Dear Beagle Middle Families,
Here are some updates we wanted to share at this time:
Fall Festival Dance Tomorrow: The Fall Festival Dance will be tomorrow after school from 2:45-4:30 p.m., and tickets will be sold during both lunches tomorrow. Tickets (wristbands) will also be sold at the dance, but we prefer that students purchase their tickets during lunch as it helps with efficiency during the dance. Students from the distance learning program are invited to join our dances as they are middle school students as well! Students attending the dance will line up in the ISS/Media Center hallway immediately after school, so that we can clear the building of students not attending the dance. Students will be checked in by PTO volunteers at the West entrance of the cafeteria, and they will immediately place their backpacks in the new gymnasium for the duration of the dance. Backpacks will remain in the new gym the duration of the dance, and students will not be able to access them until after the dance unless there is an extenuating circumstance. Students may keep their cell phones on their persons during the dance. Students attending the dance will be provided free food and drinks, including up to two pieces of pizza. We kindly ask that parents pick up their students promptly at the end of the dance as we have to be out of the building by 4:45 p.m. Students are able to walk home from this dance as it will still be daylight out when the dance is over. We thank our parent volunteers, in advance, for supporting with the dance tomorrow after school, and we also thank our PTO for supporting this wonderful opportunity for our students.
Parent/Teacher Conferences: Parent/teacher conferences will be hosted virtually this year via Zoom, and they will be held on November 6th, 8th, and 10th. Please see the email sent by Mrs. Hernandez on October 20th to sign up for parent/teacher conferences. If you have any issues with signing up for conferences, please email Mrs. McMillan at mcmillanm@glcomets.net.
Elective Change Requests: We have had several students requesting to have their elective courses changed, and we are informing our students that we are not able to honor elective course change requests for upcoming trimesters. We wanted to pass along this same message to our parents. We appreciate your support and understanding.
Beagle Comet Council: Our Beagle Comet Council students have developed a website connected to our Grand Ledge platform that can be utilized by our student body to provide feedback and suggestions to our Comet Council in addition to providing additional information to our students. We have shared this website with our students and will continue to do so throughout the year. Here is the website: http://glcomets.net/cometcouncil
Cell Phone Safety: At the middle level, we do not endorse the use of social media as we feel that tweens are not ready and able to handle the responsibility that comes with it, and, more importantly, it often has a negative impact on their social-emotional well-being. However, this is a decision that parents must make for their own children. Based on some incident reports that have come in recently along with communication from both Officer Brown, School Resource Office, and Dr. Ken Wright, GLHS Principal, we wanted to pass a gentle reminder along to parents to please continue to monitor their child’s cell phone use as there has been an influx of inappropriate content being posted on social media, including nude photographs of students being shared, which is considered possession and distribution of child pornography, which is difficult for teenagers to understand for the aforementioned reasons. While we have addressed this with our entire student body at the beginning of the year, reminders and continued conversations from parents at home are greatly appreciated. We thank our parents for their continued support on this front.
Food Basket Application: The Grand Ledge Emergency Assistance Program (GLEAP) is currently taking applications for its annual Christmas Food Basket program for families who live in the Grand Ledge School District. Donors in the community (individuals & groups) have volunteered to provide a food basket during the Christmas season for families in need. If this would be helpful for your family, please submit an application by October 28 – pick up a paper application in the school's main office, or complete an online application at GLcomets.net/ChristmasFoodBasket. You will be contacted by a donor sometime early in December. This will be done on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Scholastic Book Fair: Beagle Middle School will be hosting a Scholastic Book Fair this fall! The fair will run November 6th through November 10th and will be open from 7:40 am-4:00 pm. All students will make a trip down to the library during their ELA class. Adults can shop online with their students on our Book Fair website, online and in-person sales will help our library! Purchases can be made through the website starting November 6th through November 19th. If you are interested in setting up an eWallet for your student, directions are listed on the website as well. Here is the link for Beagle’s Book Fair homepage: https://www.scholastic.com/bf/beagle
Ideally, we would love to get a new book in every student’s hands. If you are interested in helping a student who might not have the means to purchase a book, you may donate to the library’s eWallet with this link: https://shop.scholastic.com/ewallet/fund?lang=en_US&walletId=550c6293-6e8e-4d71-9c3e-4f4a85d1a50b. For specific questions pertaining to the book fair, please reach out to Ms. Douglas, our librarian, at douglasm@glcomets.net.
PTO Meetings: The Hayes/Beagle PTO meetings will be hosted here at Beagle Middle School in our media center. Parents should enter through the cafeteria doors as they are open for athletic events. The media center is located in the first hallway to the left once in the cafeteria. Meetings are held from 6:30-7:30 pm. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 14. We greatly appreciate parent support and participation at these meetings. In addition, please follow the Hayes & Beagle PTO Facebook page for more information and updates regarding upcoming events.
Students’ of the Week: To view our Students’ of the Week, please click here https://www.glcomets.net/ourschools/beagle-middle-school/studentoftheweek/. Please note that Students’ of the Week are updated to our website the Monday after receiving their certificate on Friday.
Family Communication Archive: Please click here https://www.glcomets.net/ourschools/beagle-middle-school/parent-communication-archive/to review family communications (current and previous newsletters) sent to Beagle Families.
District and Community News: To review district-wide and community news, please click here https://www.glcomets.net/parentcommunityresources/fun-things-to-do/#upcoming
Looking Ahead:
- Parent/Teacher Conference (via Zoom)--November 6th and 8th (4-7 p.m.) and November 10th (12-3). More information to come in subsequent newsletters.
- Friday, November 10th–Half-day for students, 7:52-10:52 am.
- Friday, November 17th–Half day for students and staff, 7:52-10:52. End of trimester.
- November 20-24th–Thanksgiving Break–No School
These are all of the updates that we wanted to pass along at this time. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.
Take care,
Dave and Kelly
