Parent Bulletin Issue 26 SY1314

8/12/2019 Parent Bulletin Issue 26 SY1314

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MARCH

25 - 31 MAP Tesng

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MIDDLE SCHOOLMIDDLE SCHOOLMIDDLE SCHOOL

ISSUE # 26

SY 2013 –2014

WEEK OF: Weekly Publication for Middle School Parents

Friday Bulletin

Inside this issue:

Events & Acvies:

2 MAP Tesng

11 ISM Upcoming Events

9 Admissions & Advancement

8 Athlecs & Acvies

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Superintendent’s Oce

MARCH 10 TO 14

10 - 14 MAP Tesng

6 High School Guidance

Service Learning

Academic Bowl

Dear Parents:

This week students registered for courses for school year 2014-2015. You andyour child should have received a conrmaon email regarding the seleconsthat your child made. Please print out the conrmaon sheet, sign it and returnthe form to the Middle School Guidance Oce by March 14. If your child wasunable to register for class, your child will be called to the Guidance Oce to doso next week.

On Monday, March 10 we will start the second round of MAP (Measures of Aca-demic Progress) tesng. Please see the separate leer included in the bullen

for more details. In the event that your child misses a tesng session, we willhold make-up sessions on Wednesdays starng at 7:30 A.M. If your child re-

quires a make-up session, the MS Oce will nofy you and we ask that youmake the necessary arrangements to bring your child to school early on Wednes-day.

On Thursday, March 20 students will be released early at 12:00 noon, and wewill have an aernoon of Student-Led Conferences, which provide an opportuni-ty for students to share their learning with their parents. Within the next weekwe will provide more informaon about the aernoon, quesons you can askyour child during the conferences, and a goal seng sheet.

On that aernoon parents will accompany their child to each class for approxi-mately ten minutes and have the opportunity to discuss samples of work. Therewill be two sessions, 12:30 - 2:30 and 3:00 - 5:00, with students divided accord-ing to the alphabet. It is recommended that students with surnames A-K aendthe rst session, and students with surnames L-Z aend the second session;

however, this is exible. If you are unable to aend the recommended sessionme, you are welcome to parcipate in the alternate session. For student-led

conferences, parents will not need to schedule appointments. Please note thatif both parents are unable to aend the student-led conference, your child isexpected to go home at dismissal and not remain on campus.

In recent weeks we have seen more Middle School students in the ElementarySchool playground aer school. We recognize that some students must be thereto board the buses and that is ne. Unfortunately, some of the students aremaking poor choices and not being posive role models for the younger stu-dents. If your child must remain on campus to wait for a sibling, please tell yourchild that they should go to the MS Courtyard or Cafeteria aer school wherethey can be producve or have down me with their friends. Alternavely, en-courage them to get involved in an aer school acvity so they can try some-thing new and expand their circle of friends. There are a range of acvies thatsll have available spaces and are looking for more parcipants.

Looking ahead…This year the Middle School will take a step toward joining theElementary School Internaonal Day on Friday, March 21. Middle School stu-dents will begin the day in Advisory for aendance then proceed to watch theag ceremony. Students are encouraged to dress in are that represents theirhome country. We look forward to everyone geng involved and celebrangthe diversity of the ISM community.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Yours in Educaon,

Simon Gillespie Clarissa Sayson

Middle School Principal Middle School Assistant Principal

3 Treasury Department

27 Grade 5/6 All Strings

Concert

20 Student-Led

Conferences

Middle School Students

are encouraged to wear

their House Shirts on

Friday, March 14



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To All ISM Parents:

Important Advisory : US dollar Checks from Cibank NA - Philippine Branch

In accordance with the recent advisory made by Cibank N.A. Philippines, please be informed that

starng January 01,2014 , CITIBANK US Dollar Account checks drawn from Cibank N.A. Philippine

Branch will no longer be cleared through Cibank N.A. Agana Guam.

