February
2013
Help us Improve Our School ~ DirectTV Package Raffle
DirectTV is partnering with Porter kids & staff to design & construct a welcoming & safe front
entry area. Proceeds from the raffle will off-set the expenses of this project
Win a DirectTV package for up to 4 rooms, free installation and one year of complementary
choice xtra programming, DVR service and HD access (valued at $1212, new customers only but
the package is transferable)
Tickets $5 each or 5 for $20
Contact Erica for more information or to buy tickets 728-2400 ext 4623
[email protected]
Art Club students will use a blog to record the front entrance update process. Any input at this
point is welcome, either through email, in person, or comments on the blog!
http://porterart.edublogs.org/
Cougar Chronicle
C.S. PORTER MIDDLE SCHOOL
Honoring Our Youth Pow Wow planned for March 14-15, 2014
This annual event at Big Sky High School brings together youth and families from
throughout the region to celebrate American Indian heritage and honor Indian
students through dancing and drumming, arts and crafts, concessions, games and
a community potluck. In 2014, the event is scheduled for March 14 and 15.
Spring Book Fair Fiesta Coming in March
The Porter Library will be hosting a Fiesta-themed Scholastic Book Fair during the
week of Spring Conferences (March 25th-28th). The fair will be open during
conferences, so please mark on your calendars to stop by the library and check it
out!
Other News
Yearbooks are on sale now at
www. yearbookforever.com or order
forms are available at the office.
Dates to Know:
Early Dismissal (2:30 pm) February 6h,
13th , 20th, and 27th.
No School February 17h~ Presidents’ Day
Parent Council February 11th 7 pm.
7th grade Winter Activities Trip will be
Tuesday, February 18th
6th Grade Red Wave Rehearsals Saturday, Feb 22, 8:15am; Thursday Feb
27, 2pm.
Spelling Bee February 6th 8:30 am. Contact
Mrs. Oldenburg if you would like to help by
judging.
Parent Council Meeting
Tuesday, February 11th from 7:00-8:00pm
in the Library. We need your help! All are welcome!
If you'd like to be added to the parent council email list please contact us at : [email protected]
Families First Free Class at Porter
Teasing and Name Calling: Friendship Factor, Tuesday, April 22 from 6:00-8:00pm
Presented at CS Porter Middle School with Parent Educator Nicole Gratch
Children who struggle with friendships are at risk for low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and poor school
performance. This class will teach parents some ways to help their children cope with “teasers” and bullies. They
will also learn how to help facilitate healthy friendships for their children and foster a community of empathy and
mutual support.
2hrs. Childcare is free. Register online at www.childrensmuseummissoula.org or call 721.7690.
Upcoming School Events ~ Hosted by Student Council
Coming up on Friday, February 28th, from 7pm-9pm is the “Heart Dance”, in honor of Mr. McNulty.
It will be a fundraiser for two fantastic programs, the American Heart Association and DG4K (Disc
Golf for Kids). We are hoping this dance raises all sorts of funds, soooooooooo, we are going to
need lots of volunteers because we are hoping to have as many “in good standing” middle school
students in the entire Missoula area to come join the fun to celebrate the life and passion of a
really outstanding guy. Celebrate the legacy, raise $ for American Heart and DG4G and just have
a great time with your friends from CS Porter, Meadow Hill, Washington, Target Range, Hellgate
Elementary, St. Joe's, Sussex and Missoula International School. Entry will be $2 at the door or 2
Cougar Coupons and 25 cents/Cougar Coupon per activity/food ticket, or $10 for an all-access
bracelet. See/call {728-2400, ext 4605}/email [email protected] Ms. Wolferman
(student council advisor) with activity ideas, volunteerism, contacts, or anything related to putting
on an amazing event.
Congratulations
Congratulations to our Geography Bee finalists: Jonathan Jones, Rylee Owens, AJ
Levehenko, Logan Denko, Austin Carlson, Nathan Keffeler, Courtney Lozeau, Piper
Wolferman, Elliot Seymour and Jesse Bartkoske.
