Middle School 101

Middle School 101 - Recording
February 11, 2026

Download the transcript

Conley , James   0:06
Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Doctor Jimmy Conley. I have the great honor of being the Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education here with the West Chester Area School District. Thank you for joining us tonight. This is an exciting night as a new chapter begins for our fifth grade families.

This is called Middle School 101, and we're thrilled to partner with you this evening as your child prepares to take this exciting next step in their educational journey. As you see, our mission in the West Chester Area School District is to educate and inspire our students to achieve their personal best.

And middle school is a powerful time for growth. You will see your child grow academically, socially, emotionally, and we are committed to supporting every student as they navigate. And that's an important word. We're going to talk about navigating this new chapter with confidence, curiosity, and a sense of belonging, which is really important for us.

Middle School 101 tonight is designed to help families understand what lies ahead for you. Tonight we'll discuss some new routines. We'll discuss some expanded opportunities for your child as they have increased independence as a middle schooler. And in this community of caring educators, you will see that we are dedicated to nurturing the whole child.

Our middle schools are intentionally structured, you will see, to provide a supportive environment where students are known, they are challenged, and we will encourage them to take ownership of their learning while continuing to feel safe and connected.

So this evening I'm going to introduce the principals, and they will kind of talk about their school. So Doctor Joseph DiAntonio was the principal at Peirce Middle School. Doctor DiAntonio was joining us, and he'll introduce his team. Miss Mary Kate Puchalla. She's the principal at Stetson Middle School.

Conley , James   1:53
And she is here with members of her team. And Doctor Alexis McGloin, who's joined us this year, she's our interim principal at Fugett Middle School. So I'd ask the principals to introduce their teams and who are here this evening.

DiAntonio, Joseph   02:08
Hello, and welcome. My name is Doctor Joe DiAntonio, and I'm the principal of Peirce Middle School. I'm serving in my 8th year in this role, and I'd like to introduce my team, Doctor Judy Maxwell. She's currently serving as a 7th grade administrator and our testing coordinator.

Doctor Philip Mattia, who's our 8th grade assistant principal, and he is responsible for our master schedule and scheduling. Along with those two, we also have Mrs. Denise Boyd, who is our choral director, and she's going to talk to us tonight about our music options in middle school.

So welcome on behalf of the Peirce team.

Puchalla, Mary Kay   02:48
Hi, I'm Mary Kay Puchalla, and I am the principal at Stetson Middle School, and this is my 6th year as the head principal. Next year you will have my assistant principal will be your 6th grade administrator. That's Mr. Kyle Forsyth. Um, and Mrs. Basom is currently on maternity leave, so she's not with us this evening.

Also have one of your 6th grade counselor for the Stetson Middle School team, which is Mr. Tim O'Brien. Welcome tonight, and I hope you enjoy and get every all your answers questions, all your questions answered this evening.

Mcgloin, Alexis Non-WCASD   03:22
Good evening. I'm Doctor Alexis McGloin. I'm the interim principal at Fugett Middle School. It's been my pleasure to be the principal of the building this year. It's a great school. I'm pleased to have with me Mr. Anthony Forio, who is our current 7th grade principal, Miss Jen Gallagher, who is the current 8th grade principal, and also Frank Nefos, who is our 6th grade team lead. Umm, so I'm so happy to have everybody join us today and look forward to speaking with you tonight.

Conley , James   03:58
Well, we have to start this evening and talk about the change, and we don't want anybody to be nervous, but we know that this change brings excitement, lots of questions, and some nervousness. But we just remember we are honored to walk alongside you and your family and your child during this really important three-year milestone in their academic career.

Together, we will help your child grow into a confident middle school learner who is prepared not only for academic success, but also for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Tonight we're going to discuss some of those changes. Please know that this is a partnership as we navigate together.

This middle school process together in the next three years, and as you've already met the building administrators, and you're going to hear some of the teachers talk about their experience. And please know we are always here if you have any questions, which then brings us to the Q&A. Chris, do you want to talk about that a little bit for families and how they navigate that?

Cromwell, Christopher   04:53
Certainly. My name is Chris Cromwell. I'm an instructional technology coordinator. So in our team's webinar tonight, we're using the Q&A feature. So if you have questions that come up, please submit them there. Members of our team will review those and then publish them and answer them for everyone to see if you're watching on a phone or a small browser.

Can't get to all the questions. We will go back and clarify them out loud to make sure that you get all the information. But the Q&A feature is enabled, should be in your team's bar, either in the top or bottom banner for you to add questions as they arise.

