Hines Herald 2020-2021 Second Quarter News

News from Hines Middle School

Home of the Spartans

Mark your Calendar

11/11— Veterans’ Day

11/11— Hines Fundraiser Due,

See Page 3 for details

11/11— Report Cards posted in

ParentVue & StudentVue

11/16-20-American Education Week

11/17 — Hines Monthly Parent Forum

11/17—School Board Meeting , 6:30

11/25-27—Thanksgiving Holiday

Schools are Closed

12/01-15—Magnet Schools Virtual

Open Houses

12/15—School Board Meeting, 6:30

12/21-01/03—Winter Break

Schools are Closed

01/04—Schools Reopen

01/08—Magnet School Applications

Due ,See Page 9

01/18—Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Schools are Closed

01/19—School Board Meeting, 6:30

01/27—2nd 9-Weeks MP Ends

01/28-29—TWD and Regional PD

Schools are Closed

Please check your Canvas page for

announcements and Hines events daily!

Please Sign In at the table

inside the front door upon arrival to HMS.

Thank you !

Important Numbers Office: 591-4878, press 5

Fax: 591-0119

Clinic: 591-4878, press 3

Cafeteria: 591-4878, press 4

Table of Contents

Communication…………...2

FOCUSED on HMS……. 3-9

One Down Three to Go!

We have survived the 1st 9-weeks of school together !

All of US working and learning Together! Students

have survived coming to school via Zoom and learn-

ing Canvas! Congratulations! Give yourselves a

BIG round of applause! And, a HUGE THANK YOU to parents and families for being supportive and

working through this anxious time in your lives!

We understand that this situation is not ideal and we would rather be at the school with col-

leagues and students than apart, but we do want to be safe and not contribute to spreading

COVID to our families or yours, so for now, this is the safest environment during this pan-

demic. There is so much unknown, we need to continue to move forward doing our best to

learn together!

We have a staff member who sends out “Mindfulness“ messages every Monday, her name is

Jamicia Davis. These are just a few of the messages we have received:

Purposeful — The last months have been different for everyone. As we leave the house we

have to remind ourselves to wear a mask, wash our hands, and social distance. We just have

to think of it as taking steps and know that we are in this together for the health and well-

being of all. Take a few breaths in and slowly exhale, relax and be grateful. — We can do it!

Embracing Change—It’s important to acknowledge the ways school is going to look different

this year. What are you nervous/anxious about? Choose to stay positive and give yourself

time to adapt. Showing up is the first step. — We’ve done that, check the box!

Motivation — How do you motivate yourself to get started/take action? Choose to try, once

you get started you can see it begin to take shape and once you experience success your moti-

vation will grow and carry you through. — Got it!

We look forward to a productive and successful year working together at Hines!

“Hines IS where the heart is”

Are you Hungry? Curbside Dinner, Breakfast & Lunch Available

at Hines Middle School

Hines Café Workers prepare FREE meals Monday-Friday for Curbside Pick-Up 4:00-5:00 PM. Pick up hot evening meals and get breakfast and lunch for the next day. Drive up and tell them how many meals you need, pop your trunk, and be nourished. A service from NNPS Child Nutrition Services Free for all children

HINES

HEROES

CARE

HMS Canvas

Since returning to school in the fall, your student’s Canvas page has been an integral part of delivering news of events, activities, and surveys. The Announcements tab is located at

the top of the page.

Connect 5

Connect 5 is the system that makes computerized phone calls to families about important events. Please provide regular updates of your email addresses, home and cell numbers to the main office so that you will receive Connect 5 communication.

Conferences In addition to an individual meeting with your child’s teacher, conferences are a great way to assemble a group of people to discuss your student’s successes or areas of concern. While it is difficult to have an actual face-to-face meeting at this time, it is possible to have one-on-one or teacher team Zoom conferences, please contact your student’s teacher, counselor, or administrator to request a conference.

E-mail

E-mail is an efficient way to communicate about your student’s academic performance or for other reasons. Please allow 24 hours for a return e-mail from your child’s teacher/school staff.

Letters/Post Cards

Letters and post cards are additional ways a teacher or school staff might communicate about a stu-dent’s good behavior, academics, or citizenship. Letters from Hines will be sent home throughout the school year. Current addresses are requested; postage costs for undeliverable or returned mail add up!

