Yearbooks On Sale On-line & at Back To School Night

The 2010-2011 Hoover Yearbooks can now be ordered online. The cost is $30 and will go up to $35 in the spring. You may also order a yearbook at the back to school night with a check or cash. The yearbook staff are working hard to make this yearbook a great one! Please contact Mr. Leonard Raznick, the yearbook teacher, with any questions.

Back to Top
...................................................................

BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT, September 7, 6:00pm MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

All families are expected to come to Hoover for a fun and interesting Back to School Night: a great opportunity to meet your child's teachers and learn how you can best support them throughout the school year.

Back to Top
...................................................................

Hot Topic Night. High School Night #1 for 7th & 8th graders.

Wednesday, September 15, 6:30-8:30pm

Location: Cafeteria.

Sponsored by Counseling and Hoover PTA

This is the first of two high school nights. This meeting will be a chance to discuss the process of choosing a high school, shadowing and open houses, requirements for 8th grade promotion and the new high school graduation requirements. The second meeting will focus on how to choose the right high school and the application process, specifically with Lowell, SOTA, and Charter High Schools.

Back to Top
...................................................................

Late Start Wednesdays

We realize...that starting later one day a week will be a hardship for some families and we would like to work with the community to come up with solutions. For the next two weeks we will have our security and some paraprofessionals available to supervise kids from 8:30 to 9 AM in the playground. That will give us a little more time for families to adjust and for us to work with the PTA and others to create more permanent solutions. I like the tutoring idea in the cafeteria, and I am going to see that there are staff down there on Wednesday to supervise, and we will see how many students show up, take our findings to the PTA and SSC and see what else can be done. A lot depends on how many students show up at 8:30 AM on Wednesday.

A little context on the late start day.

The late start Wednesday is something our school has long sought in order to give our teachers time to plan together and to improve instruction. This kind of time has never been possible before due to bus transportation schedules that have prevented it. All other middle schools now have some form of late start or early release schedule, and this is seen as one of the most effective tools for improving a school's teaching and learning. (as long as it used effectively and with accountability) Hoover's teachers need this time to be competitive with the other great schools in our city and around the state. After much persuasion last year the district transportation department found a way to allow us to create this time and we are very excited about using it to take the school to the next level. Already all Hoover teachers have been divided into curriculum teams and are working together, planning lessons and reviewing student data. In week 8 of the school year we will be administering schoolwide formative assessments in math and Language Arts in order to see which students are not getting the concepts and create targeted instruction and interventions for them individually so that all our students can succeed in the classroom. This is not to be interpreted as a way to stifle creativity in teaching or as "teaching to the test". On the contrary we are using this late start time to encourage teachers to be as creative as possible in getting the students to mastery of the standards. The difference is that we will be giving them reliable and frequent data about what is actually working and what is not. We will not have to wait until the end of the year to find out how we did which can be very frustrating. From the conversations I have already had with teachers, I can say with confidence that there is a new energy in our classrooms this year, and our Common planning time is the main impetus for that.

I will be out and about on Wednesday morning starting well before 8:30 with my administrative and security teams, making sure that everything is safe for the students. Please let me know if you see or hear of anything of concern and we will respond rapidly.

Thomas H. Graven, Principal

Back to Top
...................................................................