Dear Families,

Welcome to the new school year at White Pine Middle School. I am very excited about this school year at such a wonderful school. My name is Lisa Harrison and I am your childs 6th grade Earth-science teacher for the 2014-2015 school year. I am looking forward to getting to know you and your student throughout this school year. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some information about my class. I am committed to helping every student learn and succeed in my class. I believe it is crucial for families and schools to work together for our students success. I highly value the relationships between family members and their children. I realize that families know a student best and that I can learn from you about your child and their specific needs. I will be sending home a parent questionnaire with your child this week for you to fill out with what you believe your childs strengths and weaknesses in education and suggestions that you might have for me to improve their learning. I also believe that our students should know that teachers and families are working together to support them. Therefore, I encourage you to keep up to date with your childs school work and encourage you to volunteer in the classroom. I believe in ongoing two-way communication with families. I will be contacting you specifically during the first month of school to introduce myself and will answer any questions and/or respond to any feedback that you may have for me. Please let me know the best way for me to contact you. I urge you to call, email, or stop by to share any information, questions, or concerns that you might have. My contact information is at the bottom of the page. Throughout the year, I will do the same to keep you up to date on your students progress and successes. I look forward to working with you to accomplish your childs academic needs. I hope and expect that you will ask your child about their homework, assignments, assessments and weekly grades. Please have him share their work with you and demonstrate their knowledge to you. In the next week I will be sending home a newsletter describing the objectives to be covered, assignments and test dates, and upcoming events for the first unit in our class. This will allow you to see the objectives that your child will be expected to know and how I plan on assessing this knowledge. This will also provide you with a calendar of due dates to help make sure that your child is up to date in their material. I will use several methods to give feedback to you and to your child on their progress that include the following:

1.) Graded homework and in class assignments weekly 2.) Weekly formative assessments which will track and show your childs progress for a particular objective. 3.) Graded summative assessments 4.) Quarterly grade reports which will give your childs progress to date. 5.) Our class website: MsHarrison6thgradescience.edu which will have the assignments, schedule, and announcements for our class. 6.) PowerSchool Parent Portal which will have up to date grades in all subjects for your student. I will also schedule parents conferences as needed or by request. If you wish to schedule an appointment with me, I encourage you to contact me to set up the time. I look forward to meeting you in person on September 13th at the open house. My room is 114 (Downstairs by the gym). I will provide you with additional information and policies for my classroom during this open house.

I look forward to the opportunity of working with you and your child this year. Together we will make a terrific team.

Ms. Harrison

Please contact me if you have any questions, concerns or comments! Call: (702) 497-8549 Email: lcharrison10@yahoo.com Stop by: Room 114 (Downstairs by the gym)