In eect, CITIBANK checks deposited to a local bank or bank abroad will be treated as collecon

checks

with clearing period of not less than

45 days.

The said checks will no longer be acceptable foroutright credit to both foreign currency deposit unit (FCDU) and PESO account unl the receipt of

credit advice from Cibank NA Philippines.

A collecon fee will also be imposed by depository banks (please see charges from BPI and HSBC

below).

BPI charges 1/4 of 1% for every Php 1.00 or a fracon thereof plus a xed postage fee of Php 6.50

and minimum charge for outward bills for collecon is Php 100.00 excluding postage fee.



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HSBC charges USD$3 for credit to USD account and Php100 for credit to Peso plus other addional

processing fee that maybe charged by the receiving bank.

Furthermore, the student's account paid by the Cibank check will not be considered as seled /

paid for unl such me the check is advised to have been cleared by Cibank. Addional surcharge

maybe computed at the me that the check has not yet cleared and already falls aer the due

date.

In this regard, we would like to advise our parents to deposit CITIBANK checks directly to the ISM

CITIBANK account. Please DO NOT DEPOSIT CITIBANK Checks toother ISM local banks such as HSBC

and BPI to prevent above-menoned problems. Also remember to use your new set of dollar checks

as advised by Cibank to you. As per Cibank, they have previously issued nocaon leers to

their account holders regarding this change.

For any query on your payment , please contact our Treasury Department - Cashiers ( Elmer Esguer-

ra and Nerissa Felipe) 840-85-12, for billing ( Rhoda Villa 840-85-22 ) or Marissa Dulay at 840-85-

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USD Check Clearing Services

Please be advised that eecve January 01,2014, US Dollar checks issued from your Cibank, N.A

Philippine Branch Dollar Checking Account can no longer be presented and cleared through Ci-

bank, N.A. Agana, Guam, U.S.A. under US Federal Reserve System. All US Dollar Account checksdrawn from Cibank N.A. Philippine Branch, which are deposited in a local bank or in a bank

abroad, will be treated as a collecon item by presenng bank. The clearing period will thus change

from 15 days to esmated 45 days depending on the process of the presenng bank on collecon

items.

in addion, beginning December 15, 2013, please refrain from issuing any unused exisng US Dollar

Checks to your payees. We encourage you to order a new set of US Dollar check books for future

use.

Should you have any quesons please contact Ci Service at 802-6000.

Important Advisory : HSBC Bank Charge for HSBC Check Deposits

Please be informed that starng January 01,2014 , HSBC has imposed a $4.00 bank

charge for each HSBC check deposit . Over the counter HSBC check deposits from parents and com-

pany sponsors are also covered and charged by the same amount. In this regard, we would like to

remind all our parents and sponsoring companies to please add $4.00 when paying HSBC check(s)

or demand dra to ISM Cashier's Oce or for direct deposits, to HSBC. For your reference and

guidance.



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Re-enrollment: SY14-15 Returning Students Medical Update

Dear Parents:

As you may know, for a number of years we have had required medical check-ups for students at dierent stages

in their school lives: G1; G5; G9. In recognion of the increasing concern about heart health, especially in conjunc-

on with physical exercise in a tropical climate, we shall be introducing a mandatory Electro-Cardiogram (ECG)

test for older students.

Sudden Cardiac Death in Adolescents, especially during sporng acvity, is a recognized syndrome and well over

100 children a year die of this in the USA. Medical advice is that it makes sense to test only students who are 12

years old and beyond. In light of this, we shall now have two thresholds for medical examinaons instead of the

present three. These will be in Grade 1 and Grade 6. At Grade 1, there will be a physical examinaon performedby a duly accredited doctor as is the case at present. At Grade 6, there will be a similar physical examinaon but

with the added component of an ECG. All new students between G1 and G5 will have a physical examinaon; all

new students from G6 onward will have a physical examinaon and the ECG.

