Middle School 101

Middle School 101 - Recording
February 11, 2026

Download the transcript

[00:06:06] Conley, James

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.

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.
 

[02:08:18] DiAntonio, Joseph

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.

[02:48:22] Puchalla, Mary Kay
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.
 

[03:21:17] Mcgloin, Alexis Non-WCASD
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.


[03:58:02] Conley, James
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?


[04:55:15] Cromwell, Christopher
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.
 

[05:31:01] Conley, James
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.
 

[05:45:10] Puchalla, Mary Kay
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.
 

[06:36:12] DiAntonio, Joseph
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.
 

[09:18:04] Mcgloin, Alexis Non-WCASD
Can 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.
 

[12:06:18] Puchalla, Mary Kay
Mr. Bryan, are you with us?

[12:08:12] Tim, Bryan
Yes. 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.

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.

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. 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 counselor’s 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

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 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, 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.

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.
 

[19:46:16] Puchalla, Mary Kay
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 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.


[22:43:05] DiAntonio, Joseph
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.
 

[26:19:12] Boyd, Denise
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.
 

[28:12:10] DiAntonio, Joseph
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.

[32:34:23] Cromwell, Christopher
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.
 

[34:02:17] Nefos, Frank
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.
 

[37:11:15] Cromwell, Christopher
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.
 

[38:01:15] Conley, James
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.

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.

Stetson Middle School - Rising 7th & 8th Grade Course Selection Night 2026 
Meeting Recording
January 28, 2026

Download the transcript

[00:10:08] Puchalla, Mary Kay
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Stetson Middle School's course selection evening. We're just going to give a couple of parents another minute or two to get in and then we'll start. So, I appreciate your patience. We got a lot of people in the waiting room.

[00:50:02] Puchalla, Mary Kay
I'm just giving people another minute to get in and then we'll get started. I want to be respectful of your time.

All right, everyone, we're going to get started. I am Mary Kay Puchalla, principal at Stetson Middle School. Those of you that don't know me this evening, welcome to our course selection evening for our current 6th and 7th graders. Each year, the course selection process is slightly different for each grade, and we hope that tonight's presentation helps clarify the process and any concerns that you may have.

I'm going to introduce our team that we have with us this evening. Again, I'm Mary Kay Puchalla, 6th grade administrator. Mr. Forsyth is with us this evening. He is our assistant principal for our current 8th graders, but he's our building scheduler. So that's why he's here this evening. We have our current 6th grade counselor, Mr. Bobby Schwartz, and we have our 7th grade counselor, Miss Michaela Monkus. So, I just wanted to point out something before Mr. Forsyth gets started on the course selection process. Up in the top left on your menu bar, the chat has been disabled for Teams. However, the Q&A is available this evening.

So, if you have a question this evening that Mr. Forsyth or myself or the counselors, we don't get a chance to answer, please put it in that question and answer and I'll do my best to answer you this evening, if not in an e-mail tomorrow. So, without further ado, Mr. Forsyth, could you please share your screen and begin our course selection
evening presentation?

[02:34:19] Forsyth, Kyle
All right, make sure get you out of my way. So good evening, everyone. Like Miss Puchalla said, I'm Kyle Forsyth. If I have not met you in person, 8th grade principal, currently assistant principal at Stetson. Going to be 6th grade next year, but I will be the building scheduler while I'm here. So, as we move forward, you can always reach out if we have not met and give me a call. We can work through the schedule, any questions.

Tonight, we're going to go over a couple key things and then some screenshots. If you've never done the process, this is going to be recorded so you can go back and watch it once it's posted. We can also at any time you can set up a call with either your grade level counselor or myself or even Mr. Bryan, the 8th grade counselor. He was the counselor at Ruston for 18 years. He knows the schedule back and forth for both middle and high school. So, you have a huge team to reach out to. So, any questions come on, reach out to us. We're going to review the course lecture.

Timeline breakdown the course breakdowns by grade. We're going to talk about electives. There’re some different things between 7th and 8th grade, and then we're going to walk through kind of those screenshots. It's not a live site, but what you will see on the parent or guardian end when you select your classes.

As Miss Puchalla said, feel free to use the Q&A. If anything comes up, you have a question or you'd like me to repeat something. She'll call out if she thinks it's precedent and make sure I stop and answer. Or we might wait till the end and kind of wrap up with some of the big questions if they weren't covered.

