2025.10.17 – Saxe Weekly (#298)

October 17, 2025

Dear Saxe MS Family,

It was another eventful week at Saxe Middle School! Each week, we share snapshots of the learning, enrichment, experiences, and fun that help make our school community the special place that it is. We appreciate you taking a moment to scroll through (or, listen to “the pod”) to get a sense of what it’s like to spend some time at Saxe Middle School in any given week!

This week in the Saxe Weekly, we take a look at Social Studies, a couple of “field trips” to NCHS, Advisory, Student Council, some community notes, Yearbook Club, Portrait of a Graduate PL, ELA, morning announcements, the NCHS Dome & Library, Science, recess, Art, seasonal scenes around Saxe, Dogs of Saxe, a recent “trend”, and much more. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Be Well,

Dave Gusitsch

Principal, Saxe Middle School

Upcoming Noteworthy Dates:

10/20-24 National School Bus Safety & Bus Driver Appreciation Week

*Quotes that resonated with us this week:

“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.”-Unknown

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.” – Unknown

“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.” — Unknown

“Every day is a new beginning. Take a deep breath, smile, and start again.” – Unknown

Saxe Jokes:

What do you get when you drop a pumpkin? Squash

What do witches put on their bagels? SCREAM-cheese!

I gave a handyman a to-do list. When I got home, only items 1.3 and 5 were done. Turns out, he only does odd jobs!

What reads and lives in an apple? A bookworm.

Saxe Weekly: The Podcast

Interested in getting an overview of the latest Saxe Weekly in podcast form? Using Google’s Notebook LM, we are able to offer an option to listen to all of the great “goings on” in our school community while you are “on the go”, with the Saxe MS Podcast! We invite you to give it a listen… Enjoy!

Social Studies

This week 8th graders were privileged to attend a special preview of the upcoming documentary, The American Revolution at NCHS. Students heard from co-director Sarah Botstein and Lucy Nalpathanchil from CT Public who served as moderator. Students asked terrific questions about the process of making this film. The full 12 hour documentary, The American Revolution by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and Davide Schmidt airs starting on November 16.

Saxe Advisory

We are thrilled to share that our first Advisory session of the 2025-26 school year at Saxe MS was a tremendous success! As we move into the latter portion of the first quarter of school, we have gotten ourselves into a rhythm, and the timing worked well to initiate the Advisory experience. We recognize the vital role these connections play in making middle school such a special time. Our 76(!) Advisory groups brought together 8-10 students with Saxe MS staff members for engaging activities that underscored the value of building relationships, creating positive shared experiences, and having some FUN! It was wonderful to see our students and staff connecting in meaningful ways, and we look forward to sharing more of these experiences in the near future, many of which will be based on student feedback!

Here are a few more scenes, action, and fun from Advisory! After piloting Advisory at Saxe MS in the spring (Click to listen!), we held our first session of this school year, today. We had 76(!) groups of 8-10 students with a staff member (advisor), & they participated in all types of activities to get to know each other, build community, & have fun!

Student Council

Interested in serving on the Saxe MS Student Council? It’s not too late! For any questions, please feel free to touch base with Ms. Martin and/or Ms. Link. Check out the information below, and thanks for considering.

Community Notes

Parenting is not an easy job. Fortunately, our community recognizes this and offers opportunities to learn how best to meet the needs of our young or emerging adults. Interested?! Please check out the info, below:

*NEW CARES Parent Program for Parents of Middle School-Aged Children

New Canaan CARES presents a Parent Workshop Series – Positive Discipline with Diane Hobbs. Turn challenging behavior into opportunities for growth! Join Diane, a certified Positive Discipline Parenting facilitator, for an in-person, workshop series designed especially for parents of middle school aged children.

Learn practical, research-based tools to:

Avoid frustrating power struggles
Foster your child’s independence and confidence
Build stronger, more respectful relationships

The workshops will take place on Wednesdays, Nov 5, 12, & 19th from 9:30-11 AM, New Canaan Library. Space is limited to 12 participants.

Click HERE to register

Person to Person

Have any extra coats lying around? Person to Person will have boxes at the front entrance of Saxe MS from 10/20-24, and you are welcome to drop off any items that you are looking to get rid of at your convenience. They will surely go to good use and be greatly appreciated!

