Dear Beagle Middle School Families,
We thank you for an outstanding opening week of school! Students did an outstanding job across the board this week, and they are off to a great start. On Wednesday and Thursday, we met with all students to engage in our Student Support Presentation. All students had the opportunity to meet our Student Services team members, learn about how we support our students here at the middle level, and gain further insight regarding our school expectations and policies. Students did an outstanding job during this presentation and asked many insightful questions.
Before we heard in to Labor Day Weekend, we wanted to share some updates and reminders:
Parking Lot: The first week of school is always an adjustment for our morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up. The parking lot line will move more efficiently with each passing day moving forward. We wanted to take this opportunity to remind parents that they can drop students off before 7:35 am at the front of the building. If inclement weather arises, we always let students into our cafeteria early. Typically, parents begin dropping students off around 7:25 or so, and we provide supervision outside around 7:30 am each morning. In addition, parents may drop students off in the parking lot; we kindly ask that students immediately proceed to the sidewalk, walk down to the crosswalk, and then wait to be crossed by our crossing guard. Also, for families that prefer to have their students wait with them in the car until 7:35 am, we encourage taking a parking spot in the parking lot, so that our drop-off line does not extend out into South Street, which causes significant traffic back-ups. Finally, we thank our families for continuing to pull all the way forward to the South end of the building before releasing their student from the vehicle when using the drop-off lane. All of these measures will ensure a smooth flow through the parking lot, limit traffic jams on South Street, and allow our buses to enter off of Saginaw Highway in a timely fashion.
Parent Portal Access/Teacher-to-Family Communication: We strongly encourage families to frequently use Parent Portal on a regular basis (weekly) for a variety of reasons. First, our teaching staff regularly update their gradebooks each week often posting pending assignments and tests with due dates in advance. Second, students will receive homework on a fairly consistent basis in middle school, and PowerSchool/Parent Portal provides an accurate communication platform for parents and students to track and monitor progress. Third, our teaching staff will post classroom/family updates within PowerSchool every other week to keep parents and students informed of upcoming learning targets, assignments, and assessments; this cuts down on our families being inundated with multiple emails from multiple teachers. Here is a video tutorial regarding how we use PowerSchool here at Beagle Middle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ogX9MqFFRM. If you need assistance with setting up your Parent Portal account, please contact our main office secretaries Ms. Sadie Green at greens@glcomets.net or Mrs. Lindsay Pelette at pelettel@glcomets.net.
Chromebooks: Today, our 7th graders received their chromebooks along with a charger. This will be their chromebook and charger through 8th grade. Beginning Tuesday next week, students should be bringing their chromebooks and chargers to school on a daily basis as chromebooks are consistently used in the classroom. Chromebooks will need to be charged this weekend for a long period of time.
Attendance Policy: This month, our district adopted a universal, K-12, attendance policy. The universal attendance policy will be added to all handbooks across the district in the near future. The absence limit for the school year is five full days before attendance letters follow. Because we must follow State law and we are held accountable by the State for students being present in school on a regular basis, we will follow our county-wide protocol in notifying families of students that exceed the five absence limit, explained or unexplained, this school year via email with attendance letters that are sent in a progressive fashion. As parents, we understand that students become ill and they may miss multiple school days. If this is the case, please be sure to obtain a doctor’s note regarding your student’s illness/treatment plan and provide this note to our secretaries immediately following your student’s absence. Medically documented absences are coded differently than absences explained or unexplained.
Planners: Students also received planners this week in Check and Connect (CNC) class. The purpose of the planner is to help set our students up for success by strengthening both organizational and executive functioning skills. Each hour, teachers will prompt and model for student how to use their planners, and planners use is reinforced in CNC, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are dedicated homework/study days. Planners are another great communication tool for our families to access at home.
Social Media: During our Student Support Presentation this week with both grade levels, we had an in-depth conversation with our students about social media and appropriate technology use. As parents and educators, we do not endorse the use of social media at this level as tweens do not have the prefrontal cortex development to handle the temptations of social media, and it can have a significant, negative impact on their social, emotional wellbeing as documented in the Surgeon General’s report 2023. While there are some positives that come with social media, the toxicity of the negative interactions on social media greatly outweigh the benefits with this age group. However, we are in charge of school, and parents are in charge at home. Therefore, we greatly appreciate parents regularly monitoring their child’s technology use on the homefront, especially if social media use is allowed in the household. Please note that as administrators, we do not address social media issues that happen outside of school hours as it is outside of our jurisdiction. If social media issues arise outside of school hours and the comments are concerning, then we encourage parents to work directly with local law enforcement to address these issues immediately. We can absolutely assist with these issues, at times and contingent upon the context, but the first contact needs to be with local law enforcement. Administrative jurisdiction in regards to school-based discipline requires events to occur on school property or have a significant impact to the orderly and safe function of school; historically, many of the social media concerns that we hear about do not fall into this category.
Students with Formal Plans: Families with students that have formal learning plans (IEP or 504) will hear from the staff members overseeing those plans (case managers) by the end of next week. Please rest assured that if you have a student with a formal plan, our teachers are aware of their accommodations and can view them within PowerSchool. Furthermore, case managers have reached out directly to our teaching staff this week. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the implementation of your student’s formal learning plan, please reach out directly to their case manager.
Website: As we have discussed, our website, https://www.glcomets.net/ourschools/beagle-middle-school/, is updated regularly with a variety of information, including previous Family Communications. Just a friendly reminder to visit the “Who to Contact Link” on our website if questions, concerns, or needs arise. We have this tool in place to better support our families in receiving a timely response directly from the person that will be addressing the question, concern, or need.
Hayes/Beagle PTO: Our first Hayes/Beagle PTO meeting is September 10th at 6:30pm here at Beagle Middle School. We encourage our family members to attend these meetings with the understanding that there are no heavy commitments or requirements by attending a meeting or pressure to attend future meetings. We appreciate family support at these meetings. Please visit the PTO link on our website for more information: https://www.glcomets.net/ourschools/beagle-middle-school/pto/.
Crossing Guards Needed: The district is in need of crossing guards. If you are interested or know someone that may be interested in being a crossing guard, please have them contact Officer Aryianna Brown, GLPD and SRO at Beagle, at browna@glcomets.net.
Grand Ledge Virtual Trap Shooting Announcement: Please click here for more information: GL Trap team info.docx
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.
Upcoming Important Dates:
9/4/24–Classes resume
9/11/24–NWEA Testing: ELA, more information to come next week
9/18/24–NWEA Testing; Math
10/4/24–No Students, District-Wide Professional Development
These are all of the updates we have at this time. Again, we thank you for your continued support in making this another great start to the school year. We hope that you and your family enjoy Labor Day weekend with family and friends.
Take care,
Dave and Kelly
