committee Meeting to the School Committee (for all students interested in Guidance Suite during flex)
9/17 - School Council Meeting (4:15pm)
9/17 - Senior Class Guidance Night (6:30pm - PAC and Classrooms)
9/22 - 9/24 - Rosh Hashanah
9/22 - Jazz Band Auditions (Details on Morning Announcements)
9/23 - Parkapella Auditions (Details on Morning Announcement)
9/26 - Early Release (Student Dismissal - 12:30pm) - See Schedule Below
9/30 - Senior Portrait Make Ups
9/30 Family Literacy Night (6:30) - Reading Public Library
9/30 - National Honor Society Induction (6:30pm) - RMHS PAC
10/1: ASL field trip to Northeastern
10/2: Yom Kippur
10/2: School Committee (7pm)
10/3: Manufacturing Day - ICP field trip to Boston Centerless (Woburn) 10:30-12:30
10/7: Freshmen Guidance Parent Night
10/8: Financial Aid Night (Guidance)
10/9: ICP Seminar- During Flex
10/10: Internship fair - During lunch
10/13: Columbus & Indigenous People's Day: No School
10/14: In service, no school for students
10/15 - 10/19: Homecoming Week Class Colors & Senior Shirt
10/16: Activities Fair during flex
10/16: HBCU Fair (only students that want to attend, will be an excused absence)
10/16: School Committee Meeting (7 pm)
10/17: Unity Day
10/17: Millipore Sigma ICP field trip
10/18: Homecoming Dance
10/18: Walk it like you rocket 5K (8 am)
10/19: Sunday Night Lights Flag Football Game
10/20: Diwali Begins
10/21: ALICE drill (during flex)
10/22: PSATs (school day / delayed start for those not testing)
10/22: Department Meeting (3:10 - 4:10 pm)
10/22: School Council Meeting (4:15 - 5:15 pm)
10/22: PTO Quarterly Meeting (7-8 pm)
10/23: Picture makeup day
10/30: Last Day Q1
10/30: School Committee Meeting (7 pm)
10/31: Q2 Starts
10/31: Early Release for Students (1:05 pm dismissal for students)

Please check out the RMHS website where schedules for while school year are updated: LINK to RMHS Website

All Athletic Schedules 2025/26 Arbiter

Congressional App Challenge - Computer Science Competition of the House of Representatives

I am reaching out from the Office of Congressman Seth Moulton in Salem, MA, regarding an exciting opportunity for middle and high-school students! The Congressional App Challenge is the official computer science competition of the House of Representatives. Since its inception in 2013, the Congressional App Challenge has grown to become the most prestigious prize in computer science. Over 50,000 students have participated in the Congressional App Challenge across 374 Congressional Districts in 50 states and five U.S. territories. This year, we are pleased to announce that we will be participating in the 2025 Congressional App Challenge. The Congressional App Challenge is accepting submissions until October 30th, 2025. This is a great opportunity for middle and high-school students interested in computer science, coding, and technology to be involved. The Congressional App Challenge urges all students to enter the competition, as it encourages critical thinking and creativity for those of all computer science experience levels. Students may apply through the program’s website here. We hope that you will encourage your students to get involved in this transformative initiative this year. In congressional districts around the country, educators have assigned the program as extra credit, implemented it as a part of their curriculum, or assigned it as a summer project. To learn more about the rules, prizes, and more, you can visit their website here.

RMHS Boys Varsity Soccer Team

The 2024 Boys Varsity Soccer Team received the United Soccer Coaches Team Academic Award.

The boys had a cumulative GPA of 3.90 last year!

Here is the news release and certificate.

A Time to Gather

September 17th, 5:30-7:00 at 16 Lowell St, in front of town hall. We invite you to join us for a special event dedicated to remembering those we have lost, supporting recovery, and preventing further loss from substance misuse and suicide.

Ways you and your department can participate:

Attend the event and stand alongside other town leaders in a visible show of unity.
Encourage your staff to wear purple during the week of the event.
If unable to attend, post event flyers in your department and share information with staff and residents
From September 12–17, a powerful display will be outside Reading Town Hall—honoring lives lost, raising awareness about recovery, and sharing prevention resources to strengthen our community.

Your participation will send a strong message that our town’s leadership stands together in hope, compassion, and action. Below is the link to the press release.

https://news.jgpr.net/2025/09/05/reading-coalition-reading-police-to-raise-awareness-ofsuicide-and-substance-misuse-through-a-time-to-gather-event-and-poetry-contest/

At this time we have a great group of High school students who have volunteered to help on 9/10 & 9/11 with the display! If you would like to help with set up or taking down please let me know!

We hope to see you all there!

Jessenia Cruz, Outreach Coordinator

Reading Coalition for Prevention & Support

Instagram@rcps_rpd * Facebook@reading coalition * Twitter@rcoalition4prev

Reading Police Department

15 Union Street Reading, MA 01867

781.942.6756

INTERFACE Referral Helpline for Reading, MA

888-244-6843 (toll free) M-F, 9am-5pm

PSAT Registration for Class of 2027 and 2028

Dear Students, Parents, and Caregivers:

This year, the PSAT will be given to all Sophomores and Juniors during the school day on Wednesday, October 22nd. The PSAT’s are a practice test for the SAT’s and a National Merit Scholarship Qualifying exam for juniors. It is a two-hour and fifteen-minute exam plus additional time for administrative duties. The exam aims to measure reading, writing, and mathematical skills students will need to do well in college.