So as a reminder, our grading timeline or our course selection timeline, January 7th through the 23rd, all the teachers put in their course recommendations. You can now see that in the portal. It launched over the weekend. So, the 28th, which is tonight, we're going over kind of this whole course selection process and then opened on the 26th all the way through February 11th. You and your student can go in and select the courses. Rising 7th has a couple options.

It opens up more in 8th grade and that's a good preview for, if you have any kids that have gone to the high school, it's a much bigger process, but there's still some choice between 7 and 8. And this is also a really good time to talk to your counselor, your teachers or myself about the different levels once you look at all your recommendations on the 27th that is the course change deadline.

So, what happens is once you've put your selections in, if you've happened to want a different level for your classes in middle school, say you want to have a conversation, whether it's from grade old to honors, honors to accelerated, we are hoping that you reach out to your counselor or myself and we can have that conversation, and we'll have all changes done by the 27th. I will say as a caveat, say your student and you've talked to their teacher is at a grade level recommendation right now or an honors recommendation.

But by the end of the year, they've really shown, say they're Miss Gomez's class like they are actually ready for that honors class that accelerated, teachers have a kind of full reign to kind of reach out to me quarter three, quarter four. But you know what? I want to up my recommendation and we'll be we'll be in touch and we can update it. So, the deadline, we're hoping all major changes happens by the 27th, but that's not hard and fast in the sense that we know kids might progress at different levels at different times, so we'll be flexible in those moments.

So, for our placement decisions, this kind of comes right out of our handbook, but the place of students in appropriate courses is an important factor which contributes to our success. To make the appropriate decisions, middle school principals consider multiple data points in the decision-making process. This includes our performance in class by the report card.

PSSA assessments, current teacher recommendation. When it says local assessment, I think a lot of us know we're heavy for math in LA now and I excel. There's some standardized testing going on, not standardized, but like across the board testing the science department's been using that have been a really good indicator. So, we'd really try to get a full picture of your students. Obviously, you see the other half at home.

So again, if you want to have that conversation about a placement, please reach out and whether that's with the teacher or if you've already talked to the teacher and you want to kind of go deeper, me and Miss Puchalla, and the counselors do see like the entire portrait of the student. So, we will happily have that conversation if you're wondering about their current placements. Most of the time they do get recommended for the same course level that they've started on, but we absolutely do have students that move up, students that move down, depending on their current needs.

So, here's just our general descriptor for our rigor accelerate honors. It's this is those students that are learning at advanced content at accelerated pace, rigorous curriculum that extends beyond grade level, collaborative and self-directed learning through a variety of instructional activity assessments.

I will say now that I've gone through all three grades, no matter what level our students are in, we do see that collaboration. We do see a lot of self-directed learning. Our accelerated kids, especially going to 8th grade are those that are ready for that high school level of work really and really pushed towards.

That pathway, it is not like a contest between the kids or parents. I know people, kids want to push themselves to get there, but accelerated, is really for those students who are showing that they're ready. And the big part is that self-directed learning. There's going to be a lot more homework. A lot more kind of research-based learning that's honestly above that 8th grade level that we expect. Honors, it's that enriched common van, challenging pace, rigorous grade level curriculum. Again, that collaborative guided and self-guided structure and I think that.

Honors are those really those kids that don't need as much push, don't need as much kind of guidance through that independent work. The teacher can really send them off on their own and kind of see what they got and then they reflect towards the end. And then when we see Grade level is what it is. I think some of the kids talk to me and they're like, I'm in Grade level. That's exactly what you should be in 6th, 7th or 8th grade. Continuous pace. They're following our curriculum like the state has assigned to us that our teachers have designed essential skills and knowledge to make sure we're reaching those grade level standards. And again, it is collaborative. It's guided through independent activities and assessments.

I always talk to parents about when we talk about overriding or going into a higher level, the big question is are they going to miss core content that they have not had yet that has been covered in grade level. So, something to think about as you look at all the different recommendations that you see with your student.

But those are the general descriptors. Whoops. There we go.
So, for ELA, our different levels of classes for 6th, 7th and 8th grade. For our rising 7th graders, there's a grade level English honors, English accelerated honors, English and there's now reading, so grade level and honors.