Conley , James   05:31
Thank you, Chris. It is my great opportunity now to turn this over to Miss Mary Kay Puchalla, and she will introduce the video of what life is like inside the walls of our schools. Mary Kay.

Puchalla, Mary Kay   05:43
So we decided to start our presentation this evening with a little video. And like Dr. Connolly said, we entitled the video The Day in the Life of a Middle Schooler. You're going to hear from a bunch of different friendly people, such as administrators, students. You're even going to hear from some teachers, and you're going to see some videos of all three of our schools. You're going to see some classes in action, and hopefully you get to see a little bit inside, and later in May, you'll come and see us in person. So let's, without further ado, let's enjoy our video.

DiAntonio, Joseph   06:36
Hi, my name's Joe DiAntonio, and I'm the principal of Peirce Middle School. The best part of a middle schooler's day is definitely engaging with their peers and seeing their peers throughout the day working with their teachers and then experiencing all that middle school has to offer in terms of a diverse curriculum and after-school activities. Parentheses. Get rid of parentheses, right? Multiply by. What's there to multiply? One second. How would we go about to get 11?

Like a scavenger hunt, Middle East facts. OK, now the numbers of pages you can use are on here. All right, you can use the textbook. You can also use the atlases if you want to. You can also use.

Hi, I'm Mr. Brooks, Fugettt Middle School science teacher, and the best part of a middle schooler's day, I would say, lunch, lunch, recess, obviously science class. Science class is probably the best part of the day. Sorry, other subjects, but science class, and probably when they get to get on the bus or get off the bus to see their friends because they're always super happy to see their friends every day. So is it, "Us often play football," or, "We often play football?" We! We! We! One, two, three, go.

Well, what do we know about the cows? What do we learn about the tribe that we read about? Cattle is like your wealth. Hi, my name is Sophie, and I'm from Stetson Middle School. And here are a few things I love about middle school.

My first favorite thing is meeting a bunch of new friends. Meeting new friends is something that helps a lot, 'cause you get to experience new classes with them, and meeting new friends is always so much fun. My second favorite thing about middle school is changing classes. It's so fun, and going to different classes with your friends and the whole, always, it's so much more fun than just staying in a class all night.

Mcgloin, Alexis Non-WCASD   09:18
And then you go back a slide. Those go fastly. Thank you.

So, so our goal with middle school is to really focus on the unique intellectual, social, emotional, and physical needs of our students as they transition from elementary school to the high school. We recognize that really it's necessary to provide a nurturing environment so that they're academically and socially successful. Our goal is to make a large school feel much smaller for them. So most of our 6th graders, our 6th graders are housed in the same area, with a few exceptions such as Unified Arts, where they do go out. But we really do try to keep our students together in the same area to make that school feel much smaller.

You'll see that there's a change for sure from elementary to the middle school, where we have five core teachers per student. They are on a six-day cycle, and we're going to talk about unified arts a little bit later on. But you'll see that that schedule changes, just depend depending on the day for unified arts. We have a focus not only on a really challenging curricular experience, but also the social and emotional development of our students so that they really are successful once they leave middle school and transition to the high school. Next slide, please.

OK.

Thank you. So within the school, we do have a teaming structure that allows us to create a smaller learning environment. Like I said, our 6th graders are really housed together. Our teachers meet regularly once a week and talk about the students with both the administrator at that grade level. I introduced my other two administrators. I currently oversee 6th grade, so I attend all of the 6th grade meetings. In those meetings, we discuss many different things about the students that are in our grade level, including progress. If we need to put some interventions or enrichments in place, what might that look like? Any kind of interdisciplinary planning that occurs? We're gonna do as a team as 6th graders enter school. You're gonna notice that that first week really is an introduction to 6th grade, right? How do you use your locker? How does that work? How do I transition from one class to another? We give students that opportunity to really become successful within the building and have team-building events and those types of things also happen within that team structure. In addition to that, often we'll meet with families as a whole entire team. We communicate both via e-mail, in person, and on the phone with families on a regular basis as part of our teaming.

Puchalla, Mary Kay   12:06
Mr. Bryan, are you with us?

Tim Bryan   12:09
Yep. Hi, everybody. I'm Mr. Bryan. I'm Tim Bryan. I'm a counselor at Stetson Middle School. So the middle school years, there's going to be an increased need for independence. Your children are getting older. They're going to do a lot of.