We encourage all sophomores and juniors to take the PSAT’s. Taking this exam is good practice for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which juniors will take for the first time in the Spring. Juniors, if you previously took the PSAT’s as a sophomore, we strongly encourage you to retake the PSAT as a junior. Your junior scores are a better predictor of how you will do on the SAT’s and will help counselors when we start the college process in the Spring. Only juniors may use the PSAT as a qualifying test for scholarships provided by National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Sophomores, this test is a great practice for you as well and could help if you decide to enroll in one of our dual enrollment classes in the future that require PSAT scores.

Should you wish to register your child, the exam costs $20.00. There is a two-step registration process. Step 1 is completing this registration google form. The deadline to fill out the google registration form is Sept 26th. Registering by this deadline (sooner if possible) is essential so we can make sure we order the right number of exams and have time to coordinate the logistics to register properly with College Board. College Board does not accept late registrations for this exam.

Step 2: We are pleased to offer families two options for paying the $20 fee. The first option is paying by check made out to Town of Reading and bring the check to the counseling office. The second option is paying via MySchoolBucks. Please know there is an additional service charge for paying online. The most important thing is to complete step 1 by September 26th to guarantee a spot.

Should you have additional questions, please feel free to call the Counseling Office anytime to speak with your child’s counselor.

All the best,

Lynna Williams, Director of School Counseling

The RMHS Spirit Wear store is now live!

https://rmhsspiritwearfall2025.itemorder.com/shop/sale/

Check out all the Rockets’ swag available for all family members. Remember a portion of the sales goes back to the RMHS PTO which in turn benefits each and every student at our school!

Get your holiday shopping done early! The online store is set to close on OCTOBER 10TH!

Thank you in advance for your support,

The RMHS PTO

Use this link to find out more about INTERACT!

FROM THE HEALTH OFFICE:

For health and wellness information, please see the Health Services website, here.

Please see the attached information from the Reading Public Health Department about West Nile Virus and take precautions for evening activities.

Any students with an injury needing to use the elevator should bring a doctor’s note to the Health Office to receive an elevator pass.

Families will be getting an email to log into the SNAP portal. This is your child’s electronic health record. You may securely upload medical documents and communicate with your school nurse through the portal. Here is some more information about the health portal.

Massachusetts school nurses are required to report immunization compliance to the Department of Public Health. Please see here for regulations on medical and religious exemptions for vaccines.

Our fall community vaccine clinics will be held at Coolidge Middle School. All students, families and staff are welcome. Contact mary.guiliana@reading.k12.ma.us with any questions.

We wish you a healthy and successful school year!

School Breakfast and Lunch!

Breakfast is served daily in the cafeteria and on Main St. before school. All students receive 1 free breakfast and 1 free lunch per day as well. Please still remember to complete the free and reduced lunch form found at the following link if your family may qualify as this also impacts how much families pay for extracurricular activities, etc. throughout the school year. LINK Thank you to Ms. Franzetti and her amazing staff for providing healthy meals to our students each and every day!

Reporting an Absence, Late Arrivals and Dismissals

If your child will be absent from school, please promptly report this to the main office. There are several means to report an absence.

1. You can go to the school website and click the "Attendance Reporting Form" - school website linked here: LINK. This link can also be used to report late arrivals and dismissals. Please make sure when filling out the form you fill it out completely with time and reason why.

2. You can also email rmhsattendance@reading.k12.ma.us to report absences, late arrivals and dismissals. Again, please be sure to leave a reason why and a time.

3. For questions related to attendance please contact Ms. Laura Chisholm at 781-670-2819 or laura.chisholm@reading.k12.ma.us.

Consistent student attendance and being on time to school plays a major role in student success. In addition, several years ago RMHS adopted the later start of 8:30 am at the recommendation of organizations like the American Association of Pediatrics. If your child is struggling to attend school consistently or is habitually late to school Assistant Principals will reach out to you and meet with your child and create a plan to improve daily and on time attendance. Students that miss 2 or more days per month are considered chronically absent by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Last school year RMHS maintained a daily attendance rate of 97% or better, but some students still struggled with consistent attendance.

While we recognize that there are many factors that contribute to student absenteeism. As an administrative team will work with you and your child to develop a plan to ensure there is no loss of credit or learning loss due to chronic absenteeism. At the same time, it is important to develop the muscles of resiliency by attending school consistently and on time.

Please reference the attendance section of the RMHS Student Handbook for additional details about attendance requirements at RMHS. RMHS Website - Student Handbook: LINK.

PTO

PTO DUES (different from Class Dues) - $50 per family (not per student) You can certainly donate more (or less) - this is a suggested starting point. You may send your annual dues via credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App Pay or check using the online link https://givebutter.com/rVR43E. Checks should be payable to “RMHS PTO” and mailed to “Attn. RMHS PTO - RMHS Main Office, 62 Oakland Road.” Also, we will be able to accept all forms of payments at Back to School night on September 10th. The PTO is a 501(c)(3) organization and dues are tax-deductible. We are happy to accept additional donations or matching gifts from your employer.

In recent years, the PTO dues and funds raised have provided funding for: