Get involved!  Parents, your child is likely to struggle in middle school.  This is normal.  Middle school students commonly need their parents’ help to keep up as social and academic expectations intensify across the middle school years.  Responsibility for learning in middle school belongs to students, but parents play the vital role of nurturing within their children positive and determined attitudes towards school.  Please talk to your child about school everyday, help ensure s/he completes all assignments, communicate with his/her teachers, ensure that you receive all scheduled grade reports, and take behavioral issues very seriously.  Success breeds success.  A student’s experience at middle school will influence his/her performance in high school and beyond. 
            Middle school students take ownership of the learning process and full responsibility for their performance.  For most students, academic success is the core of a positive school experience.  Students who feel academically successful are generally happier at school than those who do not.  In middle school, success is largely a function of attitude: school is very important! (always be honest, do your personal best, be on-time, remember to bring required materials to every class, listen, study, and hand-in work when it is due).  The most important item on the foregoing list is honesty.  Middle school students take responsibility for their own learning by doing their own work.  Please help your child understand that cheating (giving and/or receiving inappropriate academic help) will not tolerated at AISJ.  For more information about school policies regarding honesty refer to the student handbook.  For specific information about plagiarism, please visit www.plagiarism.org.
Help your child get involved.  AISJ has many extracurricular activities including sports, clubs and service projects.  Participation in these activities makes school more fun.  Our Explore the Kingdom (ETK) program occurs each February, in which middle school students escape from school for a week to experience the culture and history of the world beyond Jeddah, firsthand.  Trips to various locations in the kingdom are planned and led by professional guides and experienced AISJ faculty.  We want everyone to join ETK trips this year!
Bullying….  Please support our efforts to maintain a safe and respectful middle school community at AISJ, keeping in mind that this community extends well beyond the boundaries of our campus.  Middle school students love to socialize.  These are the years when social development runs full tilt; these are also the years when students experiment with various forms of bullying, including cyber-bullying.  Bullying is not tolerated at AISJ. 
Parents, please actively ensure that your children are not involved in acts of bullying and cyber-bullying outside of school.  Popular social networking websites like facebook.com can be fun tools for sharing and socializing with friends, but may also be used to broadcast cruel remarks and photos, as well as other inappropriate content.  Please carefully monitor your child’s web-activities.  If s/he has a social networking profile online, please check it frequently to be sure that the content and character of their social interactions are completely appropriate.
I look forward to working with middle school faculty, students and parents to ensure that 2009-2010 is a fun, safe, and productive school year for everyone.  If I can help in any way, please contact me by phone (+966-2-662-0051, ext.285) or email (bbarnhardt@aisj.edu.sa).