Principal's Note - August 19, 2022
Good evening, Holmes Families!
It was such a pleasure seeing and meeting so many of you and your students this week at our Open House and Jumpstart events! And in just 3 days, we will be welcoming your students to their first day of the 2022-23 school year at Holmes Middle School! Our staff has spent the week getting everything ready to welcome students on Monday!
If you did not have a chance to pick up your student's schedule, it's okay! You can see the schedule on Student Vue and ParentVue, and we will have students' 1st period classes posted around the hallways on Monday. Students will receive a new BLUE copy of their schedules in their 1st period class.
Pack Light on Monday!
Please tell your students to PACK LIGHT on Monday. They will be receiving laptops and school supplies, and they will not have access to their lockers until the week of August 29th. They should just bring a backpack, pens and pencils, a water bottle, and their lunch if they want to bring it.
Back to School Night
Please be sure to mark your calendars for Tuesday, August 30th, when we will have our Back to School Night from 5-8 pm. A team from Thomas Jefferson High School will present an information session at 5:00, and our class visits will begin at 6:00.
Morning Routines
Here is what mornings look like at Holmes:
- Early buses (we have seven) begin arriving between 6:50 and 7:00 am. Mr. Banks, our Safety & Security Assistant will welcome students at Door 3, and they will walk down B hall to the cafeteria where they will be welcomed and supervised by a member of the administrative team. They will remain there until 7:10 am.
- All other students will wait on their buses until 7:10 am when the bell rings. This will ensure that there are enough staff within the building to supervise them.
- Students who are walkers and car riders will wait outside of door 1 until the bell rings at 7:10 am. Please do not drop off students before 7:10 am, because we do not have enough staff available to supervise students at that time.
- At 7:10 am, the bell will ring, and students will need to go to one of 3 locations until 7:25 am:
- All students who are eating breakfast will go to the cafeteria.
- All students who rode buses will go sit in the main hall.
- All students who enter through door 1 will sit in the library.
- At 7:25 am, the bell will ring and all students should put their phones and earbuds in their backpacks and go to their first class of the day.
Kiss-n-Ride Information
Parents/Guardians who drive students to school should use the entrance closest to Braddock Road, make an immediate right into the parking lot, loop around the cars, and pull up to the curb (see picture below). A member of our school staff, Mr. Meade, will be there to greet you each morning and afternoon. Please do not use the other entrance for student drop-off, and please do not drop students off on Montrose Street. Please do not park and walk into the school building with your student. (NOTE: Students being picked up in the afternoon are picked up in the same location.) Please do not drop off students an leave them unattended before 7:10 am.
Staffing Update
You may have noticed "Vacancy" quite a bit on your students' schedules. We only actually have ONE teaching vacancy right now at Holmes, though, which I will detail below. "Vacancy" is showing up on the student schedules as we wait for Human Resources and IT to continue processing our new hires, but they will see teacher names on their schedules that they will receive on Monday. Now that you have the class schedules, I want to provide you with specific information about a few of our classrooms:
- Business & Information Technology: Our new teacher, Mr. Morris-Jones, is finishing up the onboarding process with HR, and will begin soon. While he is being finalized, a long-term substitute, Mr. O'Shea, will welcome students to the classroom and get them started for the year.
- Family and Consumer Sciences: Our new teacher, Ms. Riegel Cruz, is finishing up the onboarding process with HR, and will begin soon. While she is being finalized, a long-term substitute, Ms. Enis, will welcome students to the classroom and get them started for the year.
- Special Education/6th Grade History (showing as "Powell" on student schedules): This is our only true vacancy. We are currently interviewing candidates and securing a substitute for our 6th grade students with disabilities for their History classes. Our 6th grade History team lead, Mr. Risden, our instructional assistants, and our coaches will be supporting those classes with the help of our Special Education Department Chair.
- Special Education/7th Grade Science: Our 7th grade Special Education teacher, Ms. Rader, is currently on maternity leave through October 28th. Her long-term substitute, Mr. Walutes, will be supporting her students in 1st quarter with the help of our Science 7 team and our Special Education department.
- Theater Arts: Our theater teacher, Ms. Murphy, is currently on maternity leave through November 11th. Our permanent substitute, Mr. Coaquira, will be getting her class started while her long-term substitute with theater experience, Ms. Hill, is completing the onboarding process with HR.
Remember that FCPS needs teachers, counselors, bus drivers, substitutes, student monitors, etc. If you know of someone who is looking for work, please send them to explore our Career Opportunities.
Behavior Expectations
As a reminder, please take the time to review the expectations in the Holmes Behavior Matrix with your students to help us ensure we have a safe school environment that is conducive to learning. In addition to having lessons about these expectations, students will also have lessons about the Student Rights and Responsibilities (SR&R) in early to mid-September.
Please stress with your students that violence, bullying and harassment of any kind, vaping, and other serious infractions will not be tolerated and will result in serious disciplinary consequences for students (up to and including out of school suspension and referral to the Hearings office).