In 8th grade, there's the same grade level, honors, accelerated honors for English, and there is still a reading class for students that either chose not to do language or just staying on the reading path for reading support. Now 7th and 8th grade students have a choice to take reading or a world language.

This does get a little confusing. You might have a recommendation for reading, but if your student is someone who wants to explore the languages, they absolutely have that option. They're both considered electives under our kind of grade book and our scheduling. The one thing I push for our 7th grade families if you were considering putting your student into a language when they continue on to high school. We are expecting three years of language at high school, which means that your student, if they start in 7th grade, French one is on a path for junior year French 5 or AP French.

If they love the AP path, they'll be going over to. I think currently it's offered at East, but French 5 is a is a doozy of a class if you've taken any of those languages. So, you are absolutely allowed to switch languages as you go through, but just know like when we send them up to Rustin, they don't retake French one and two and they've actually really kind of cracked down on that from a central office standpoint. So, I always push like if we were going between reading and language, there's no issue with getting them more of that reading support because it does really that extensive reading support does end with 8th grade. There's not the same type of class in reading up in high school.

So, for math, we all went through 6th grade. Currently, a lot of us rising the 7th around 8, but for 7th grade we have grade level honors, accelerated honors and then 8th grade when you see your recommendations, it's actually, again, you'll see Math A, which is our pre-algebra. Then you'll see Algebra One, which is typically on the honors level, and then Geometry. You'll see as a recommendation is our accelerated honors. There are some students that take Algebra 2, which is a high school class.

I'm sure some of your kids might know our kid, the kiddos in Algebra 2. That's a smaller class. Sometimes it's offered just at Rustin. They take a van over, come back. This year we had enough students, about 10 or 11, that can take it at Stetson.

I will say like there's no jumping from algebra one up to algebra 2, like geometry is absolutely required in the middle there.

If you're someone that is thinking a lot of our 7th to 8th graders do the geometry summer class, which is a commitment, please reach out to me directly. I'd be happy to talk about that process, what the rigor's like, but that's kind of mainly how we get into our algebra 2 in 8th grade.

But your main recommendations are going to be again that pre-algebra for 8th grade and grade level algebra one for honors. Something to think about is when your algebra one students in 8th grade do take the Keystone and if they pass they're done. They're requirement for high school graduation and then geometry is our accelerated honors and then pre-algebra and 7th algebra one would be our accelerated honors for 7th grade.
Sorry about that one. Got muted by accident.

[13:18:13] Puchalla, Mary Kay
Yeah, I was just going to tell you. You're on it.

[13:21:09] Forsyth, Kyle
There we go. We heard the math, right? Perfect. Thank you. So sorry about that, everyone.
For science and social studies, 7th grade is unleveled. Everyone takes science, and everyone takes social studies. There are two teachers for each subject, and they will be spread out.

Eighth grade, you will see those recommendations for we have honors um and grade-level for both science and social studies. And again, that's just a little bit of more of that rigor. Some of our honors students have shown that they're like super into that science associated world.

Again, they're kind of getting onto that path for accelerating high school or maybe AP. If you have questions there, I know a lot of our teachers or all of our teachers conference with our students for our recommendations. But again, if you don't see anything in that seventh grade, no need to panic. There's no leveling. But eighth grade, you will see that honors or grade level. There is no accelerated science or social studies. I get that question sometimes, it's just honors.

So again, for the world languages, um, seventh grade, you have an option between Spanish one, French one, German one, Italian one, or Latin one. and then for reading, you check your PowerPoint. If reading has been recommended, uh, no further actions needed, that means our teachers in their grade level believe that they should be in a reading class. They need they could benefit from that reading support. If you are choosing not to take reading, reach out to your counselor. You can email myself. We can get on a call. We can talk about the language option. The other thing that gets tricky is our district does offer these five languages. We only have language for enough that we had student recommendations for or student request for.

So, this year we ran French and Spanish. Two years ago when I first started with Stetson, we did run an Italian class because we had the numbers of kids that wanted to take Italian. But just because the language options there, it's not necessarily guaranteed. That just goes on numbers. We split a lot of our language teachers through their feeder pattern or with our friends over at Pierce and Fugett. So if we get a whole bunch of kids at Select German and we can run a German class, we'll have a teacher come down and teach it.

