March 22, 2018
Dear Parents/Guardians,
We are in the midst of our annual placement process for the upcoming school year. We are committed to creating balanced classroom groupings, which are integral to providing positive learning environments and equal opportunities for all students.
An extraordinary amount of time, care, and thought is put into placement by those who know your children as individuals and learners. We go through several different steps of this process, which ensures input from staff members working with our students. Given the complex nature of the placement process, and the number of variables we consider, we are unable to honor specific requests for teaching teams and/or placing students with friends.
We recognize that thinking about placement for the coming year can bring up some anxious feelings for children and parents. With that in mind, we have developed a variety of Step-Up Day activities, which provide all students with a chance to spend time with their grade level teams for the coming school year. We’ll share more information about this in the coming months.
We also recognize that students’ and/or parents’ thoughts about the best fit for placement may differ from the placement assigned. We strive to teach our students about the power of growth mindset and resiliency, and how to develop coping strategies they can use when things turn out differently than they hope or imagine. Supporting our children to learn from these opportunities will make them stronger and more confident. We appreciate your partnership with this essential work and we thank you for your support.
Joan Adler and Tom McDowell
HMS Administrative Team