October 21, 2022
Dear Beagle Middle School Parents,
Here are some updates that we wanted to pass along at this time:
Trimester One End in Four Weeks: It’s hard to believe, but the first trimester for middle school ends on November 18th. With that being said, we wanted to make parents aware that any missing work or reassessments need to be completed and submitted to teachers one week before the end of the trimester. This allows our teaching staff to grade and assess current and missing work in a timely manner, ensuring that an accurate final grade is provided to students at the end of the term. In addition, students enrolled in trimester-long electives (everything besides Band, Choir, and Foregin Language) will rotate into their next elective class within the same hour. Please note, there are a few individualized exceptions to this as well for students enrolled in Math Up! or LINKs class. We appreciate parents continuing to monitor their child’s grades in PowerSchool and using student planners to have discussions about their learning in the classroom each day.
Social Media: Over the past few weeks, we have noticed an uptick in reports of inappropriate content that students are accessing or posting on social media sites such as Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok outside of school hours. As Middle School principals, we advise families to limit their students’ social media exposure as it quickly can become toxic. Some students are posting pictures or videos of other students without their consent. While the school cannot control or monitor what is posted on those sites, some posts may fall under the category of cyberbullying. If you feel that your students are ready for social media, and for all of the expectations and responsibilities associated with it, please regularly monitor what they are posting and what kinds of posts they are receiving from their peers. As each student has access to a Chromebook at Beagle, there should not be a need to have a smart phone while at Middle School.
Parking Lot: We’ve had several close calls on South Street with students getting out of vehicles while in the turn lane or on South Street. Students are not to be released from vehicles for any reason outside of the parking lot as this poses a significant threat to the safety of our students. In addition, traffic flows much faster through the parking lot when cars pull all the way up to the end of the drop off lane (South end of the building) where it begins to turn left. While it may seem like two extra cars pulling up wouldn’t make much difference, it truly does make a difference in keeping cars off of South Street and ensuring a safe, timely arrival to class for our students. We appreciate our parents for continuing to follow these expectations and our directives while directing traffic, so that our students are safe and our parents can arrive to work in a timely manner.
Parent/Teacher Conferences: Here is a reminder regarding parent/teacher conferences, which was sent to all parents on Monday this week by Mrs. Hernandez: Beagle Middle School Parent Conferences will be held on November 7th and 9th from 4pm - 7pm and November 11, 2022 in the afternoon. Conferences will be utilizing Zoom for the meetings with teachers this trimester. Sign-up through PTCFast.com is now open. Please go to https://www.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 teacher's “waiting room” for your personal parent-teacher conference. **Please star and save 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, and without it you will be unable to access your student's conferences!** Please also note, that appointments are available to meet with your student's counselor during conferences, see below for which counselor your child would be assigned to:Kim Driscoll (students last names A-K) driscollk@glcomets.net, Eddie Saade (students last names L-Z) saadee@glcomets.net. Please remember, conferences are to discuss your student's academic progress. Teachers have limited time during these scheduled conferences and therefore we respectfully request that you only sign-up to meet with those teachers you need to see. It is important to know, however, that our staff is always willing to communicate with you via email. If a teacher you would like to meet with does not have any times available, please email him/her. Email addresses are the teacher's last name, then first initial, followed by @glcomets.net. If you have any issues signing up for conferences, please email Mrs. McMillian, secretary, at mcmillianm@glcomets.net. Please also note that registration for conferences will end on Friday, November 4th at noon as staff need time to prepare for conferences as well as continue to teach throughout the school day.
Boys’ Basketball: 8th grade tryouts will be held here at Beagle from 3-5pm on Monday, October 24th and Tuesday, October 25th. 7th grade tryouts will be as follows: Tuesday, October 24th from 5-7pm at GLHS Auxiliary Gym (the old one inside main building); Wednesday, October 25th from 5-7pm here at the Beagle gym. A sports physical must be on file before trying out, and the sports physical can be brought to the first tryout if necessary. Also, students should wear a white shirt with their last name on the back in black marker. We have been announcing this to our student body the entire week.
Robotics Fundraiser October 26th: Our middle and high school robotics team will be selling sweet treats for $1 each during both lunches on Wednesday, October 26th. We will continue to announce this during morning announcements.
Girls Who Code: At this time, Mrs. Grass, a GL elementary teacher, is looking for middle school girls interested in working together as a team to explore the world of coding and computer science. Please click here for more information: GWC_Clubs_Student_Recruitment_Flyers_English__6-12_blue_ (1).pdf
Joint Hayes/Beagle PTO Meetings: Joint Hayes/Beagle PTO meetings are being hosted in a hybrid-fashion this year with the in-person opportunity being hosted here at Beagle in our media center. Meetings are the second Tuesday of each month from 6:30-7:30pm. Our next PTO meeting will be on Tuesday, November 15th. We welcome parents to attend our PTO meetings either in-person or virtually. If interested in attending virtually, here is the link: http://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 of the updates that we have at this time. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.
Take care,
Dave and Eric