Congratulations to Gabe Jourdonnais for 2nd Place and Rylee Owens for 1st Place.
Awesome job students!
Congratulations to the winning Crews for the Food Drive Competition:
6th grade: Kaplan, 7th grade: Hansen, 8th grade Wolferman
Congratulations to Porter 7th grader, Kerrigan McHood, for her winning entry in this
year’s Martin Luther King Art and Essay Contest sponsored by the MLK Jr. Day Planning
Committee, The University of Montana Excellence Fund, and the Missoulian. Kerrigan’s
poster was selected as the first place winner in the 6-8th grade division.
Free/Reduced Meal Application
The free and reduced price meal application may be filled out at anytime during the school year if your
situation changes. A new application needs to be filled out each year. You can get an application from the
office or submit the form online at: http://www.mcpsmt.org/domain/849
Thank you for taking time to fill out the application. Our school benefits tremendously from Title I
services and these forms tie directly to those benefits.
8th Grade News
Feb. 11 is 8th grade field trip to the high schools
February 14 (Tentative) Porter Pals field trip to Hawthorne/Franklin for Valentine's Day.
Feb. 18-21 Writing Coaches for McFarland 8th grade classes
6th Grade News
The 6th graders are going ice skating. Trips leave at 8:30 am and return in time for lunch.
Feb 4 – Ice skating: Oldenburg, Parkey, Levi
Feb 5 – Ice skating: Kaplan, Caouette, Boone
Summit for Healthy Children: Food for Fuel
Friday, February 21, 2014 7:00 am - Noon at the UM University Center
You are invited to attend an important summit to improve students' health and academic performance
through healthy foods offered during the regular and extended school day outside the school food service
program. You will hear from a dynamic nutrition expert and keynote speaker Jesica Donze Black explain
the impact of nutrition policies with the connection to student learning and overall health.
Facilities Strategic Plan
We are in the last phase of the Facilities Strategic Plan process. The APPLY workshops take place January
28-30 and February 4, 2014. Our school’s team will participate in these sessions and we hope you will join
us at the Community Listening Session on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the Jefferson
Center, 1700 South Avenue.
Please join us in welcoming the
ART MOBILE of MONTANA.
On Tuesday, Feb 25, we will host a one-day exhibition of regional artwork right here at CS Porter!
The only program of its kind in Montana, this statewide service offers interactive presentations of curated art exhibits. AMM
educates through art about the diversity of the human experience, culture, practices, customs, and history. The annual
traveling exhibit showcases 20-25 contemporary Montana visual artists' works, including Native American's art, and is
accompanied by artist presentations.
Families are invited to drop by and view the work, and we could always use volunteers to help set up and take down the
exhibit. Contact our art teacher, Ms. Snoke, for more information. [email protected] or 728-2400 ext.4632
Radon Awareness Campaign
The Missoula City-County Health Department has launched its Radon Awareness Campaign. Radon, a
naturally occurring, radioactive gas that seeps into buildings from surrounding soil, is the second leading
cause of lung cancer. In an effort to increase public awareness, the Missoula City-County Health
Department is offering radon test kits for $7. Winter is the best time to test for radon while doors and
windows are closed for the winter. For further information or to obtain a test kit, please call (406)2584755 or email [email protected]
7th Grade News
Mr. Love and the 7th grade teachers are working with Shane Clouse and the Montana Wild Sheep
Foundation http://www.wildsheepfoundation.org/ on a field trip scheduled for Feb 28th. Shane with the
MTWSF are working with several groups to create more opportunities for Missoula area youth to get
involved in the outdoors and conservation. The work stations include; Wildlife Tracks & Scat, Hides &
Skulls Display, MT Fish Wildlife & Parks Anti-Poaching Info, Indoor Archery, Smoke Elser Back
Country Packing Clinic, Five Valley Land Trust, MT Nature Conservancy, Indoor BB Gun Range, Be
Bear, Aware, Boone & Crockett Outdoor Adventure Camp, U.S. Forest Service (Leave No Trace
Camping), & B.E.A.R. Program Tom Carlsen. They will give away 4, full paid, scholarships to the Teddy
Roosevelt Memorial Ranch Youth Camp. Go to the following link for more information.
http://www.boonecrockett.org/educationPrograms/education_fieldtrips_public.asp?area=educationPrograms . We’ve been
working with Shane to get kids from our school over to the Hilton Garden Inn on Feb 28 to go through the
12 booths they will have set up. We will leave after lunch and return by 3:00.