Tim Bryan   12:25
Go through a lot of social growth over the next three years, and you know, as they kind of work their way through middle school, they'll be given more responsibility and take more control over their education. There's going to be physical changes, you know, as as they get older, you know, we're going to, if some of the kids are going to get really tall, really fast, definitely changing social dynamics. You know, we have three at Satsen, we have three elementary schools coming into one. And then, in addition to that, we we expect a good number of parochial and private school students coming over, importance of goal setting.

So we talk to the kids all the time about goal setting, like what, what, what is important to you? What about your education is important to you? What about your, you know, your social life is important to you? What kind of clubs are you interested in? What kind of sports are you interested in? So we we we talk about that every every day with the kids.

Tim Bryan   13:28
The importance of socialization, peer pressure, temptation, it's so important for, like I said, the kids are definitely going through a, you know, a growing stage while they're in middle school, and you know, it's important that they interact with each other appropriately.

And you know, if they do come up with situations where they feel like they need help, we're down in the counseling office. Obviously, the administrators are there to help with them, cell phones and social media.

So yeah, social media, you know, definitely is a thing. And you know, it's important to, you know, kind of monitor what your kids are accessing and, you know, kind of be on top of that.

We in the schools, in the middle schools, kids are not allowed to have their phones out after 8:05, and they can, you know, pull them out of their lockers once the school bell rings for dismissal at 2:50.

So phones are off and away, which I think is definitely a very good thing. Keeps the kids focused on what's in front of them. When can a student or parent go for support? At any time.

Tim Bryan 14:47

You know our offices are always open. I know at Peirce, as well as Stetson, our counseling offices are in the main office where the administrators are. We also have the nurse's office there and some other people services, people are housed there as well. And if you get they with counseling, the counselors actually sit on the floors with their class. So there's three different floors, and you know, based on what grade you're in, you're on either floor one, floor two, floor three.

And then the counselors kind of rotate with the kids, and their offices are right with them next to their classrooms. We do rotate. So I, I'm currently an 8th grade counselor with Kyle Forsyth, our administrator for 8th grade.

So we will next year go down and start 6th grade, and we'll be with your kids that for the next three years. So we really do get to know them. We get to know you guys, and I think that's a really good, a really good model for us. Next slide, please.

Tim Bryan 16:01

Academic questions. What are the homework expectations? So it's kind of individualized depending on, you know, the teacher has a lot of autonomy as far as, like, what they're going to expect for homework, which is good. I mean, the kids are going to start to, you know, they're going to have five, six, seven teachers, and they have to get used to, you know, each teacher's going to have their own expectations and kind of navigating that and trying to figure that out. A lot of times in 6th grade, if the kids get their classwork done, there isn't a whole lot of homework, just depending on the teacher.

 

How is grading completed? So grading is completed. Basically, you guys will have access to something called we call Parent Portal, but it's an extension of PowerSchool, and that's where.

Tim Bryan 16:54

Our teachers are going to have their grades listed, and you could actually get into the teacher's grade book to not just see the overall grade, but see what's been handed in, what hasn't been handed in, what grade your son or daughter got on the last test.

So that's all right there. And then in addition to that, we use Schoology really heavily in middle school. Every teacher will have their own Schoology page. So you know, it's really, you know, a student comes home and says, I don't know what I have for homework.

Tim Bryan   17:28

As a parent, you can get your own login to Schoology, and you can actually log in and see, because most homework assignments are posted in Schoology.

How do parent communication work with multiple teachers? That's always a good question. If we if you need something to go out to all teachers, maybe somebody was sick, maybe you have like a family vacation coming up.

And you know, the best way to go hold of teachers is definitely through e-mail. So you know, if you have any questions, you know, definitely reach out to the teacher. If it's more of a you want to let the entire teacher team know something, definitely reach out to the counselor or the administrator, and we'll be able to help you out.

One last thing that's not on the slide here, I just wanted to talk quickly about conferences. So in the fall we're going to have, we have our fall conferences, and they're a little bit different format from what the kids get in in elementary school.

Instead of being individual, they're team-based. So you're you would come in and you would actually meet with the entire teacher team that your son or daughter has. Our meetings tend to be more.

Tim Bryan 19:00

We schedule them with kids who might be struggling either socially or academically. The teacher team will actually come up with names of students who we would like to invite parents in to have conversations. It's not a situation where every kid, every student gets a conference. It's very different than elementary school. You know, that being said, you're more than welcome to sign up for a conference, but it's just the expectation kind of shifts a little bit. We're not necessarily scheduling every student. We're more focused on students who might have a particular need. OK, next slide.

