Photo by Dr.Frazier CC/BY It is the end of the school year which means that we will soon have to say goodbye to a few of our favorite teachers. This year, 13 middle school teachers are leaving or moving out of the middle school. Over the final weeks of school, The Direct Message will post an ‘Exit Interview’ that we conducted with each of these educators. Check out all the Exit Interviews by clicking here: Exit Interviews Dr. Richard Frazier Years at AES: 12 years Next Stop:

I recently talked with my friend about the ASIACs offered in the middle school. Like many other students at AES, I often wonder, “Why don’t we get to play one sport all year long?” Although I used to think that playing one sport all year long, like soccer/football was the best way to go, I now believe that we should continue to rotate activities every quarter. We should keep the rotating structure because of the demand for facilities and coaches. We have volleyball, table ten

On Wednesday the 23rd of February, Middle School had its first Alternate Wednesday. The idea of the particular Wednesday is to replace our regular classes with fun activities like Chinese cooking or basketball. Every teacher had to choose two classes they wanted to host. Many people said they enjoyed it a lot because it’s something new, something we usually don’t do in school. But some people wondered if it would have been a little better if teachers had had more time to prep

The POP project was the biggest project in 8th-grade for many years. The project was about the general social issues in India, with students researching their interests in these topics. Over the last 10+ years, the POP project started each January, but it is now the end of February, and 8th graders haven’t heard that they will do the POP project. Based on the reputation of the POP project (it was apparently quite difficult!), maybe we shouldn’t be so curious, but 8th graders

Winter break has passed, and a new semester has begun. Before the winter break started, the school announced that we would have a week of quarantine and then return to the campus again. But now, three weeks have passed since the first day of school, but we are still on Zoom. Staying home and engaging in online school might feel stressful and exhausting, but there are some reasons why it is safer to stay at home for a few more weeks. First and foremost, the new variant of COVI