Dear Beagle Middle School Families,
With the school year quickly approaching, we wanted to send along some specific reminders about next week. At the end of next week, we will send along another newsletter that is more specific to the start of the school year. As we discussed in last week’s newsletter, our website is full of resources regarding the beginning of the school year, especially this link: Beginning of Year Items for Beagle Middle.
Moving forward, here are reminders pertaining to next week:
August 17th–Schedule Distribution/School Pictures: Schedule distribution for both 7th and 8th grade will be on Monday, August 17th from 12-3pm or 4-7pm. Please note that this is completely optional as we are aware that some families may still be away on vacation at this time. If you and your child are able to come up on August 17th, it will be a great opportunity to walk the building, find classes, locker (for 7th grade), etc. There will be additional opportunities for school pictures later in September during the school day.
Schedule Changes and Lunches: Because we allow our students to make elective requests in the spring and then build the master schedule around those requests, we are not able to make schedule changes unless there are significant, extenuating circumstances as determined by the administrative team. We also do not honor teacher-preference requests for equity reasons. Lunches are also assigned and permanent for the year because they revolve around 4th hour. Specific teachers are assigned a specific lunch to keep overall numbers and the balance of 7th and 8th grade students equal in each lunch. Therefore, lunches cannot be changed as they are schedule driven for the aforementioned reasons.
August 19th–Open House: We invite our families and students to engage in our Open House on Wednesday, August 19th from 6:30-8pm. This is a great opportunity for families and students to meet our teaching staff. There will also be an opportunity for school pictures and schedule pick-up at this time for those that were not able to attend on August 17th. One point of caution regarding obtaining pictures and schedules during Open House is that it is very well attended and quite busy, which is a good thing! However, trying to obtain a printed schedule, getting a school picture, and then meeting teachers may result in feeling rushed/short on time. Therefore, if you can make it to schedule distribution on August 17th, we encourage taking that route to ensure there is time to connect with your student’s teachers.
August 25th–First Day of School: August 25th is the first day of school across the district, and it’s a half day. School begins at 7:50am with dismissal at 10:55am; students do not attend their Check and Connect class on the first day.
Lockers: This school year all 7th graders will be assigned a locker for the year. 8th graders that would like to have a locker may sign up for a locker the second week of the school year. We will provide more information to our 8th grade students about this once the school year begins. Please note that our students are allowed to carry their backpacks to classes with them each day.
Chromebooks: 7th graders will be assigned their Chromebooks during English class beginning on August 27th. New-to-Beagle 8th graders will be able to obtain their Chromebook beginning the same date in the Media Center. These devices are the responsibility of the student for the year as they are expected to take them to all classes and home with them in the evenings. This is why we allow our students to carry backpacks class-to-class each day.
In closing, we will reach back out near the end of next week regarding “next step” information about the first week of school and beyond, a slow trickle of information over time as we do not want to overwhelm our families. Also, if you ever miss a newsletter that we send in ParentSquare, these messages are archived there; we also archive them on our website here: Beagle Middle Family Communication Archive. Please rest assured that our veteran middle school level staff will be there to support your child as we ease into the school year together.
Take care,
Dave Kushman, Principal
Kelly Shumway, Assistant Principal
