Welcome to Algebra

Below is the content of the email I sent out on August 4th in case you need to reference it.

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Parents,

Summer is about over so it’s time to begin gearing up for school. I shared some information with you back in June, but now I’d like to share some more information with both you and your student. First, a few things just for you.

1. You may want to consider bookmarking or subscribing to our class blog. This will be a great way to know everything that’s going on in class, including homework. You can either bookmark it in your browser, or subscribe to it via RSS or email.
   
   
2. It would be great if you could take about five minutes and provide some up-to-date contact information for yourself. When you get a chance, please complete this online form with your contact info. If more than one parent/guardian would like to be contacted, then each one should fill out the form separately.
   
   
3. You may want to make a note of my contact information.

Please share the following with your student, and you will probably be interested in reading through it as well. (Once school begins your student will have their own email account, but for now if you could have them read through the following, that would be great). Please note that at the end of the information is a request to reply to this email with some information so that I know that you/they got this.

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Students,

Welcome to our Algebra class. I’d like to share some information with you now that will help you get off to a good start. Some of the following is just informational and some of it suggest things you can do to get ready.

1. Math Skills Assessment
   You hopefully have already been working on the Math Skills Assessment that all incoming AHS freshmen need to complete in order to prepare them to be successful in mathematics at AHS. Even if you’re not a freshmen, you should complete this skills assessment and work on any skills you are having difficulty with. So, if you haven’t done this yet, or if you did it awhile back and need to review, please take some time to work through it. Our first formal assessment (grade) will be over these skills on Wednesday, August 18th, so you want to be ready.
   
   
2. Class Expectations
   Please read through our class expectations (parents, too). It’s important that you read through and understand these expectations, and then fill out the online form to indicate you’ve completed this. Please also note the supplies list on that page and have those with you on the first day of school.
   
   
3. About Me Writing Assignment
   Your first assignment is going to be to tell me a little bit about yourself. While you don’t have to do this until school begins, I highly encourage you to do it now because that first week of school is kind of crazy. If you do it now you’ll have more time to complete it (and less homework that first week), and I’ll get a chance to know a little bit about you before school starts. Please visit my About Me page to see your writing prompt and my response to the prompt. If you choose to write this now (and I encourage you to do so), please email it to me. You can include your response as text in the body of the email, as an attached document, or as a URL if you do it online somewhere.
   
   
4. Bookmark Our Class Blog
   It’s probably going to come in handy to have our class blog bookmarked on whatever computer you use while at home. Go to our class blog and bookmark it. While you’re there, you might look around a little.
   
   
5. What Do You Like to be Called?
   Do you go by your given name or by a nickname? Please let me know.

Please email me back to confirm you received this email, and let me know what you like to be called. If you choose to do the About Me Writing Assignment now, please send that along as well. Thanks for your time and I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

Karl Fisch
Arapahoe High School