In order to "grandfather out" our present cohort of students, please note:

· Incoming G6 students will have an ECG, but will not need a physical examinaon, since this was done when

they entered G5

· Incoming G9 students will have the full medical examinaon and an ECG.

· Incoming G7 and G8 will have the full medical examinaon and an ECG when they enter G9.

·

We shall connue to encourage very strongly all athletes parcipang in Varsity sports to take an ECG.

Over the course of the next years, this will mean that all ISM students from G6 onwards will have had a basic heart

check-up. The ECG is not denive, and there is a more sophiscated check that the doctor will recommend if any-

thing in the ECG causes concern. The test itself is very reasonably priced and is readily available at St Luke’s and

Maka Medical Center as well as other hospitals.

Please take a moment to review our re-enrollment me-line and procedures for all students returning for school

year 2014-2015: RE-ENROLLMENT

I do understand that adding this requirement of an ECG may be seen as an addional chore for parents and stu-dents at the me of re-enrollment, but if such a test saves even one life then it will be well worth the extra eort.

Sincerely,

David Toze

Superintendent



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Dear Parents,

It is that me of year again to recruit companies for our annual Bearcat Career Experience...a one week "internship-like"

program (June 9 to 13) to help our high school sophomores and juniors gain valuable insight into the world of careers

outside of the academic classroom.

Currently in its fourth year, the program has been very successful, mainly in part to the incredible parcipaon of the

ISM community in providing these worthwhile placements. We annually placed between 120 and 160 students each

June with numerous reputable companies in the Metro Manila area.

For a some basic informaon on what the Bearcat Career Experience is all about, please see our website.

hp://bearcat-careers.ism-online.org/

If you or someone you know is willing to HOST some of our students for a one week placement in June, the next step is

to FILL OUT the applicaon. Please see this link below

hp://bearcat-careers.ism-online.org/how-to-apply/

Keep in mind, when you go to this "how to apply" link, there are TWO forms to ll out. One is the Company Applica-

on and then also further down the page is a Company/School Partnership agreement...essenally these are the same

two forms as last year.

We would like these TWO forms completed by April 21, 2014 at the absolute latest...however, the earlier, the beer :)

Please let me know if you have any quesons in the meanme.

Best Regards,

Doug McQueen

HS Grade 9/10 Guidance Counselor

(632) 840-8664



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MS Saturday Service Dates

March 15 Chosen Children’s Village (CCV)

March 22 Philippine Community Fund (PCF)

March 29 Philippine Animal Welfare Society

April 5 Tzu Chi Foundaon Recycling Center

To sign up, get a Permission Slip in the MS Oce and prepare to…

[Get awesome!]

The ISM team members were:

Abhinav Bathula: gd 8

Kaiwen (Calvin) Zhang: gd 8

Ilham Thomson: gd 8

David Yuanwei Zhang : gd 7

Nicole Nair : gd 7

Johann Singh : gd 7

Elizabeth Strang : gd 7

Ashwin Banwari : gd 7

Ratul Mangal: gd 6

Sydney Wuu : gd 6

Alexander Strang : gd 5

Irfan Thomson : gd 5

Congratulations to the Middle School Academic

Bowl team for WINNING at the semester two Aca-

demic Bowl competition held at Faith Academy on

Tuesday 4 th March 2014.

http://www.chosenchildrenvillage.org/

http://www.p-c-f.org/

http://www.paws.org.ph/


http://www.tzuchi.org.ph/newsite/index.php

http://www.tzuchi.org.ph/newsite/index.php


http://www.p-c-f.org/

http://www.chosenchildrenvillage.org/



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3rd season pracce schedule for MS/HS students

is posted on the schedules pages of the (ATAC

blog) and on noce boards around school.

Saturday Community Tennis has resumed and

will run through unl the end of May…. see the

yer on the blog for exact dates and details. This

is open to ISM community members only, outside

guests are not allowed. Contact Coach Czarina tobook lessons with our ISM Tennis Academy

coaches (hp://atac.ism-online.org/atac/

saturday-community-tennis/).