But typically, historically French and Spanish are the two popular ones currently in middle school. But just know so the other thing is your student picks Italian, I think make sure they pick their first choice so that if we need teachers, we'll bring them. But if we don't run the class, I will meet with each of those students and let them know Italian's not running and would we rather take French or Spanish or French or German if it's running or reading.

And then eighth grade, you can still see you might get a recommendation um for a language one, but if they're already in language in seventh grade, I'm pretty sure I talked to all the language teachers, everyone got recommended up for French or Spanish two. But some of those eighth grade students will also see that French one if they finished reading and their reading teacher thinks they're ready to move on into the world languages.

[16:33:02] Schwartz, Robert
Mr. Forsyth, really quick, can you just confirm this? So, some students may see they both are recommended for a world language and a reading and then that their teachers’ given them the option to choose. Correct?

[16:48:00] Forsyth, Kyle
Yeah. So, some teachers absolutely met with students and say that they could go either path. Again, reading, especially in eighth grade, it is an elective class. It's it's like designed as an elective. They go really deep into novels, really deep into that writing world. A lot of independent reading and reflecting and presenting. So, some students are just not on that language path right now. They don't feel the need to start yet. Maybe they just want to do their two or three years in high school and that's all they want to focus on.

So, the teachers they would have kind of told them but if you see both you can kind of assume that was their the choice is theirs. If it's just a reading recommendation that means their current English or their current reading teacher believe they need some further they would benefit from further reading support and that's where they'd have to reach out to counselors or admin to talk about, actually, we want to do the language. Make sense, Mr. Schwarz that cover your question?

[17:43:12] Schwartz, Robert
Yeah, I just I wanted to just double check and also just for parents to hear that if they see their student with both.

[17:51:07] Forsyth, Kyle
Yep. So again, for eighth grade for world language, our world language teachers recommend a second year. But you also could see if you have the option to switch between, you can switch, say you took French one, you couldn't take, you can take Spanish one if you want to switch your language, get ready for high school or you have that elective for reading.

It kind of opens up a little more in eighth grade. But again, if you've already had your language one, it's going to be in language two. And then from there, most kids are either going to get that one or that reading. And again, the reading writing for life short stories non-fiction journalism presentation and research is really currently it's Miss Keany, I plan on keeping her in that room. She's awesome. She really pushes our kid in the world of reading and writing and a lot of them really enjoy that class.

So, for music all rising seventh graders you must select that music class. You will see that it's a general music class unless they're in something for below. So you could have chorus, band, orchestra or they're in that music production and technology. So, students in band, chorus and orchestra, you perform individually, small groups and there's two concerts a year, if they've already been in it, absolutely. You kind of know how it works. The performing music class, they generally have the instrument in improving their singer or playing an instrument. All music classes are graded at the middle school level. So, orchestra, band, music, or music production in tech.

I will say a plug for Mr. Rich and crew. Just because, say, they did not start in sixth grade, but they're really hoping to play the French horn or pick up a tuba. We will always welcome kids to try out orchestra, band, chorus. I think there's sometimes it's pre-recognition like, "Oh, I never took lessons. I can't take it." As a lifelong musician myself, I tried lots of different instruments. You can ask my parents. I had a very short stint with the clarinet. It was awful, but stuck with some of the others. But, just make sure you're talking to your student like if they want to play drums. Like our drum room is awesome. We had a bunch of eighth graders join this year and we have a whole class of drums with Mr. Rich and they're having a blast.

So, definitely pick their, your students brain. um if they're feeling like they want to try out the instruments or they want to join chorus. Miss Hulahan, our new chorus teacher, has been great. Really some really cool things down the pipeline. And it's such a good way to transition to high school if they're thinking about they want to be part of the marching band or the competition band. Now is to get those basics down.

Music production and tech. Some parents ask about that. That's like general for seventh grade. General music, the technology and production part's pretty cool. I was in there a little bit ago with one of them and I brought like my synthesizer in and we kind of were working on the digital side of music. They kind of demo a bunch of different programs.

Honestly, the kids really connect is kind of the more modern approach to music. That's, we didn't a lot of us didn't grow up with, but they're on there with their drum pads and their equalizers and in Garage Band type, apps that are kind of making that electronic music or post production. They're working on Miss Barrett does a great job of her performing musicians. They edit music for them. So, just the other side of the whole music world, but again just plugging for all our performing music classes. They've been growing which is great. We're I think we all know post covid world music kind of took a hit in a lot of districts. We're coming back, but we're always looking for more people.