Please also communicate with your student's counselor and assistant principal if something is happening at school that is making your student feel unsafe or unwelcome. We cannot address what we don't know about, so please let us know early when you have concerns so that we can address it before it escalates. Your students may feel reluctant for you to share these things with us, but it is so important that we partner together to keep our school community safe for every single student and staff member.
SR&R Parent/Guardian Signature Sheet
Please log on to your SIS ParentVue account and sign to acknowledge review of this document OR sign and return this form to your child’s school by September 30, 2022.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS
Laptops
Students will receive their laptops on the first day of school, but many students have still not returned their laptops from last year. Students who still need to turn their laptops in from last year WILL NOT be able to receive a laptop from Holmes. Please turn your student's laptop in as soon as possible to ensure they have what they need on their first day of school at Holmes.
Lunch PIN number
This is just a reminder that students must pay for breakfast and lunch this year, and they will need a PIN. The PIN was emailed to parents on Wednesday, 8/17, to students' @fcpsschools.net email today (Friday, 8/19), and each lunch supervisor will have a copy on Monday. If you need to access free and reduced meals, please be sure to complete the application (link below in newsletter) as soon as possible. If you would like to add money to your student's account, you should use MySchoolBucks.
HOLMES UPDATES
Here are today's newsletter topics:
Holmes Updates
- Student Services Information
- 2022-23 Blue/White Schedule
- 2022-23 Bell Schedule
- Apply for Free & Reduced Meals
- Required Immunizations for School
- Important Upcoming Dates
- How to Stay Connected to Holmes MS
FCPS & Community Updates
- School-Required Vaccinations For Free
- Free School Physicals for Children - 8/20
- Say Yes to FCPS Food & Nutrition Services
- Consider joining Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services Team
- Stay Connected with FCPS
Please feel free to reach out and let us know what questions you have. Thank you, and we'll see your students on the first day of school!
Sincerely,
Margaret Barnes
Proud Principal, Holmes MS
#TeamHolmes
Student Services Information
2022-23 Blue/White Calendar
Most classes at Holmes are 85-90 minutes blocks. Blue days are odd periods, and White days are even periods. This calendar will also be posted to the website, and each student will receive a copy on the first day of school.
UPDATE: This week, we caught a mistake in our blue-white calendar for the week of February 27th. We will update you as we get closer to those dates.
Apply for Free & Reduced Meals
All students will have to pay for breakfast and lunch this year unless they qualify for free and reduced meals.
Families will need to apply for free and reduced-price meals, which they have not had to do since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.
- Online applications are now available.
- Paper applications will be available at schools (except ones designated as a CEP school) at a date to be determined.
- Approved FRM eligibility letters may also be used to provide additional benefits.
- Please know that we will not share your data or personal information with anyone else. See FCPS’ Trust Policy.
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When applying for FRM, don't forget to complete the "Consent to Share"
The Consent to Share Information Letter informs parents that their children may be eligible to participate in several fee-based programs (art, music, Family & Consumer Sciences, etc.) at either no cost or a reduced cost, if they participate in the Free and Reduced-price meals program, and provide a consent to share information form.
Some students are directly certified (i.e. Medicaid recipients) as receiving Free and Reduced-Price Meals. Even though they do not need to submit a Free and Reduced-Price Meals application, they will need to submit the Consent to Share Information form to be eligible for additional benefits.
The FRM application also includes a section with the Consent to Share information for other programs. If section four of the application is completed, the Consent to Share Information form does not need to be filled out.
Required Immunizations for School
All students need to have all of their required immunizations to attend school this year. All students are required to be immunized against certain communicable diseases to attend school in the state of Virginia. It is important for all students to receive the required immunizations.
Please talk with your family health care provider about whether or not your children are up to date on their vaccines before the new school year begins. Submit updated immunization records to Holmes as soon as possible by bringing them into the main office or scanning and sending a copy of the immunizations to Wendy Alfaro at @email.
More information on immunization requirements and the necessary documentation is available online.
Important Upcoming Dates
- Monday 8/22 - First Day of 2022-2023 School Year
- Tuesday, 8/30, 5-8:30 PM - Back to School Night (open to all families)
- Friday, 9/2 & Monday, 9/5 - NO SCHOOL / Labor Day Holiday
How to Stay Connected to Holmes MS
Please stay in touch with us throughout the year by:
- keeping your contact information up-to-date throughout the year
- visiting the Holmes MS website
- signing up for News You Choose
- following us on Twitter
- monitoring your student's progress with SIS Parent Account
- join the Holmes MS PTA and attend meetings
FCPS & COMMUNITY UPDATES
School-Required Vaccinations For Free
Say YES to FCPS Food and Nutrition Services
Stay Connected with FCPS
Being connected to your school and division is important every year, and even more so now as we navigate our return to school. The best way to stay informed is to sign up for newsletters through News You Chose.
Your school and FCPS have a variety of topics you can choose from, including:
- School Newsletters- featuring everything you need to know about your child’s school
- FCPS This Week- a weekly newsletter featuring news and happenings from across the division, published Wednesday mornings
- School Board Meeting Update- a recap of important news coming out of school board meetings, published the Friday morning after the meeting
- FCPS Employee News- weekly updates just for staff, published Tuesday mornings