One week down and a few more to go!
This and That!
The first
week of school is always quite hectic but this year’s first week went pretty
smooth (considering). Traffic was snarled at first but
by the end of the week nearly everyone found their spot to come and go. The front office is abuzz every morning, but
there too we are seeing things slow down as schedules, 7th grade pertussis
vaccination requirement and a zillion other items are attended to… So,
WELCOME
TO AND BACK TO BROWNELL MIDDLE SCHOOL!
TARDIES!
We have begun
noting tardiness and we have some stragglers.
Please let your student know that there are consequences!
From the Parent/Student Handbook (page 7)
- · Students arriving tardy to school should report directly to the office. (Note: If the student is late 30 or more minutes it is considered an absence.)
- · For each quarter, the first three unexcused tardies to any class could result in a warning and conference with the attendance liaison.
- · The sixth unexcused tardy will result in a Saturday School. Students will be assigned another Saturday school for each additional tardy in that same quarter.
·
Students will start with a clean tardy record at
the beginning of each Quarter.
Parent Club Meeting on Wednesday August 27th, in the Library
at 7:00pm:
Ms Janine
Kaloczy, last year’s Parent Club President will be opening the meeting and
hopefully we will have a new President by the close of the meeting. Not that we want her to leave us, but Ms Kaloczy’s
daughter moved on to High School and Ms Kaloczy, wanting to keep some
consistency, volunteered to come back and get the year started. But it is up to our current parents to take
the reins! We hope to see you there!
Picture Day, Wednesday September 3rd,
Make sure you’re
all snazzied up for Picture Day! This is
the day the students receive their lanyards as well, so all students must wear their
lanyards thereafter. Make up picture day
is September 16th.
Back to School Night Wednesday September 10th,
--6th
Grade GATE meeting: 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm, MPR
--Bell to bell,
class to class schedule for everyone:
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
6th
Grade GATE parents will have a meeting in the Multipurpose Room at 5:00 pm and
then at 6:00 pm we will start the evening classroom visitations.
We will have 10 min. periods with 4 min pass periods. A copy of your student’s schedule will go
home with them that day. These nights
aren't for parent teacher conferences, but for the teacher to present their syllabus
and the classroom explaining/reinforcing the classroom rules and procedures and
what to expect throughout the year.
Class change requests:
Except with most
requests at the beginning of the school year (e.g. wrong class level, schedule
missing classes, etc…) throughout the year class changes require a meeting
with the teacher. This must be strictly
followed in order to have all information available for the principal if a
meeting with him is necessary afterword.
This way we are following
District Policy. Most of the time the
parents do not have all the information they need to make a sound decision. So
please, if you have any concerns with a teacher or about your student in class—contact
the teacher first and the teacher and/or office will arrange a meeting with
them.
ACCELERATED and GATE CLASSES:
I mentioned
this in my last Blog but it bears repeating.
GATE students are placed into GATE classes and do not change classes unless
they so desire. GATE is an opt out
program. When there are less than 34
GATE students (as in 6th and 7th grade this year) we
place all GATE students into the GATE class.
If there are still open seats (as in 6th but not in 7th)
we will place the highest scoring non-gate students into the GATE class with the GATE students.
The other
non-gate students who are the highest 34 students are put into
Accelerated. If there were at least 34
more accelerated students, we would have another accelerated class. If there are not 34 or close to 34
accelerated students, then I cannot create another class.
In 8th
grade (our largest class) we have two GATE/Accelerated combo classes. This is because we have more than 34 GATE
students and we balance the best we can so GATE students are at least the majority of
the students in both classes. Once again
since we have more open seats in the GATE classes we open them up for the highest
scoring non-gate students.
We look at
last year’s Benchmarks, last two years CST’s, Grades, Reading and writing
scores if available and other Math scores.
If a student has two 5’s on the last CST’s, in the 90’s for Benchmarks and A’s
in class the year before, there is a good chance they are in the Accelerated classes. If not, it is unlikely depending on the 34
cutoff of students per class…
I know this
is complicated but we try to be as fair as we can in our decisions.
SPANISH UPDATE: WE ARE STILL LOOKING FOR A TEACHER. WE ARE SORRY FOR THE DELAY. WE WILL DECIDE IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS FOR EITHER AN ALTERNATIVE OR DISCONTINUE OFFERING SPANISH. I WILL KEEP YOU UPDATED--MR. CL
Well, that is
all for now,
Thanks, Greg
Camacho-Light