Puchalla, Mary Kay 19:46

Thanks, Mr. Bryan. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the curriculum and what middle school looks like and a couple of differences that we have from middle school and elementary. So, we have eight periods a day with a homeroom. Typically five of those periods are core classes. So, the big difference here is that in elementary school you have an ELA kind of block, right? And in middle school we have English and reading separated. So there's an English class, a math class, a reading class, a science class, and a social studies class. And we'll get into later about which of those classes are leveled and which ones are not.

There are two periods that in elementary school they are called specials. In middle school they're called unified arts, and these are like nine-week courses. And like we had talked about before, we run on a six-day schedule. I'll show you that in the next slide in a minute. But our unified arts classes are kind of back-to-back. So maybe you might have first and second could be UA, third and fourth could be UA. It just depends. They're always back-to-back. And then, like I said, there are five periods of the core classes.

We also have a music class as well. We have performing music of band, chorus, and orchestra, and those students that aren't in performing music will have a choice of classroom music. Could you go to the next slide so I can show a sample of what a schedule might look like?

Now I know this is really hard to see. So again, this is a six-day cycle, and our music classes run two days out of those six days. A computer science class would also one of the classes would be there. PE, you know, gym, what they're used to. Sometimes we have food science as a 6th grader. It depends. The only one unique thing for 6th grade is they have art, and that's for a semester course, and the art.

Puchalla, Mary Kay   21:38
Happens four days, and then the other two days is married with a technology course. So this is all different. Your child could have it at different parts of the school year. And we also have a health course. It's a little bit different for 6th grade that runs a full semester, which is, again, elementary school has three trimesters. We have four quarters. So you'll see health for two quarters, and you'll see art for two quarters.

Health is every day of the week, one through six, and art is just an example of one that's four days. The rest of the classes are two days, two days, two days. A lot of times parents are like, "Oh my gosh, how do you know what day is PE or gym class? When, you know, when will they bring their uniform?" How I know, the kids get very much used to day one, day two instead of a Monday. Because let's say we have Monday off, like this coming Monday. They don't worry about that. The day just shifts.

So the kids always have written down what day of the cycle it is. They get used to it. It takes a little bit in the beginning to get used to, but everyone is flexible with them. So this is just one sample of what a schedule could possibly look like for a 6th grader. Next slide.

DiAntonio, Joseph   22:43
Great. So in 6th grade at the middle school, English and math are leveled courses. They have three potential levels for your student: grade level, honors, and accelerated honors.

The differences that you would see in those levels, they're all going to teach a grade-level curriculum, all three of them, but the difference is going to be at the pace and then of the rigor level. How deep do they go covering those concepts or topics. You could also see some differences in homework in those courses, with maybe accelerated honors or honors having a little bit more homework outside of school.

The other course that's leveled in 6th grade is your reading course. So for your reading course, it is only either grade level or honor. So it doesn't have those, what I would say, three levels. It's only grade level or honors. The other two core courses in 6th grade are science and social studies, and they are unleveled courses, very similar to what you would see in your elementary school, just a full mixture of kids in those courses.

So, when Mrs. Paciello shared that schedule on that previous slide, it was just showing those unified arts classes. The other five periods will be those core classes. They meet every day unless there's an assembly or a change in the schedule. They're meeting every day, same period, same location. So, you know, students will pick up on that schedule really quickly. They'll know exactly the room they're going, where they're going, and we'll be able to jump right into that transition quickly.

One of the things that students get nervous about is being able to find their classes. Like Doctor McGloin said earlier, typically middle school classes are housed or contained in the same area of the building, and so Fugett is going to be set up by floors. Peirce and Stetson, which are the same exact layout, are really in wings. And so, you know, a class for a 6th grader could be an A102. When they transition to go to that next period, it literally can be right across the hall. So the transitions to the core courses are typically pretty brief, right across the hall or a couple classrooms down, so easy enough to pick up and learn.

The really challenging transitions are for the unified arts, where they may be walking up to the gym or walking to the art room or to another location, like maybe the music wing. So those pieces are, you know, are some of the challenges in terms of that transition. We've got plenty of staff out directing students, especially early in the year. Teachers are super flexible with kids finding their schedules, helping them read their schedules, and that's something that we start out with in the beginning of the year. We work off a modified schedule, and one of the things we work on is how to read your schedule and having maps and helping kids navigate that building.