ParentVue/StudentVue

Please sign up for this valuable tool in keeping up with your child success with ParentVue. There is also StudentVue for students to see their grades so they can keep themselves on task and up to date. During this time of Virtual education, this tool will serve as you and your student’s link to Report Cards and other important information regarding attendance and keep you and your student up to date on their progress in turned in assignments and class grades.

Telephone Calls

The majority of our teachers are working from their homes. You may leave a message with our office staff and they will forward your message to the classroom teachers. Please allow 24 hours for a return phone call.

Facebook, Twitter, and Hines Home Page

Please visit our Hines Home Page. There is a wealth of information on this page. Please check Hines Facebook for announcements and get a visual image of good things happening at HMS. NEW — The Living Tree APP —This new Engagement tool can be a very

useful communication tool in learning about activities and what is happening in your student’s classes and communicating with his/her teachers.

Safe line - See Something, Say Something

Our See Something, Say Something safe line is checked daily and our school staff works tirelessly in partnership with our students to ensure that HMS remains Safe. Please call 283-7855 to anonymously report incidents of unsafe behavior including bullying.

NNPS SafeSchools. NNPS Identification code: 1869 Download the SafeSchools Alert app

Visit the website http://1869.alert1.us Email your Tip to 1869@alert1.us

Call to report your tip 757-750-1854 Text your Tip to 757-750-1854

#HinesIsWhereTheHeartIs

Spartans are Respectful-Reflective-Resilient-Responsible-Positive-Readers

FOCUSED ON HMS!

Spartans, The deadline to participate

in our Hines Fall Fundraiser has been

extended to November 11, 2020.

To help us meet our goal, please reg-

ister at www.FundPrizes.com and

share the fundraiser with friends and

family. Orders will be sent directly to

buyers, so no sorting of orders and

making sure everyone gets what they

purchased.

Spartans help Hines meet their goal

so you can help turn Principal Gatz

into a human sundae — Even though

she is not looking forward to being

smothered in sticky whip cream and

chocolate syrup she is looking for a

successful fundraiser so we have the

funds to purchase items you need to

be successful, and items to keep fun

activities that you like at Hines!

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO NOVEMBER 11, 2020

In November we begin thinking about the upcoming holidays — honoring our Veterans on the

11th, celebrating American Education Week the 16-20th, eating well and being with family on

Thanksgiving.

Begin each day with gratitude. Look for the positive instead of focusing on what you can’t do or

where you can’t be. Count up the good things that you have and the good things you can do. Per-

form random acts of kindness and feel yourself being less stressed and less anxious. We nay not

be able to choose or control our circumstances, but we can choose our attitude toward those cir-

cumstances. Think Positive, Be Positive!

In Art Club, Mrs. Hodge and Mrs. Williams-Smith asked students to draw pictures or make

cards for veterans that were hurt to cheer them and show them that they have not been

forgotten, and to thank them for their service.

Let us ALL be Thankful for being able to be together as a Hines Family of

Students, Parents, Teachers & Staff! #HinesIsWhereTheHeartIs

FOCUSED ON HMS!

SEPTEMBER SPARTANS OF THE MONTH:

Arnez Knight

Elmer Sierra-Velasquez

Joshua Carter

Kelcey Thigpen

LaCari Scott

Lena Strickland-Nunez

Nila Thigpen

Z’niya Williams

OCTOBER SPARTANS OF THE MONTH:

Ameena Yon

Benjamin Perry

Dignalys Maisonet Ortiz

Machorne Ball

Makale Barnett

Ny’Anna Wilson

Raishaun Young-Swanigan

Vonnaisha Ryland

Zion Anderson

SPARTANS — Are YOU:

Coming to your Zoom classes EVERY day?

Participating in class discussions?

Completing assignment?

Turning them in on time?

You COULD be recognized and recommended by your teachers as a Hines Student of the Month!

The Spartan Patrol could show up at your house or apartment with a COOL sign and a bag of treats!

#HinesIsWhereTheHeartIs

Spartans are Respectful-Reflective-Resilient-Responsible-Positive-Readers

FOCUSED ON HMS!

Hines PTA Pease contact our PTA at

hinesmiddlepta@gmail.com

HMS PTA supports many

projects and programs at Hines.

Link your VIP card from Harris Teeter — an easy way to support the PTA

Keep sending in your Box Tops !

Get the Shoparoo App and link it to Hines PTA and snapshot your receipts

Check out our Facebook page!

https://m.facebook.com/hinespta

FOCUSED ON HMS!