Unified arts for seventh grade. It's similar to the six day cycle that you already had in sixth grade, except now they run during that midday. So, those three four blocks, two days. This is what changes. So health is now two out of the six days of cycle instead of that six day semester long cycle. Music is a two days and that's again one of their band course orchestra music production technology and fizzed. In a perfect world, as scheduler, this is one block, so maybe it's block three. It does not always work that way and we get creative and mixing in the other things. But those are their two day per six day cycle a year. So, little bit different. If you're a sixth grade parent, you're used to that semester of health 4 day cycle of art. It gets a little funky in sixth grade because we got to get all the requirements in. Opens up a little bit more now.

The course listings got cut off just barely there. But the other classes we have which is one marking period for the full quarter every day of the six day cycle would be our art, computer science, family and consumer science, technology, robotics, cooking, all those other UA you know about. And when you go into here, you'll see the full options there. They now run six days per cycle for seventh grade and that's one quarter each. Typically, when you see if you look at it you'll see like similar to sixth grade but they'll do like in like an intro to tech and then robotics for quarter 2.

We try to plan it like that you're like ramping up. There's a computer science and applied computer science foundations. You'll see it's the name is changing in there. You'll see it's like technology and internet safety as well, but that's kind of the big shift. Our health class is now only two days a week. I know some sixth graders we pump for that. I think they sit in health for a long time in sixth grade and see the rest of the school kind of switching up often for that semester. But, that's the biggest change that health PEM and music are going to have two days a cycle.

So, here's a quick demo. I saw Mary Kay smile too. This is like the perfect world schedule. It does not always look like this on your student schedule, but you can see kind of going through their six day cycle. They have fizzed, day 1, two, music 3, four, health, 5-6. Quarter one they have art. Quarter two they have technology. Quarter three family computer science. Quarter four computer science. Now you'll also see when you do it similar to sixth grade if you're if you started this year. Put in your priorities. It's not all guaranteed. There's only certain spots. I will say for eighth grade, we'll get there. But like guitar, some of these other like smaller one-off classes are very popular, but they're very small. We only have a certain amount of guitars per quarter. So, make sure they are marking when you go through your parent portal their preferred ones and then their backups, but that's what our seventh grade schedule's going to look like.

Eighth grade, a little bit more of a switch up here. So, all eighth grade students are required to take both health and PE. They now both still take two days per six day cycle. They also have band, chorus, orchestra for a full year, two days out of the cycle. If you do not enroll in a performing ensemble, so you're not a performing musician, whether that's your instrument or your singer, you will have one of the following each of these conferences for two days per marking period. So, this is like in that replacement. So, design for the real world, digital media creator, internet web design, teen impact. their eighth grade only classes. They kind of have like a wide range of skill sets. If you think design for the real world is kind of just graphic design working some like online problem digital media creator, graphic design, internet and web design getting into I mean it's it kind of changes each year with the curriculum.

Dr. Dormer, our supervisor, does a great job kind of adapting. This is also where we see a lot of some of the AI work, website work, even like how you present yourself online and on the internet and teen Impact is kind of a just like that general course, it's run by one of our FCS teachers and kind of a general course about just like the everchanging world of teens and how you can actually go out and be part of your society part of your community. So, these take, go on at the same time that our band, chorus, and orchestra do to make our schedule kind of flow and give them an option.

Just making sure. Yeah, just there we go. So, here's a good sample of again period 3. That actually will be period seven for eighth grade. But you have fizzed one two music days three four health five six but you can also it's getting cut off there nonperforming you can see those one and two instead of chorus you have those four classes spread across the year and below that got cut off would be, then they're, instead of those classes are music players are in their orchestra or chorus or band. Going into your UA selections, in eighth grade you pick two humanities and two STEM. So your other block for your UAs', you'll see that there we have art in 2D, painting, drawing, art in 3D, sculpture, clay, family and culture, guitar. Again, that's a very popular class, but we have 15 guitars per quarter, so definitely put that in as a priority.

Miss Barrett is super kind. I mean, as we made a deal, I bought her some more guitars and we put a couple more kids in there, but it's also just hard to run a class like that with more than 15 or so, just the noise and it's kind of more of a in-depth lesson. Beginner guitar, but still more of a lesson environment. And then popular music. So, in eighth grade, you can double up on music. If you, if you're a performer, but also want to do a pop music, that can be one of your humanities options. And that's kind of a music through history class, you also play different things like your ukuleles and keyboards and things like that.