Anthony, if you could. Thank you. Perfect. At this point, I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Denise Boyd. She is our choral director and drama club leader at Peirce, and she's going to talk about music at the middle school.

Boyd, Denise 26:20

Thank you. So as you can see on the screen, and as Miss Pachala already said, we have four options of music at the middle school level: band, chorus, orchestra, and classroom music. And hopefully your elementary classroom teachers have already been talking to your students about this, and they will have their selection made very shortly. Next slide, please.

So, there are three performing ensembles: band, chorus, and orchestra. The main difference between these courses is that the performing ensembles are different than classroom music because the performing ensembles perform. They participate daily with either playing their instrument or singing, and then they have two concerts each year outside of the school day.

Right now, students at the middle school can only select one performing ensemble to be a part of their schedule as a 6th grade student, but some schools have opportunities for additional ensembles, such as jazz band or a concert chorale or things like that. So, if you want to take a quick snapshot of the directors here at your student's school, you can reach out to them individually if you have any questions about that. And of course, if your student is extremely passionate about two performing ensembles, you can do that as well.

Classroom music is slightly different at the middle school from what your students might experience at the elementary school level. As you saw in that really great video, our amazing classroom music teachers in the district focus on all different genres of music in the middle school, instruments like the keyboard, ukulele, drums, guitar, and they really do a great job with music technology, as you can see on the screen as well. So again, your students have those four choices there, and we'll be happy to have them, whichever they choose. Thank you.

DiAntonio, Joseph 28:12

After-school activities open up in 6th grade, and there really are what I would say like three different things that your students will experience. Intramural activities. So intramural sports are available at all three middle schools. The way it works is the school will communicate through their weekly newsletter a sign-up time, practice dates, and a permission form for students to complete. So they'll send it out through their weekly newsletter.

The sponsors of that intramural sport will also go into the lunches, talk with students, have hard copies for the permission form, and encourage students to sign up. Typically, they meet somewhere between 10 and 12 sessions, and they're running from right after school, from 3:00 till about 4:15 or 4:30. There isn't very much travel with those intramural sports. Typically, they're happening at your building with the students from your building, and it's really small-sided games, practice the skills, and then, you know, play mini tournaments and competitions within your own group. There are a couple of exceptions to that, but typically that's what that would look like.

And these are some of the examples: soccer, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, and track that may be operating at your school. If there's an interest in a different sport, there are times where schools will branch off of that and, you know, offer that other experience, whatever that may be, but that's one piece.

The others are clubs. The other activities are clubs. So students will sign up very similar to how they sign up for intramurals. Clubs are typically open to all grade levels. And so when students are participating in a club, it's a good opportunity to be able to branch out to some students that they may not know from either their classes or their elementary school, because they may be in a different grade. And like I said, most of our classes are running, you know, by grade, and the students don't have a ton of overlap, but in the clubs they do.

And so they vary between school as well. Again, it'll be communication sent out through the weekly newsletter, morning announcements, a sponsor going into lunch to recruit kids to be a part of it. Most of those clubs run after school from 3:00 to 4:30. There are times where some of these clubs may meet either before school. So a good example I know from Peirce is our music ensembles will meet before school starts, either jazz band or concert chorale, and so they may have some different times, but for the most part they're outside of the school window. For those, it's, you know, all you need to do is just get your permission form or complete that sign-up process, and you would have the ability to be a part of that group.

The last opportunity is through just the school events. And over the course of the school year, there are a number of events that students can attend. Some examples include like a 6th grade social, which typically will happen in the fall, staying after for a football or a soccer game with our 7th and 8th graders who are playing that day, a student-faculty basketball game would be another example. Student council runs a dodgeball tournament or there's a poetry slam that's taking place in the cafeteria. Those are all things that students can stay after school. We ask students to communicate with their families ahead of time so that they know that they're staying, and then those events are supervised by our staff.

At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Chris Cromwell, and he's going to speak a little bit about the technology here in middle school. Chris, before we do that, I just want to put just a little plug for any families that have questions. They can go ahead and type it in that question-and-answer drop-down if they could do that. We've got folks that are on hand here, and we can get back to those questions right away.
 

Cromwell, Christopher 32:35

Thank you, Doctor DiAntonio. So, when your students come to 6th grade, they will get a laptop in a case for them to use for their entire middle school career. So, the case is there to protect the laptop and make sure that it holds up for its entire school year. There are students who are also given a charger, and the case allows them to carry the charger with them. So, the expectation is that they bring their computer and their charger to school every day so that they can access all of those technology resources.

