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Inside Billings
May 21, 2026
| | 🎒 What's Happening at Billings? 📚 | | |
Expeditionary trips offer students far more than adventure—they create meaningful opportunities to practice community care, shared responsibility, and connection. Whether setting up camp, preparing meals, supporting a peer on a hike, or reflecting together around a campfire, students learn that successful expeditions depend on every member contributing to the wellbeing of the group.
Throughout these experiences, students build empathy, resilience, and collaboration skills by caring for one another in both big and small ways. They learn to listen, encourage, problem-solve, and step up when others need support. These moments foster trust and belonging, helping students recognize that they are part of something larger than themselves.
By navigating challenges together in outdoor settings, students deepen their understanding of leadership, accountability, and interdependence. Expeditionary learning strengthens not only individual confidence, but also the collective spirit of the community.
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Go Soup!
Huge congratulations to Billings Soup for an amazing Ultimate season. This past weekend, Soup played a hard-fought final and won!!! With over 30 students signed up for the team, Ultimate is our school’s biggest sport, and we are so proud of all the players for a truly spectacular season. While playing in a championship game and winning Spring Reign are obvious highlights, so much hard work went on behind the scenes to get the team to these moments. At Billings, we often talk about process over product. In Ultimate, this means practicing throws, working on endurance, working through defensive coverages and our offensive system, and so many reps. In middle school, the outcomes matter less than the process, and while it’s wonderful that Soup had such successful outcomes this year, our hope is that the process of how to be successful sticks with the students for many years to come. Congratulations to Soup and thank you to Coaches Ian and Dean Rob.
Ultimate Frisbee and Tennis both wrapped up strong seasons this year. Bowling will conclude with its final practice on June 1 at Spin Alley Lanes. Thank you to Chris for leading Tennis and Emily for leading Bowling!
Reminder: Please turn in all jerseys from all sports (excluding Ultimate Frisbee). We are still missing jerseys from Volleyball, Basketball, Cross Country, and Tennis.
Enjoy the Journey
The 2025-2026 Billings Yearbooks are on their way! Special thanks to Emily and the Billings yearbook staff for their hard work on designing what is sure to be an awesome yearbook. This year’s annual, Enjoy the Journey, is sure to be a page-turner. Order your copy now for delivery the first week of June before school ends so that your student can collect signatures. Please email Becca at frontdesk@billingsmiddleschool.org to reserve a copy, and send cash or check for $40 for your book.
This 25-26 yearbook staff features some future award-winning journalists, photographers, editors, and graphic designers! Great job to our contributors: Vicky, Adin, Nutifafa, Myer, Lotem, Rowan, Isaac, Clara, Amanu, Greyson, Gus, and Clark. Special shoutout to our Editor in Chief Clara and our Chief Writer Vicky!
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Upcoming Events: 📅
- NO SCHOOL: Monday, May 25
- 8th Grade Parent Dinner: Wednesday, May 27, 6:00-8:00pm
- End-of-Year Conferences: Friday, May 29
- 8th Grade Graduation: Tuesday, June 9th, 6:00-8:00pm
- 6th & 7th NOON DISMISSAL: Wednesday, June 10th - Last Day for 6th & 7th Grade!
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See our full calendar below:
Community Calendar
| Billings Family Association | |
Rescheduled Neurodiversity AG Meeting Tonight 5/21
Tonight at 7pm, Billings parent Shannon Otto will host a discussion on navigating the summer with our neurodiverse kids. We have emailed the online meeting link to group members. Please let us know if you didn’t receive it.
Sign Up for Family Camping Trip in October
Now’s the time to sign up for the Billings family camping trip at Rasar State Park this October 2-4, 2026! Plan to attend the whole weekend or any part that works for you. This is a parent-organized event, and all Billings families are welcome.
Please sign up here if you plan to attend, indicating if you would like to stay at the group campsite OR plan to come for daytime activities and stay somewhere else (e.g., an Airbnb, other campground).
The group campsite can accommodate 80 people, and we’re already halfway full, so sign up now!
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🏫 Admissions 👨👩👧👦
Your voice makes a difference!
If your family has had a positive experience at Billings, we would be grateful if you would take a moment to leave a review. Parent reviews help prospective families learn more about our community and the impact of a Billings education.
Below are a few sites that will help us attract more families to our amazing community. Please click on the logos below to leave your review at the site of your choice. Thank you for helping us share the story of our school!
