Exploris Grade 8
Thanks for another great week! We had a speaker, Matthew Starr, talk about water health in NC, we learned more about chemistry and the hydrosphere, and ended our week with our Crew bonding at Falls Lake! HUGE thank you to all of our parent drivers. We had a GREAT day.
Updates from Admin:
Families, please remember that ANY new illness symptoms should be treated as a potential Covid case. Please help us protect our whole school community and keep kids home if they have a new symptom of congestion, runny nose, fever, sore throat, headache, or upset stomach.
Families, please add the school phone # to your allowed contacts for One-call and for emergency notifications, family check ins, needs to pick up a sick kid etc (919) 715-3690 middle school, (919) 715-0333 elementary school
Our first Flex Day is coming soon! On Monday, September 13th, most students will be learning from home and will not attend school in person that day. All students will have asynchronous work to complete. Staff will be receiving some specialized training and will be working with small groups of students who need extra support. These days are part of our Covid learning recovery plans and will allow us to better serve all our students. Families, your crew teacher will be contacting you if your student is part of the groups that will be meeting on campus that day. Before and after care will not be offered on Flex Days.
Volunteer Opportunity: Yearbook Advisor! We’d love 1-2 adult volunteers who could help support our yearbook program, ideally at the middle school on Friday afternoons, but could be assorted evenings or weekends as well. Contact Deborah@Exploris.org if interested!
Exploris needs subs! If you or anyone in your network would like to be trained and get on our sub list, please reach out to MParkerson@Exploris.org. Subbing is a great way to get to know the school, teachers, and kids, and is a flexible way to earn some extra $$s! Our next sub training will be on Thursday, Sept. 9th at the Elementary campus.
Helpful links:
Other Reminders:
Lunch update Planet Green’s Hot School Lunch Program is coming soon. We will implement school-wide starting September 8th. Prior to September 8th, we will pilot with a small group at each grade level to ensure we have the new system and process running smoothly. If you have questions please feel free to contact counselor@exploris.org
Outward Bound We will go over it in more detail at our fall open house, but it’s a week-long backpacking trip in the NC mountains. We partner with North Carolina Outward Bound school. It serves as our capstone experience for all 8th grade students at Exploris, to send them on their way to high school. We haven’t nailed down a date yet, but it’s usually in April each year. We actually had to cancel due to COVID for the last two years, but we are hopeful we can make it happen again for this year’s 8th grade class. The cost is around $900 and coupon books are our biggest fundraiser. Students get $15/book towards their trip. We also offer scholarships and would never let cost keep students from attending. Please read more about a past course here. More to come…
Fundraising for Outward Bound -Coupon Books 2021 – 2022 Coupon Books are our first fundraiser for Outward Bound. You sign out books 3 at a time and can sell books in person or on-line. There are Chapel Hill books, Tri-Area books, and Raleigh books. For every book your child sells he/she receives $13.50 as a credit toward Outward Bound. If we sell 300 books as a class each student gets $15 per book. To put it simply, if you sell 10 books then you get two free books and get to keep 100% of profit.