We do post course materials, assignments, homework, and all additional resources, some help resources, extra study guides, practices, and enrichment activities in Schoology, which is our learning management system, for the students to have digital access to all of our curriculum.

So, students will get an orientation in the beginning of 6th grade, moving from 5th grade, where they were on an iPad, into 6th grade onto a laptop to make sure that they understand just the functionality, and we go through care and appropriate support and use of that device. There are technology support staff in each of the schools so that if something stops working or breaks, students know that they can go and get support for something to get fixed and help with that. Thank you.

Nefos, Frank 34:03

Oh, good evening, everyone. My name is Frank Methus, and I am a 6th grade teacher at Fugettt Middle School. I teach 6th grade social studies, and I'm really excited to welcome you all here to our Middle School 101 in this experience that you've just went through.

I know it's a little impersonal to be on teams, so what we would like to do is we would like to invite you to join us at the beginning of May to visit each of our middle schools. So Peirce Middle School is going to be holding their middle school parent night for incoming 6th grade parents on May 4th at 6:30, and Stetson and Fugettt will be welcoming parents on Wednesday, May 6th at 6:30.

And what this event does, it just allows you to come and to take a look at the school. You get a chance to see and meet some of the teachers. You get to hear about some more specific school-based programs. Tonight was really just about learning about middle school in the West Chester Area School District. In May, you'll get a chance to see what it is going to be like when my 6th grader goes to Stetson or Fugettt or Peirce.

So, we would love for you to join us on those dates. Mark your calendar now to join us, and then to wrap us up tonight, we want to just get these dates on your calendar also. This is a very important event that happens in the summer. It's called 6th Grade Transition Camp, and each of our middle schools offers two opportunities for your 6th grader to come and visit the school, and these transition camps happen. You can see the dates there on the screen, and this allows your child to come to the school, to practice the lockers, to get a tour of the school, to get a chance to meet some of their teachers, in a way just to make them feel comfortable about coming to 6th grade.

It is a huge transition coming to 6th grade. We realize that, and some of your children might be nervous, and that's OK. Some of your children might be excited, and that's awesome. But we want to make this a great experience for you, and so you'll be getting more information about those transition camps, including the times, later on in this school year. But those dates are now set, so you can see the Peirce dates. There are two options. Your child only needs to attend one of the two dates. You can see the Stetson dates and the Fugett dates.

One thing I just want to say, wrapping up my section, is I've had the good pleasure of being at Fugett Middle School for the last 25 years, and I've worked with teachers at Stetson and Peirce. The 6th grade educators here in the West Chester Area School District are wonderful people. It's an honor to work with them, and they really understand the transition from 5th to 6th grade. And so you might be nervous, especially if this is your first child going to 6th grade, but I want you to rest assured that your child is going to get a wonderful experience in 6th grade in the West Chester Area School District.

Cromwell, Christopher 37:11

I'm not sure who has the next slide, but I'm going to interrupt for just a second as the technology guy. Apparently there is an error message that's saying the app is not working for the parents that are trying to reach our Q&A. So I don't think the Q&A feature is functioning correctly. We had a whole team here ready to provide those answers.

So we hope that all the information presented tonight really clarified what we're presenting for this transition as we help support your students to navigate their middle school years. We encourage you to reach out to your elementary school, but also the rising middle school front office, the counselors, the administrators, if there are specific questions that we can handle, but it's not going to work in our Teams meeting for tonight, so I apologize for those technical difficulties.

Conley, James 38:01

So I just want to thank everyone for joining us tonight, and thank you, Chris. I know some questions will come up after you start thinking about it. Please talk to your child about their experience with middle school as well. It's an exciting three years. These are the middle years, but we're so excited to partner with you and, as I said when we started, helping families navigate this process.

We have so many wonderful people. Frank spoke to it. The teachers, the administrators, the support staff, everyone is there to just really care for your child for the next three years. And I know that's something that's really important. If you do have questions, and again, I apologize for the difficulty with the Q&A, please reach out to your child's school. And again, as Frank said, and I can't stress it enough, those May dates. Please circle those dates. Save the dates. We really try to roll out the red carpet for families in May when you come for that parent night. It's really, maybe for many of you, the first time you've ever been to the building.

Conley, James 38:57

We really want to make sure you have a great experience. So thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thank you to our team for joining us, and again, welcome to middle school. You still have a couple more months in elementary school, but we can't wait to start with your family and your child as they navigate this new journey in their life. So we're really excited. Have a great evening. Thank you again for joining us.