Yearbook Club

The yearbook club is off to a great start! Our Josten’s representative gave students a lesson on how to take great photos for the yearbook and they have also been creating posters to hang around the school for both the Intermediate and Middle School books. Students have been signing out cameras to take photos during the day so that there will be lots to choose from when we start laying out photos. It’s a great group of students who are excited to contribute!

Below are photos and phrases that were included on our Saxe Middle School page (@SaxeMS) this week. Enjoy!

How did the positive quote board turn out? Amazing! After all the quotes were taken (&, shared with Saxe MS students & staff), this famous quote by Maya Angelou remains to inspire all who walk by… Thanks to Ms. Nettleton, Ms. Perretti, & the Saxe Leadership Team!

Great backdrop for the 7 Blue Charter words in Mr. Myers classroom at Saxe MS! (Great words, too!)

Always inspiring to see our Saxe MS staff members collaborate during PL sessions… The focus this week was on our NewCanaan PS Portrait of a Graduate & the first competency we keyed in on – Critical Thinking. Proud of our staff!

Here are a few more thoughts from different content areas…

Some serious conversation in Mr. Myers Saxe ELA classroom as students practiced their story telling skills for the upcoming unit by comparing responses to some guided questions. And, the topics were geared to reflect on overcoming challenging situations (I.e., resilience)!

7 Blue keeps “Words of the Week” for inspiration in creating & maintaining the best learning environment possible at Saxe MS. To top it off, students get creative with haikus in Saxe ELA!

Motivating displays, learning prompts, & records of books read are the norm in Saxe ELA classes!

These two did an amazing job being “the voices of Saxe MS” during morning announcements this week… Nice work & thanks!

Even as the a.m. temps get lower, the Saxe MS “morning crew” continues to impress… Nice work on starting the day the right way!

Neat to see some Saxe MS students learn about labor, management, & collective bargaining by participating in a “Homework Negotiation” activity in a Saxe SS class!

Saxe Science students got to see a little fly-by (Click to watch!) past a cruise ship & then a dip below the surface of the ocean in the NCHS CT Dome… What an amazing, immersive experience for our Saxe MS students to see, together!

Thank you to NCHS CT for accommodating our Saxe Science students as they visited The Dome & got to take their learning to new levels as they visited different parts of the planet, saw the science behind a hurricane, from ABOVE, & so much more!

There was strong agreement across the board that today may have been one of the most perfect fall days possible! Our Saxe MS students certainly took advantage of it during Saxe Recess today!

From the “other side of the camera lens”, this shot will most likely be in the Saxe MS yearbook later this school year!

Speaking of the yearbook, the Saxe Yearbook crew has gotten creative with their advertising! Whether it’s digital or traditional, their advertising posters around Saxe MS certainly are creative (&, entertaining) – nice work!

Talk about “leveling up” (Click the link to watch!) in the Saxe MS Art world, check out Ms. Giannetta’s latest display! And, because a photo doesn’t do it justice, you get a video, too…

This week, 8th-graders previewed Ken Burns’ “American Revolution” documentary, with co-director Sarah Botstein, to bring their learning in Social Studies to life! It was a packed house with our “neighbors from the south”, Middlesex MS joining, too! The 12-hour series airs Nov 16th, be sure to check it out!

Some of our current, and former, students did an excellent job asking thoughtful questions, too!

Always love to see the hallways come alive, filled with #SaxeArt! Such creativity (&, great colors)!

8Purple display & positive messaging continues to expand! Thanks for filling the hallways of Saxe with some great “seasonal” visuals!

8Green is bringing the “seasonal spirit”, too!

Some more positive, meaningful visuals around Saxe!

The Saxe Library board continues to impress! Thanks for motivating our Saxe MS students to find a good book to get lost in 🙂

Scenes around Saxe

Fall scenery is just about in full effect around @SaxeMS & some of the views are stunning – enjoy!

Dogs Of Saxe

There are “Snacks” in both of these pics – one is the name of the dog & the other is getting one from Saxe MS Health Ed teacher, Ms. Orlando!

We enjoyed a moment with Finn outside of Saxe MS today! We love when these 4-legged friends take a moment from their humans to visit with us!

Tell me you work in a middle school without telling me you work in a middle school… When your son plays a round of golf, finds a random golf ball, & this “means something”!

Have a great week, see you next Friday!

Thank you to all of our Saxe Weekly contributors! Each weekly edition is an example of collaboration in action. A special thanks to Melissa DiMeglio for the continuous stream of positive, optimistic quotes!

Saxe Resources (live links)