VHMS Hamilton Headlines

Hamilton Headlines

News and notes from Hamilton Middle

September 2, 2022

Vol. 4, Issue 5

NO SCHOOL MONDAY: LABOR DAY

Meet Hamilton's New Assistant Principal: Daniel Keegan

My name is Danny Keegan and I earned my Bachelors from the University of Wisconsin in 2004, and my Masters in Special Education from The City College of New York in 2013. I also received a Certificate in Building Leadership in 2020. I taught special education in New York City for the past 10 years and am excited to bring my experience to Hamilton Middle School. In my free time, I enjoy all sports, especially basketball, and am an avid Packer fan. I enjoy reading, trading, and spending time with my family. I look forward to having an amazing year and meeting all the wonderful people at Hamilton!

Buses May Run Late for a Bit

For those of you whose children ride buses to and from school, whether it be the large yellow buses or the smaller white vans, please know that these vehicles can be delayed on both their morning and afternoon routes at the beginning of the school year. Hamilton is the third route for these drivers. Both preceding routes are to elementary schools where there is a great deal of diligence at the beginning of the year to make sure the right students are getting on the right buses and off at the correct locations. In the end, buses can be late to start the year. By mid-September or so things should be falling more in line with our scheduled routines at Hamilton. That said, covid is still among us and at times we have sub drivers who are thrust into duty at a moment's notice. In these situations across the year, buses can also run late as the new driver figures out the three assigned routes. Thank you for your patience!

Fall Open House

Our annual (yes, annual!) in-person Hamilton Open House event is coming your way soon on Wednesday evening, September 28, 5:30-7pm. Once again, our Open House will follow a drop-in format. There will be no bells or the formal following of student schedules, rather parents and families can drop-in to their children's classes for informal conversations with teachers and staff members. We will plan to send reminders in the coming weeks.

Thank You Custodial Team!

A big thank you to our entire Hamilton Middle custodial team for the wonderful work they did over summer cleaning, repairing, assembling, and readying our campus for the start of school! In the accompanying photo current and past Hamilton custodians take some time to celebrate their work together by attending a Packer game.

Behavior Education Plan Update

As part of the orientation to (and back to) Hamilton Middle, students were presented information on behavior expectations in a series of behavior assemblies across the first two days of school. Each grade level assembled on either Thursday or Friday in the cafeteria for an overview of the school district's Behavior Education Plan, or BEP. While our approach at Hamilton Middle falls squarely on building in our students the social and emotional competencies to be positive members of our Hamilton and greater world communities, it is also important for students to know about the types of behaviors that are not allowed at school and the consequences that go with them.

As parents, it is import for you to know that your child can be suspended from school for a variety of behavior transgressions as outlined in the BEP. For a list of the specific behaviors covered in the BEP for middle schools, click on the below link and then scroll down to the heading "Behavior Response Grid" and then click the down arrow for "Middle School."

Please know that the most common reason a student is suspended from school at Hamilton Middle is due to involvement in a fight/physical altercation. Coming in close behind is the recording on a phone of a fight or physical altercation. These are behaviors that result in suspension for a first offence.

Please talk with your child about the importance of maintaining a safe campus at Hamilton Middle. Thank you for your support!

BEP Information Link

Bringing the Sunshine

Regardless of the temp outside, we all need a little Sunshine from time to time. Sunshine Committee is a Velma Hamilton staff funded and staff run committee that focuses on supporting and bringing joy to one another. We send flowers to those staff members that have lost loved ones, we organize and help fund baby showers, we purchase food cards and gift cards for those who are impacted by health issues, etc. If you are interested in donating to Hamilton's Sunshine Committee, please send any dollar amount to @sunshinevbhms (Michelle Duffield). We are willing to share our spending information with you if you would like to see how our funds are used. Thank you for considering.

Are You Getting the Full Picture?

Sometimes when this newsletter arrives to your email inbox the message will be truncated. When that happens, there will be a link at the bottom of the newsletter indicating that there is more to the message, or possibly asking you to click to see the entire newsletter. The end of our Hamilton newsletter almost always includes photos of our students and our campus, so we want to make sure you are not missing the full picture!