Well done to all our MS/HS track athletes who

competed at the 2nd track meet for the seasonlast Saturday at Brent. Meet results can be found

here: hp://atac.ism-online.org/atac/3rd-

season/track-meet-results/

The next meet is today Friday, March 7 for our

annual twilight meet. Meet starts at 4:00 P.M.and should nish around 7:45 P.M. If any parents

wish to volunteer to help at this meet it would be

much appreciated. Please

email [email protected] or turn up at 3:45

P.M. to see me and we can give you a job on the

evening to assist.

Well done to our HS Academic Bowl team who

came 3rd last Friday at the semester 2 event at

Brent. Our MS team traveled to Faith this past

Tuesday Mar 4 to compete vs Faith and Brent and

came home champions with a massive 320pt vic-tory. Congrats to all team members and faculty

advisors Valerie and David Birchenall.

New families please take some me to peruse

the ATAC blog as this will help orientate you with

the wide variety of co-curricular programs ISMoers.

A great way to stay in touch with the ISM ATAC

program is to subscribe via RSS feed to the ATAC

blog and also to follow via twier (see twier

feed on the blog home page).

Each Monday, I will post the week’s happenings

and highlight important events for students andparents informaon on the ATAC blog and in the

regular Friday parent bullens.

GAME SCHEDULE PDF: (access to game schedule

informaon): Informaon about all mid-week/

weekend xtures for ISM teams can be found viathe ATAC blog. Please note the game schedule

does change oen due to involvement with many

local schools so please check the page regularly

to nd out the latest informaon of where and

when the Bearcats teams are playing. Click on

schedules tab or the Bearcat logo to be directedto the power school secure site (hp://

powerschool.ismanila.org/public/) You will need

your power school user name and password to

access the game schedule pdf.

The Bearcat Den (hp://atac.ism-online.org/

bearcat-den/) is open for business, please drop

by to check out the range of Bearcat products.

We have a great team of volunteers who run the

den and are always looking for more people to

help out. If you are interested in joining a fantas-c group please contact any of our den membersduring den opening hours or please contact Car-

olyn Ching for details car-

[email protected]. We are always looking

for new volunteers and encourage parents from

ES/MS to join our group. The Bearcat den is now

calling for volunteers to take on POR's (posionsof responsibility) for next school year '14-15) as

secretary, treasurer, volunteer coordinator, in-

ventory/merchandise and snacks purchasing. If

you are interested drop an email

to [email protected]

Have a great year at the Home of the Bearcats!

Regards,

Mark Pekin

Director of Athlecs/Acvies

mailto:[email protected]





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UPDATE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS THROUGH

THE ISM PARENT PORTAL

Dear Parents,

We are pleased to inform you that your child’s PowerSchool account may be accessed through the ISM Parent Portal.

Aside from being a gateway to PowerSchool, the Parent Portal also provides informaon on school events, useful links,

as well as child-specic academic blogs and student porolios. Should you need to make any changes to your contact

informaon, visit the Parent Portal and follow the steps below:



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Leaving ISM?

For those students that will be withdrawing from Internaonal School Manila this school year (SY 13

-14), the following procedure applies:

Parents are obliged to ocially inform the Admissions Oce in wring through a Withdrawal No-

caon Form at least een (15) days prior to your child’s last day of school.

For those leaving at the end of the school year, you MUST submit a Withdrawal No-

caon Form on or before May 09, 2014.

Failure to do so will lead to a deducon of US$1,000 from the Facilies Upgrade Deposit (FUD) in

compensaon for having held a space for the child and thus prevenng the School from oeringthat space to another child prior to the summer holiday break.

The Withdrawal Nocaon Form can be obtained from the Admissions Oce or downloaded from

the ISM website here.

We hope that your child has had an enriching stay at ISM and wish you and your family the very

best in the future.

http://www.ismanila.org/page.cfm?p=853&pback=372






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Documents

Parent Bulletin Issue 26 SY1314