Fundraising Capacity:
| 3 books sold | 12 books sold (2 at 100% profit for you) |
| 3x$15= $45 toward Outward Bound | 10x$15+ 2($30)$150+$60= $210 toward Outward Bound |
Pick Up
| Wednesday, August 18th to Wednesday September 1st | Students can check out books and turn in money only on Wednesday mornings from 7:45 – 8:15.. We will collect all of the money then also. We STRONGLY request that parents have all book buyers write checks to them (the parents) and then the parents write one big check to Exploris for all of the books. |
| Coupon Book Outward Bound Fundraiser Officially Closes WE HAVE DECIDED TO EXTEND TO SEPTEMBER 24th! |
THIS WEEK
| Monday 8/30 | CNN10 Crew: Where I’m From Poem Humanities: 2A word pics, Reading 30 mins Expedition: Hydrosphere (Adrian and Paula’s Crews) Expedition: Chemistry (Jessie and Cori’’s Crews) Lunch @ Nash |
| Tuesday 8/31 | CNN10 Crew: Where I’m From Humanities: #2 paragraph, Read 30 mins Expedition: Hydrosphere Expedition: Chemistry Lunch @ Food Hall/Union Station |
| Wednesday 9/1 | CNN10 Crew: Where I’m From Poem Humanities: Read 30 minutes Expedition: Hydrosphere Expedition: Chemistry Lunch @ Moore Square |
| Thursday 9/2 | CNN10 Crew: Where I’m From Poem Humanities: Read 30 minutes Expedition: Science Museum Visit & Prep for Stream Study Lunch @Halifax (because of Science Museum Visit) |
| Friday 9/3 | STREAM STUDY – OFF CAMPUS ALL DAY AT CHAVIS AND WALNUT CREEK WETLAND CENTER – bring lunches, water, backpack for walking, and shoes that can get wet Outward Bound Deposit $300 Due (pay online here) or Scholarship Application (bumping back the official due date on this, but go ahead and pay if you can or start the scholarship application if needed) |
| Next Week | Monday, September 6 Labor Day – Holiday Tuesday, September 7- Rosh Hashanah Holiday |
Important Dates (Exploris CALENDAR):
Monday, September 13 – Flex Day – ASYNCHRONOUS FOR STUDENTS
Thursday, September 16 – Yom Kippur Holiday
Thursday, September 23 – VIRTUAL Open House for parents
Friday, September 24 – Coupon Book Sales Close (turn in all $ and books)
October 1 (3:15pm) – October 11 (8am) – Fall Break
Friday, October 22 – Teacher Workday for Portfolio Conferences
Thursday, November 11 – Veterans Day – Holiday
Friday, November 12 – Flex Day – ASYNCHRONOUS FOR STUDENTS
Friday, November, 12 – $600 in payments or credits toward Outward Bound Due
Friday, November 19 – End of First Trimester
Monday, November 22 – Tuesday November 23 – Teacher Workday
Friday, Nov 19 (3:15pm)- Monday, Nov 29 (8am) – Thanksgiving Break
Friday, December 17 – Early Dismissal
Winter Break – Friday Dec 17 (12:15pm) – Tuesday, Jan 4 (8am)
Friday, Jan 14 – FULL PAYMENT toward Outward Bound DUE ($900)
Monday, Jan 17 – MLK Holiday
Friday, February 18 – Teacher Workday – Portfolio Conferences
Monday, Feb 21 – Teacher Workday – Presidents’ Day Holiday
Thursday, March 10 – End of Second Trimester
Friday, March 11 and Monday March 14 – Teacher Workdays
Spring Break – Friday, April 8 (3:15pm) – Tuesday, April 19 (8am)
Monday, April 18 – Teacher Workday
Tuesday, May 3 – Eid al Fitr Holiday
Monday, May 30- Memorial Day Holiday
Friday, June 10 – Graduation (10:30 am), early dismissal
Friday, June 10 – End of Third Trimester, last day of school
8th Grade Contacts
Jessie Francese, Jfrancese@exploris.org
Cori Greer-Banks, cori@exploris.org
Paula Mancini, pmancini@exploris.org
Adrian Findlay, adrian@exploris.org
Kelly Fauth, kfauth@exploris.org
Who’s Who?
Adrian Findlay – Crew, Math, Expedition
Jessie Francese – Crew, Humanities, Expedition
Paula Mancini – Crew, Math, Expedition
Cori Greer-Banks – Crew, Humanities, Expedition
Kelly Fauth – Special Education
Jamie Butler – Art
Julius Debnam- Health and Wellness
Christina Franklin – Digital Literacy
Aurelia Autman – World Cultures and Spanish Language
Michelle Duncan – School Counselor
Michelle Butterworth – Interventionist
Mary Margaret Moffitt – Development Coordinator, but mostly just about anything you need!
Michael Gilbert-Singletary – Data Manage – Attendance
Josh Corbat – Directors of Resources
Deborah Brown – Middle School Director
RESOURCES:
Parent and Teacher Organization
- Join PTO – much, much help still needed! LINK
- 2021 – 2022 Carpool Form ; 2021 – 2022 Carpool Map
Clubs:
- Allies – Mary McWay and Cori Greer-Banks
- Cross Country (Aug-Oct) – Adrian Findlay
- Contemporary Art Museum docents – TBD
- Dungeons & Dragons – Cris Preble
- Science Olympiad – TBD
- Model U.N. – Cori Greer-Banks
- Soccer (Jan-Mar) – Shannon Hardy
- Yearbook – TBD
- Student Ambassadors – Mary McWay and Devon Rose
- Battle of the Books – Devon and Loren
