Dear Beagle Middle School Families,
Here are some updates that we wanted to share at this time:
Dance today: Our Winter Fest dance is today from 6:30-8:30 pm. Tickets will be sold during both lunches tomorrow; tickets cost $10. Tickets will also be sold at the door. Students may not walk home from the dance. We kindly ask that parents use both the main and South parking lots and park in an actual space as this will help to ensure a speedy departure from the dance and prevent traffic jams on South Street. We thank our parent volunteers and PTO members, in advance, for their continued support in providing these great opportunities for our students.
Morning Drop-Off: This is a friendly reminder for parents to access parking spaces in the main lot if they arrive early in lieu of lining up within the loop. This helps to keep traffic off of South Street. Recently there has been an influx of vehicles parked in the drop-off loop, causing vehicles–which include teaching staff–to get into the parking lot before school. By accessing parking spaces to wait before releasing students and by pulling all the way up past the building before allowing students to exit vehicles, our parking lot will run smoothly. We thank our parents for their support with this.
NWEA Testing: NWEA testing went very well today for Math; we thank our parents and students for their support with testing. On Tuesday, January 30th, students will take the ELA portion of the NWEA in the same fashion. Students that did not finish or were absent will be pulled down by our counseling staff next week to complete the assessment. We use NWEA testing data as one of our many measures to assess student growth and achievement in an effort to adjust our instruction to meet the needs of our students. NWEA scores should be posted in Parent Portal under SchoolNet by later February for parents to review. We have to wait until the window closes before central office is able to upload the scores into PowerSchool. Students, however, are provided their scores immediately after the assessment.
Welcome New Staff Members: We are pleased to introduce two new staff members: Elizabeth Kelley, 7th Grade Special Education Teacher, filling Mrs. Koonter’s vacancy; Abbigail Bucholtz, 7th Grade Math Teacher, filling Mrs. Densmore’s vacancy. Mrs. Kelley started yesterday, and Ms. Bucholtz will begin in her new teaching assignment on Monday. We are happy to have them as part of the Beagle Staff. To be clear, these are new hires into our district as we already have a Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Bucholtz on staff; these staff members are staying in their current roles.
Universal Scale in the Classroom: Students consistently reflecting on their learning–learning targets aligned to essential learnings–is a highly impactful, research-based practice that demonstrates significant yields in student growth and achievement. Last week, our teaching staff began to implement the use of the Universal Scale in their classrooms in a variety of ways: student silent reflection, student rating on a piece of paper to submit to the teacher, and/or placed on activities or exit tickets. Either way, our staff will be utilizing the Universal Scale with our students the duration of the year for them to consistently reflect on the learning targets, which are aligned to our essential learnings. To be clear, the Universal Scale is not a new grading system; instead, it is designed for students to have an opportunity to reflect and provide formative feedback to their teachers in a variety of ways to better guide their instruction. Our staff will continue to use the grading system we currently have in place.
Washington DC Trip Parent Chaperone Request: The Washington, D.C. trip is quickly approaching. To enhance the experience of our students and make the trip run efficiently, we will need the help of a very limited number of parent chaperones. The role of each chaperone includes the supervision of your child as well as 8-10 throughout the duration of the trip. As this is a school trip, parents should understand that the itinerary is tailored to students' needs and your responsibility will be to help maintain our schedule and the time allotted for each destination. As a chaperone, you will be expected to acknowledge and agree to follow the school code of conduct which includes "no alcohol, smoking, vaping, etc." for the duration of the trip. We anticipate having more interest than availability, so chaperones will be chosen using a lottery system. If you are interested in chaperoning this trip, please fill out the link below by Friday, February 2, 2024. Parents will be notified via email no later than Friday, February 9th. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10sx7isQzgk-ZcyXzrw44tumsgYx_Ennmt-8mS53Ox3A/edit
MS Dive and Swim: Over the weekend the Middle School Swim and Dive Team competed in the Capital Area Middle School League Championship. Our girls team took 2nd place out of 14 teams and our boys brought home the league meet championship trophy (for the second year in a row!) beating the second place team by 80 points! Congratulations to all 55 members of the Middle School Swim and Dive Team. Great job this season. Proud to be a comet!
Robotics: The robotics team made up of Lilly Junak, Asa Ritchey, Colin Snitgen, Conner Szczepanek, and Charlie Fredericks are advancing to the state finals after winning second place in their tournament on Saturday! Their team name is 3C + L + A, congratulations and good luck at states.
MSU’s Introduce a Girl To Engineering Program: This is a free program for girls, grades 4-8, on Saturday, February 17th from 1-4 pm. For more information, please click on the link: https://www.egr.msu.edu/forms/forms/women-engineering/introduce-girl-engineering
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 6:30-7:30pm. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, February 13th. 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:
- February 15th–Half-day, no PM classes.
- February 19th–No school in recognition of Presidents’ Day
- March 12th,14th, and 15th–Spring Parent/Teacher Conferences
- March 15th–Half day for students, no PM classes, end of second trimester
- March 18th–Third trimester begins
- March 22-29th–Spring Break, no classes
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