Mrs. Hodge and Mrs. Williams-Smith distributed art supply packets

to students early in September so they would start art class with the

supplies they need. They enjoyed seeing their students bright faces.

Ms. Lee has been making short videos and

posting them on our Hines Facebook page and

#HinesIsWhereTheHeartIs on Twitter, showing

how to place a HOLD for books so students can

get them curbside . Please note

the following change — beginning

November 10th our scheduled

curbside day and time will be on

TUESDAYS, 4:00-5:00 PM

FOCUSED ON HMS!

NNPS Youth Development

For their annual ‘Day of Ser-vice” CNU Captains created a video welcoming 6th, 9th, and 12th grade students. CNU students will also assist with virtual activities, mentoring and providing academic support for our students. #NNPSTogether

Hines PBIS Team coordinated their first

stock event of the year “snow cones for

stocks” at Pelican’s Snowballs on Warwick

Boulevard. Keep earning those stocks!

These are definitely “Nacho” Average Administrators! They are very PROUD Administra-tors of Hines Middle School! Principal Gratz, 8th AP Ms. Epps and 7th AP Dr. Stafford.

6th AP Mr. Pettaway did get in on this picture of our Admin-

istrators wearing blue for Bullying Prevention and the Hines

Café staff wearing Blue in support of Say No Bullying.

Mrs. Kirsteatter is Ms. Piersol’s Morning

Meeting Buddy. They figured out how to

make a Pixon class picture of their class.

Cool! Their first picture is on the left and

they made the picture on the right for Hal-

loween. We may see more classes doing

this activity with their classes.

Mrs. Kirsteatter sent out the instructions

so other teachers could try this. Thanks!

FOCUSED ON HMS!

Spartans what are you reading? We hope you are reading the newspaper, the cereal box, directions in recipes so what you are making turns out delicious, and books you like to read.

Some of you like scary horror stories, strange fanta-sies, intriguing mysteries, realistic fiction novels full of drama, and graphic novels. Other students are knowledge seekers that love non-fiction because they want to know about the who, what, when, why, and how.

Spartans, we have all of those things available for you at your Hines Library! We are working in the library most days Monday thru Friday, 8:00 am—3:00 pm. Our designated date and time has changed for curbside pick-up to 4:00-5:00 pm on TUESDAYS, but you can call or e-mail us and we will meet you in the circle in front of the school with your book request.

All Hines students and staff have access to the school library database, Destiny Discover, through the Library tab on the Hines Home Page. Below is a quick link that takes you directly to the page so you can log in with your first.last name and your

password is your student number. — just click here and log in. Place a hold for the book(s) you want and we will get them ready for you to pick up.

If you still have books from the spring, you can drop them off anytime the school is open. We have moved the orange bookdrop to the front entrance of the school for easy access. There are no fines on overdue books, just bring them here or to any public school in Newport News and we will get them back .

Thanks and Enjoy Reading!

Recognizing the social nature of middle school students , Newport News middle schools offer a variety of enrichment activities that expose students to higher level thinking, real world application, and fun. Students may participate in stu-dent newsletter, anime, art club, Project Discovery, SCA and more. While a school staff person serves as the club or activ-ity sponsor, students are encouraged to become actively in-volved in establishing agendas and goals, recruiting and organ-izing its activities. Every club and activity offers students numerous opportunities to develop and hone their leadership skills, and explore and develop new talents to highlight their strengths. Most clubs and activities are held after school for 1 hour from 3:30-4:30 pm.

We encourage all Spartans to participate in an activity.

We will continue with our Spartan Academy which meets Monday thru Thursday afterschool from 3:15-5:30 PM. This program focuses on English and Math with tutors available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The Academy begins Sept 30th.

Afterschool Activities began at Hines on Monday, October 19th. Club dates and times are shown as an announcement on your Canvas page once you have been invited to the activity.

All clubs are meeting Virtually at this time through Zoom.

Listed below are all the clubs and activities:

Anime

Art Club

BLOOM

Books & More

Drama Club

English Help

FCCLA

GEMS

Live Well Club

Pep Band

Project Discovery

SCA

Spartan News

Youth Development

Youth Volunteer Corp

If you haven’t joined a club or activity, you can still join. You may have an idea for a club, just ask one of your teachers what they think about your idea and start a discussion to see if the club you want is doable. All OPEN Minds here!

FOCUSED ON FAMILIES

8TH GRADE SPARTANS —MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND GOOD LUCK!

SUCCESS: Don’t just wish for it, WORK FOR IT!