Shane explains, the program can take up to two hours to get all of our 7th graders through. Each student
will sign in upon arrival and receive a card with all of the work stations listed on the card. Each student
will be required to complete a certain number of work station in order to qualify to be in the drawing for
the Summer Camp Scholarship. Many of the booths will also be set up on Mar 1 and will be open to the
public. ***The event is free to our Porter students and family. At 5:30 pm on March 1, the MTWSF
fundraiser banquet begins. There is a charge for that.
CSCT News
Dear parents,
Playing video games is a popular activity for teenagers these days. Along with
the growing interest in video games among teens is the growing need for parents to be
more involved in monitoring and setting limits around their access to these games. The
following article excerpts summarize recent research findings about the effects
exposure to video games has on a person’s attention span, impulse control, and
aggressive behaviors. Read on and learn more!
Video Games Boost Visual Attention but Reduce Impulse Control
Aug. 4, 2013 — A person playing a first-person shooter video game like Halo or Unreal Tournament
must make decisions quickly. That fast-paced decision-making, it turns out, boosts the player's visual
skills but comes at a cost, according to new research: reducing the person's ability to inhibit impulsive
behavior. This reduction in what is called "proactive executive control" appears to be yet another way
that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior.
People's ability to override aggressive impulses is dependent in large part on good executive control
capacity, as will be presented at a symposium at the American Psychological Association (APA) annual
meeting in Honolulu. And social psychologists are looking how a variety of factors -- including media
exposure, anger, and alcohol -- affect that capability. Two types of cognitive control processes play a
large role: proactive and reactive. "Proactive cognitive control involves keeping information active in
short-term memory for use in later judgments, a kind of task preparation," Anderson explains. "Reactive
control is more of a just-in-time type of decision resolution."
In three new, unpublished studies, Anderson and colleagues found that playing action video games is
associated with better visuospatial attention skills, but also with reduced proactive cognitive control.
"These studies are the first to link violent video game play with both beneficial and harmful effects
within the same study," Anderson says.
Most screen media -- TV, movies, video games -- are fast paced and essentially train the brain to
respond quickly to rapid changes in images and sounds, Anderson says. Violent video games, in
particular, are designed to require quick response to changes on the screen. "What such fast-paced media
fail to train is inhibiting the almost automatic first response," he says. "This is the essence of ADD,
ADHD, and measures of impulsivity," and he says, "that's why attention problems are more strongly
related to impulsive aggression than to premeditated aggression."
Source:
Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2013, August 4). Video games boost visual
attention but reduce impulse control. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 23, 2014, from http://www.sciencedaily.com- /
releases/2013/08/130804081115.htm
As parents you have the power to control your child’s access and exposure to screen time.
Take into consideration limiting their screen time on a daily basis and encouraging other
activities that get your child outside, exercising, or playing different kinds of games with their
friends and away from screens.
Parents:
Missoula County Public Schools is in the midst of facilities planning process. Public meetings were held October 711, November 4-8 and the last series of meetings will take place next week from January 28 - February 4, 2014.
These meetings are aimed at truly understanding how the community envisions 21 st Century learning in our
Missoula school buildings. Currently the community is discussing these changes to our buildings and their
surroundings to make sure they offer what students and teachers need for generations to come.
The APPLY phase meetings that take place January 28 - February 4, 2014 will allow our school's Education
Innovation Team (parents, staff, students and community members) to identify our school's top two options
from the range of seven options that have been discussed for our school site. If you are interested in seeing the
seven options, we have them posted in our school and you can view them online at this link: http://
www.mcpsmt.org/Page/6905.