Then on our STEM side we have food and culture which is cooking, a coding class, junior entrepreneur, so like business, Shark Tank vibes, designing, presenting, structural design, civil engineering, if you've walked through our school in that random corner at the bottom of the ramp in D11, D110, it's that big split like wood shop lab, design lab. So that's where our eighth-grade class is really cool. Like they're building small houses and solar panels and then transportation, engineering, and design. You kind of go through everything from designing the race cars all the way to rockets with Mr. Paris. It's an awesome class. So, 8th grade, you'll see you have a lot you do have a lot more options. We're kind of getting that ramp up for the high school life. And we've gotten all a lot of our requirements done. So, just make sure you're sitting with your student and putting in your priorities because it autoloads them first and then I go in student-by-student balance classes.

But as soon as you get them in, mark the priority and then hopefully they get into the classes they want. Now, they run all four quarters. So, if they don't get guitar first quarter, there's a chance they will have it second, third, or fourth quarter. And then there's that name change that you'll see for eighth grade. Innovative coding is now innovative coding and AI. Our central office has been doing a lot of work on the ramp for kind of prepping our kids for the future and future proofing some of our curriculum. So, we're excited some of the curriculum changes there.

So, where can you find all this information? So when you go to our website, you click on our families and students and you can do 2026-27 course selection information on that tab you'll reach this page. You will see grades seven and eight are in the middle. Grade six is on the left if you have siblings or high school if you have some older students that are going into their freshman year.

This has every description for the course. Different kind of like where there are for the leveling and feel free to again if you have questions about a specific course that's a great time to talk to your counselors or myself or Mary Miss Puchalla or any admin uh Miss Basm is hopefully I think she was having her baby today so maybe leave her alone, fingers crossed you can call me and Miss Puchalla um but we , that's where all the descriptions are and then how do you view recommendations when you log in to your parent portal.

You then go on class registration on your left side, that button there. You will see a screen that looks just like this and you will be on your school registration system and this is where you will see all of your requests that are available. So, you click on class registration after you viewed them. If you see this page and you say you have some disagreements or you have some questions about it, this is a great time to send that email, call the office, you reach out just to make sure we don't put in a bunch of requests and then decide to change our mind or we decide as a team to move up or move down.

So, please after you look at all your requests, talk to your student. They should be able to say what their teacher told them about. We conference with our students about their recommendations. But, once you're ready, you click class registration. You'll see a screen that looks just like this. You can scroll all the way through so you can see all the options for your world reading, your UAS, your music classes, any additional requests. You'll see that check box on the right. Click on the check and it'll be on your student schedule.

This is what the screens look like for your world language on the left. Again, there's five offered there. We'll run what we run numbers wise. They're not all guaranteed. And then again, music, you can see that they have the four for music on your seventh grade screen there. Just click off which one they want to be in. Eighth grade student screen is very similar, just the classes are a little bit different. The descriptions are a little bit different.

Again, you would click on your screens once you agree with it, put it on the schedule.
Same screens for world language. Performing arts, very similar screen, all your electives, obviously a little bit bigger. There's a little more option in eighth grade. Again, look at that course number. Open the course catalog for the descriptions you can get some more details on how it's run. You can see some of the other ones, culture and cuisine.

So, this is a question that comes up a lot for our last screen here. So, the course placement waiver override. This is a, obviously, parents may complete a waiver to change the course. The students can go to the counselor to get the over form or it is
also available in that course selection page. You'll see that there's a tag there. This is what we want. If you want to override a class, we need this by February 27th, and then sorry about that. It's going to come to Mr. Forsyth or Miss. Puchalla. Actually, sorry I didn't update my slide here. And we kind of have final, final say, but we want to work with you as a team. So, as you are looking at the course selections, if you really feel like your student should be in a different level and say you disagree with the teacher you had all those conversations it is your parents right to join um and to move up.

So, make sure you get that form in. Expect a call. It's not just like an instant, me, Miss Puchalla, our counselors, we'll talk to you. We want to make sure you understand the data when you read the information on that. Slide it does say like we are not like if you override our decision we are not responsible if your student says they start to struggle. Some parents and kind of like well where's the tune? Obviously we're not going to let any student we don't want them to fail. We want to support them in our classes. But it is kind of acknowledging that you are moving up from a recommendation from their teachers in their school.

