Dear Beagle Middle School Families,
We are off to a great start! Students have done a great job this first week of school, and we thank our families for their continued support.
Here are some updates that we wanted to share:
DIBELS Screener: Yesterday, our central office reading “Sweep” team completed the oral reading fluency component for our DIBELS screener. Next week during CNC class, our students will complete the “Maze” component of DIBELS, which focuses on comprehension. Our teachers will use this data accordingly this year in consultation with our reading interventionist to provide support as necessary with literacy instruction. Our students did a great job during this process.
Chromebook Distribution, Please Charge: Today, all present 7th grade students and new-to-Beagle 8th grade students received their school-issued Chromebook and charger. They need to charge their Chromebooks over the weekend to ensure function next week on Monday. Absent students may come down to the media center next week to receive their Chromebooks if they were absent today.
Student Support Presentations: Today, we also engaged in our Student Support Presentation with our 7th grade students out of Social Studies classes. We provide this presentation every year to our 7th graders first, so that they can reconnect with us, their support team, here at Beagle to learn about our various ways we can support them throughout the year. This presentation also covered school policies and expectations. On Monday next week, we will engage our 8th graders in the same presentation, in the same fashion.
Parking Lot: Despite it being the first week of school, our parking lot has run very smoothly for both arrival and departure, so we thank our families for reviewing these expectations posted on our webpage and communicated in the past newsletters to make this possible. We encourage family members dropping students off to please continue to pull all the way forward nearly past the building before releasing students, which is what we have been supporting outside the past few days. In addition, we encourage our families to continue to use the actual parking lot (section closest to the building) to drop off students as well. Students dropped off in the parking lot need to take the sidewalk down to the crosswalk and be crossed by our crossing guard. All of these measures ensure a timely arrival to school, reduces traffic on South Street and at the South entrance, and ensures that our buses coming off of Saginaw Highway are able to drop our students off at the back of the building in a timely manner. Overall, great work on this, and we thank you for your continued support with these safety and efficiency measures.
Family Communication Archive: Our teaching staff communicates directly with students and family members within PowerSchool via the Family Communication Archive, which is posted at the top of each teacher’s gradebook. This is where teaching staff will share information about current content and topics covered in class, upcoming larger assignments or assessments, and other pieces of pertinent information. These posts are updated every other week, and this platform prevents family members from being inundated with emails. Also, many of our teachers use Google Classroom or Schoology as an online platform to house content-based materials as another resource for both students and family members.
Blessings in a Backpack Grand Ledge: If your student needs additional food at home, the Grand Ledge Blessings in a Backpack program is here to help. For more than a decade, this program has provided bags of food for weekend meals at no cost to hundreds of students in the Grand Ledge area. For students attending school in person, a bag of nourishing, kid-friendly food will be placed discreetly in their backpack or locker at the end of each week during the school year, except during school breaks. Some of the food items distributed may include macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables, soup, oatmeal, granola bars, fruit cups, and beef ravioli. If you would like your student to participate in the program, please complete the permission form from the link below, or request a form from the Student Services office. Please return the completed form to the school office by Wednesday, September 9, so your student can receive their first bag on September 17. Please email or return letter to Mrs. Hernandez, Student Services @ hernandezj@glcomets.net. Blessings in a Backpack Permission Slip
Upcoming Events, District News, & Community Information: To review what the school district shares in newsletters about events, news, and information, please visit http://GLcomets.net/Upcoming.
Important Upcoming Dates:
September 4-7th, Labor Day Recess; classes resume on September 8th
September 15th–NWEA Math testing in CNC AM; Hours 1-6 in the PM, altered schedule with lunches served. More to come soon.
September 21st–NWEA ELA testing in CNC AM; Hours 1-6 in the PM, altered schedule with lunches served. More to come soon.
September 29th–Picture Retake Day
October 7th, Student Count Day per State of Michigan
October 9th, Teacher PD, no students. Classes resume on October 12th
These are all of the updates that we have at this time. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.
Take care,
Dave and Kelly