We all care about education and are getting the chance to collaboratively solve what our schools really need to
take education in Missoula into the future. This is our chance to look at the district as a whole and make
decisions that will affect every neighborhood. There are teams of parents, students, teachers and community
members working on plans for each school. They need your input about schools in your neighborhood and across
town.
Talk to your neighbors, talk to your teachers, talk to your kids. Please get involved, share your hopes and ideas as
well as your concerns for the future.
Join us in person at the next Community Listening Session on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:30 8:00 p.m. at the Jefferson Center, 1700 South Avenue W.
A demographic study and capacity analysis completed by McKibben Demographics and CTA Architects Engineers
shows us that our elementary schools will have more students than our buildings can handle starting in the 2017
school year. Add to that, our buildings are on average nearly 60 years old and in need of significant work to bring
them up to standards.
Developing and implementing a comprehensive 15 year education facility strategic plan is one of the most
significant efforts in Missoula County Public Schools history. The results of these efforts will be the first of its kind
at MCPS. It will afford the opportunity to discuss current facility needs and to articulate facility designs that
connect with the MCPS educational philosophy: the MCPS 21st Century Model of Education.
The focus of this important undertaking is to provide the very best educational environment for our children and
staff through the successful passage of a 21st century bond issue in the fall of 2015. This bond issue will also
provide for improved safety and security in our schools and much needed improvement in technology wiring
infrastructure.
You can also get involved in this discussion now by visiting our website to look at the background data,
community input on the process and to comment on our facilities strategic plan blog at www.mcpsmt.org
A range of options exist for each school building across the district:
Option B Business as Usual
Option C Consolidate
Option L Light Touch
Option O Out of the Box
Option R Realign & Relocate
Option S Start Over
The committee and the community will explore this range of options and make a recommendation to the Board
of Trustees. The Board of Trustees will be responsible for all decisions related to school sites.
Detailed information about the process as well as agendas for each week of workshops can be found on the
district's website at http://www.mcpsmt.org/Page/4340.
Keep an eye out on your email, our school website and district and school Facebook pages for more information
throughout the process. As always, if you have comments or questions about this process, please contact Hatton
Littman at 728-2400 X1024 or Burley McWilliams at 728-2400 X3032.
Karen Allen
Executive Regional Director
Missoula County Public Schools
215 South 6th West
Missoula, MT 59801
728-2400, Ext. 1074
January 23, 2014
Dear Parent or Guardian,
This letter is to let you know about the Body Mass Index (BMI) Screening Program that will be happening later this school year at C.S. Porter
Middle School. The Missoula City-County Health Department (MCCHD) will supervise the height and weight screenings and will make sure
your son or daughter’s privacy is respected at all times. The results of your son or daughter’s height, weight and BMI measurements are strictly
confidential. The results will be sent to you. The MCCHD will only keep aggregate data for research purposes—no personal information will be
kept by MCCHC.
Just like blood pressure reading or an eye screening test, a BMI can be a useful tool in identifying possible health risks. The purpose of our BMI
screening program is twofold: (1) to give you information about your son or daughter’s height/weight status and ideas for healthy living and; (2)
to collect important information about the health of students in Missoula County.
We encourage you to share the BMI results with your health care provider. A BMI does not tell the whole story about your son or daughter’s
health status. BMI does not distinguish between muscle and fat. For example, if your son or daughter is very athletic and has a lot of muscle, his
or her BMI may be high even though he or she is not overweight.
Your son or daughter’s nurse or doctor is in the best position to evaluate his or her overall health and can explain the results of the BMI
screening.
If you do not wish to have your son or daughter participate in the Body Mass Index Surveillance Program, please sign the form below and return
it to C.S. Porter Middle School by Friday, Feb 7, 2014. Don’t hesitate to call me (728-2400 ext. 1074) or Mary Pittaway of MCCHD at 258-4837
or Rebecca Morley of MCCHD at 258-3827 with any questions you have about the BMI surveillance program.
Sincerely,
Karen Allen
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I do not want my child ___________________________________ to participate in the Body Mass Index Screening Program at C.S.
Porter Middle School.
_____________________________________________
Date
________________________________
Parent/Guardian Signature