But I am happy to talk through any overrides. It's a very normal part of the process, but I just want to say Mr. Puchalla. Sorry, I thought I heard you.

[34:34:14] Puchalla, Mary Kay
Yes. Could you go back to the parent portal? Just reshow them where did they go to find that in the beginning because that there's a lot of parents asking about that.

[34:43:17] Forsyth, Kyle
Yep. Yes, let me get there. So, parent portal, can you see this screen now?

[34:49:21] Puchalla, Mary Kay
Um. It would be bigger, would be helpful, yeah.

[34:51:15] Forsyth, Kyle
Yeah. Yep. Go into it. So, on our West Chester website, click on the our families and
students tab and you'll see the 2026 course selection information and then when you log into parent portal, so that's like in power school that's just your PS wcasd.net public login and then on the left side there's in all your buttons that class registration button is now open.

It just opens over the weekend. So, you're probably used to seeing grade history, grades, attendance, but click on the class registration button and you'll come to this screen. And when you view your course request, if you see that arrow there, that's when they'll all start popping up.

[35:42:10] Puchalla, Mary Kay
And one other clarifying question, there's been a change to gifted. Gifted will be a replacing a two-day course. So that it, depending on the student and what they're taking each two day.

I can't, we can't exactly tell you exactly what you're going to miss. So sometimes in an eighth-grade schedule it's two day of health, two day of PE, two day of music. It it depends. We have to individualize which course is going to be um taken out of that which elective. Is that correct Mr. Forsyth?

[36:12:00] Forsyth, Kyle
Yes. So, when it comes to gifted and this is also similar if you have a student that is on a special education IEP plan. We never take away performing music. So, I will always schedule around that.

We're not going to take away if your student plays an instrument or is in chorus. Typically in the eighth-grade or seventh grade, that means we have actually have a little more flexibility than they would miss a health block or miss a gym block. We'll talk to the student, the parent or classroom music.

Sixth grade, if you've had that experience, it gets a little more dicey because semester classes where some of our students have been like out of two days, we kind of end that in seventh and eighth grade. We have more flexibility., but we'll work with the kiddo. If they, some kids are like absolutely get me out of gym, some are like I understand health. So we'll talk to them on a case-by-case basis.

But it is built into their two-day cycle schedule. You are correct, Miss Puchalla. If you have a student in gifted, they've been kind of popping out to Mr. Pester during different classes and working on their project. It is now a class within their UA blocks.

[37:15:19] Puchalla, Mary Kay
OK, I'm just making sure I'm answering all the questions. I have answered all questions. Is there anything else you want to put in the Q&A?

[37:25:09] Forsyth, Kyle
And again, I just want to remind everyone I am happy to go ahead and give if you want to jump on the phone, send me an email, call the office, talk to Miss Perryman.
If you haven't met her, she's the new assistant principal secretary. She's been loading up my calendar. I will absolutely schedule time for you. A little bit of it's a busy time as this building scheduler. Lots of parent questions, lots of student questions.
So, but your grade level counselor and your grade level admin are happy to get on the phone, open up our, the admin, like if you want to open up, I can open up the recommendations with you and we can walk through them. If you want some help with that, say so can your counselors. So, I don't want anyone to feel lost in the process. Please reach out.

[38:07:19] Puchalla, Mary Kay
So, at this time, I just wanted to say thank you everyone for spending some time with us this evening. We hope that we answered your questions. Like Mr. Forsyth said in the beginning all this was videotaped to give us a day to put it back on our website that can walk you through it or again send us an email. We'll pick up the phone.
We'll walk you through it as well. Definitely have that conversation with your student at home. Take a look at the recommendations. Your student had conversations with their current teachers about what the recommendation was and why, and then you'll see it in the parent portal as to what course level they recommended. So, have that discussion with your child and go through the course selection book and look at those electives especially when you're going into eighth grade.

There's a lot of opportunities for them to choose some fun classes of interest for them. So, I appreciate again everyone coming out this evening and, stay warm everybody. Have a good night. Thank you everyone.

[39:06:05] Forsyth, Kyle
Thank you, everyone.