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Our 6th graders traveled to Seaquest State Park on Wednesday, where they set up camp before enjoying dinner and a student-led variety show together in the evening.
Today, students will explore the incredible landscape surrounding Coldwater Lake through scenic hikes and geologic scavenger hunts at the base of Mount St. Helens. Along the way, they will take time for reflection and circle discussions, sharing insights and experiences from their trip and 6th grade journey together.
Before returning to campus on Friday, students will tour the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center and stop for lunch at Millersylvania State Park. This trip has been designed with adventure, discovery, community building, and meaningful opportunities to connect with the natural world and each other.
7th grade advisors are looking forward to portfolio conferences next week. Please make sure you’ve signed up for a time slot with your advisor! Conferences will be primarily student-led, and students are preparing to share work that fits into three categories: work that they are proud of, work that demonstrates growth, and work for which they didn’t know they could experience success!
8th graders are on the 4th day of their week-long backpacking trip on the Olympic Coast. Daily check-ins from trip leaders have included: “all is well and beautiful,” “saw otters in the afternoon,” and “having a blast!” We’re looking forward to hearing more when they return tomorrow! Check out the next iNews to for the full recap and see our SmugMug gallery of images.
| | Last week, 8th grade ELA visited the Chinatown-International District to explore the setting of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. The novel, set in Seattle in 1942 and 1986, tells the story of a Chinese American boy and Japanese American girl who become friends amid generational, cultural, and political conflict of WWII and Executive Order 9066. Students walked through several locales from the novel such as Canton Alley, Japantown’s Nihonmachi Alley, Uwajimaya, and the Panama Hotel. Students met the owner of the hotel, Jan Johnson, represented in the novel as Ms. Pettison, and took a photo with her. | | |
Our 6th and 7th/8th grade Vocal students have been building their musical knowledge through the study of singing vocabulary including diaphragmatic breathing, staccato, legato, timbre, rounds, canon, harmony, unison, and more.
Students explored their individual vocal ranges and discovered which section they sing in by learning the tenor, alto, and soprano parts of the chorus from “Rhythm of Life” in the 1960s musical Sweet Charity. Once ranges and sections were identified, each class learned the chorus in a canon style. By Monday, every class successfully performed the chorus in a three-part canon — an exciting accomplishment that showcased their growing confidence, listening skills, and collaboration as singers!
In 7th grade Math, we’re working on a small project wherein the students analyze the probability of certain events occurring in some of their favorite board, card, or dice games! We’ve got kids working with Uno, Battleship, Mastermind, and Settlers of Catan, among many others. Catan has been especially fun to watch students learn the ropes, and we’ve already had a few very spirited discussions of proper settlement placement! These projects will conclude with students presenting their theoretical and experimental game probabilities to their peers next week.
| | Additionally, in 7th grade Design Lab, students are building popsicle stick bridges! We’ll test these out near the end of the school year by stacking textbooks atop them until failure. If structural integrity holds, they’ll then attempt to stack a teacher atop the bridges. | | |
Hands-on, social, and screen-free.
Register at squirrellyworkshop.com (spots are limited, invite a friend!).
Located in NE Seattle at: 5414 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105.
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Executive Function Workout!
Join me (Greg: Director of The Learning Center at Billings) for a regular morning EF workout from 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM on Mondays. Developing EF, or Executive Function, requires the exercise of the brain in specific ways. Drop in on any Monday morning to share stories and explore strategies for strengthening our EF muscles and by extension, that of our students.
Think of EF (Executive Function) as the CEO of the brain, helping us improve our self-regulation and aid our ability to make both short and long-term plans that enhance our performance in many aspects of our life. At a middle school pragmatic level this includes things like: doing your nightly HW, working on long term projects, or doing chores around the house. This is not a class. This is an opportunity to share collective wisdom. While 30 plus years as a middle school educator has certainly allowed me to garner some wisdom, I am really a facilitator on Monday mornings. Regular attendance is not a prerequisite. I don't need advanced notice. Drop in as you are able.
We will be meeting in person in Mercury during advisory and the beginning of first period. If you do not want to attend in person and prefer Zoom, let me know and I will send you a recurring Zoom link. Masks are not required but can be worn upon request.
And if Monday mornings are not a viable option for you but you want to learn more, don't hesitate to e-mail me, and let's find time to chat 1-1.
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