March 10, 2023

Dear Beagle Middle School Parents,


Spring Parent/Teacher Conferences:  Conferences will be held virtually on Tuesday, March 14th, Thursday, March 16th from 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm., and Friday, March 17, 2023, from 11:30 am - 2:30 pm. Conferences will be utilizing Zoom for the meetings with teachers this trimester. Sign-up through PTCFast.com is now open. Please go to https://ptcfast.com/schools/Beagle_Middle_School_2 for detailed information and to sign up. Once you have completed scheduling all of your conferences, an appointment confirmation email will be sent. Simply click on the Zoom Conference Link for each teacher (in your email) at your conference time and you will be admitted into the teachers' “waiting room” for your personal parent-teacher conference. 

**Please keep your confirmation email as your notice of when your conferences are and to have your zoom links available. The middle school will not have a copy of your conference schedule. 

Please also note, that Counselors will also be available during conferences if you wish to make an appointment to speak with a counselor, please email:

Ms. Driscoll (students last names A-K) driscollk@glcomets.net

Mrs. Weaver (students last names L-Z) weavers@glcomets.net

Field Trip Success This Week:  We wanted to take this opportunity to share that our students did an amazing job during our field trips on March 8th this week; they showed a tremendous amount of Comet PRIDE. 

Our 7th graders enjoyed Into the Woods at the high school, and our 8th graders explored numerous potential vocational opportunities at LCC’s West Campus’ Career Preparation Center for their junior and senior years of high school.  We also wanted to thank both Mrs. Becca Hager, Social Studies teacher, and Ms. Kim Driscoll, Counselor, for arranging, organizing, and facilitating these amazing opportunities for our students. 

Cell Phone Update and Reminders: We have continued to work with our students to remind them that cell phones are to be used prior to the beginning of the school day; during lunch within the cafe’, gym, or outdoor recess; and after the final bell. Recently, we have made several announcements (morning and lunch) that cell phones are not to be used to make noises or physical motion towards one another.  Specifically, the student body has discovered an “Indiana Jones Whip” application this week, and a numerous amount of students have this application installed on their phone.  During lunch time or before/after school, several students have been observed chasing each other around using this “Indiana Jones Whip” application towards one another.  This is not appropriate, and we are doing everything we can to address this issue within the student body.  Please continue to have conversations with your student about appropriate cell phone use, and please be sure to specifically mention that the use of this application is not appropriate. Cell phones should be used for appropriate communication; they should not be used to make inappropriate, unnecessary noises towards one another.  In conversing with the student body, we have discovered this is yet another trend that was influenced by social media, which impedes the safe, welcoming, and orderly business of school.  Students that continue this behavior will be held accountable through school-based discipline as students have been addressed about this behavior. We appreciate parent support here. 

For 8th Grade Parents: On March 8th during CNC prior to the field trip, 8th grade teachers provided a preview of the high school’s scheduling presentation, which took place on March 9th facilitated by Mrs. Tonya Rice, Assistant Principal at GLHS, and other GLHS team members. In doing this, our 8th grade students were able to view the presentation over two days back-to-back as registering for high school classes can present several questions from our students.  Please note that we have been using a very similar format over the past few years for our middle schoolers to request their elective courses, and this was an intentional move on our part to set our students up for success when moving to the high school.  Students in high school will use the same process throughout their high school experience.  Mrs. Rice will be sending all current 8th grade parents a very detailed email soon, and our Science teachers will continue to support students in this process as well. 

7th Grade Scheduling Presentations:  We will be meeting with our current 7th graders to provide them with scheduling information for next year on Thursday, March 16th during Science classes in the media center.  Our conversation with 7th grade students will be completely focused on signing up for elective-based classes.  Later in the spring, our team will be reviewing data to place students into accelerated Math and English classes for next year; information regarding the aforementioned will be shared with parents in late April/early May.  Students chosen for accelerated Math or English classes will be contacted by one of us during that time frame.  

Elective Roadshow at Hayes:  We will be heading over to Hayes Intermediate to meet with our rising 7th graders after Spring Break.  We have engaged in this practice for the past four years, and current 6th grade teachers will support their students in making elective course requests for next year within PowerSchool during that time frame. 

End of the 2nd Trimester - March 17: The end of the 2nd Trimester will be on March 17. Most students will keep their existing schedule, however, students who chose trimester electives will change to a new elective on March 20th. This schedule is already visible in PowerSchool and has been available since August. Unfortunately, schedule change requests cannot be honored. Students were placed in electives that they chose last spring and we have constructed the master schedule around these requests.

Joint Hayes/Beagle PTO Meetings: The next PTO meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 21st.  We welcome parents to attend our PTO meetings either in-person here at Beagle or virtually.  If interested in attending virtually, here is the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82744686994

Students’ of the Week, Community, and Extra Curricular Resources:   To view our students of the week or to review additional community/extra curricular information on our webpage, then please click https://www.glcomets.net/ourschools/beagle-middle-school/ and then click on the appropriate icon on the left side of our homepage.  

These are all the updates we have at this time.  

Take care,

Dave and Eric