August 7, 2013
Good morning everyone.
I
hope you are doing well. I wanted to
take a few moments to send out some reminders and updates regarding the
beginning of school. This is another
lengthy update, so please bear with me.
You can also view this
update on lmsprincipalsupdate.blogspot.com
Upcoming Calendar Events:
Thursday, August 8
Ladue District Opening Day
for Staff
LMS
Offices will be closed 8 to 11 a.m.
Friday, August 9
LMS Opening Staff Meeting
LMS
Offices will be closed 7:30 to 9:00 a.m.
LMS Community Night
4
to 7 p.m. (more information below)
Wednesday, August 14
Opening Day for Students
8:15
a.m. to 3:05 p.m.
Wednesday, August 21
Apogee Parent Meeting
6
to 6:30 p.m./LMS Library
Meet The Teacher Night
Parent Meeting at 6:30 p.m./LMS Gym
Parents
follow student schedules 6:55 to 8:30 p.m.
8th Grade Sports
Parent Meeting
8:30
to 9 p.m./LMS Cafeteria
Tuesday, August 27
After School Activities
begin
3:10
to 4:10 p.m. (more information below)
Wednesday, August 28
School Pictures (information
to follow)
Community Night
You are welcome to bring your student to
our annual Community Night on August 9, from 4 to 7 p.m. This is a great opportunity to walk the
building with your child, stock their locker for the first day of school, and
turn in forms from Packet Pickup days to our office staff. We will also have someone available to sign
you up for the Infinite Campus Parent Portal, if needed. If you are putting items in a locker that evening,
please be aware that we do not provide locks for hallway lockers. Please bring yours with you so that your
child’s belongings and supplies are secured before the end of the evening.
Our Dads Club will be providing barbeque
as well, in our Cafeteria beginning around 5 p.m., and our Parent Association
(LMSPA) will also have important information.
Speaking of the LMSPA, Nnena Achilefu (Chair of the New Family
Committee) will have a booth for “veteran” families to provide tours, help new
students meet with LMS Ambassadors, and provide answers to any questions new
families might have. This booth will be
set up an hour before Community Night begins so that new families can explore
the building in “relative” calm and quiet.
This evening is always well-attended and
parking is limited. We will have our
back doors (on either side of the Gym) unlocked for those who park in our back
lot. If you park at the front of the
building, please keep the handicapped accessible cutouts open – we will have
cones outside to designate those areas.
Parent Conference Sign Up
You may sign up for your Parent
Conferences at Community Night, beginning at 4 p.m. Another option is to sign up online, through
our LMS school website. This should also
be available Friday, beginning at 4 p.m.
A link will be posted on the site.
School Supplies
If you haven’t completed your purchase of
school supplies yet, this information is posted on our school website, about
half-way down on the right-hand side. If
you try to access our website and see my ugly mug, please click on the “Visit
School Website” button above and to the left of my gray hair.
After School Activities
These are scheduled to begin on August
27. If your student will ride an
Activity Bus home, please be aware that they may be running a little later than
last year. With the addition of the
Fifth Grade Center, our transportation configuration has been adjusted. Last year, buses typically left our campus
near 4:30 p.m. I imagine that this will
be closer to 4:40/4:45 this year, so wanted you to be aware.
Transfer Students
In addition to the usual number of
students transferring into our district each year, we are also welcoming eighteen
students and families from Normandy and Riverview Gardens this week. Each student and parent I have had the
pleasure of meeting has been very happy for the opportunity to attend LMS.
As I will reinforce with our staff on
Friday morning, every new student that enters our doors, regardless of where
they come from, are Ladue students. We
will make every effort to make each student feel welcome, acclimate them to our
procedures and traditions, while also honoring their backgrounds and points of
origin. We are fortunate to have a diverse
LMS family here, and hopefully do a good job of celebrating and honoring the
individuality of each and every student.
Traffic (mornings)
I provided information regarding our
revised morning car and bus drop off procedures in a previous
email/posting. Hopefully it made sense
and the maps on the school website helped.
Please be patient with us as we try to
work through any kinks in the plan that may develop. At the risk of being repetitive, it would
really help everyone if cars can exit our campus by making right-hand
turns.
If you are a returning parent, you
probably already know the Ski Trip Fridays are a totally different matter. We will try to look at these and hopefully
come up with a plan that helps on those mornings.
Fundraiser Information
Our annual fundraiser will kick off this
fall. We are still working on dates and
will communicate these as soon as they are finalized. In addition to our usual magazine
subscriptions, we are working with the company to also offer cookie dough. If you wish to shop online in the meantime,
please visit www.gafundraising.com and click on “Just Shopping.” Our school code is 2652758.
Personal Introduction
I have been remiss in letting you know a
little about myself. I do not normally
seek attention and prefer to recognize the accomplishments of our wonderful
staff, but thought it might be a good idea to share some personal information.
My lovely (and patient) wife is a health
care administrator, specializing in developing and managing out patient surgery
centers. We have two wonderful
“children” – our daughter lives in the area and manages a local business, and
our son is beginning his junior year at Webster University.
I come from a family of teachers,
including my mother, grandmother, uncle and cousins. I earned my BSEd from the University of
Missouri – Columbia in Science Education.
Since then, I have also earned my MA in Education Administration from
Lindenwood University and my SPEd in Educational Leadership from William Woods
University.
My teaching career spans sixteen years, in
the areas of science and mathematics, at the middle and high school levels in
Missouri and Colorado. While teaching, I
also coached basketball, football, track and field, and softball. My administrative experience totals fourteen
years to date, at both middle and high schools.
I have been a member of the district administrative staff here for the
past six years, beginning with four years at LHWHS before transferring to LMS
two years ago.
If you have done the quick math, this
begins my thirtieth year in the business.
Over this period of time, I have realized some “truths” that reinforce
my daily activities and outlook:
·
The older I get,
the more I realize I don’t know.
·
I am inept in
regard to technology. I rely on the
expertise of others and greatly appreciate their patience with me as I attempt
to expand my level of knowledge and continue to avoid pushing the hidden self-destruct
button on my keyboard.
·
Middle level
students, by their nature and personal level of development, will make
mistakes. It is our job, in concert with
you, to help them grow and hopefully not continue to make those same
mistakes. We use situations that involve
discipline infractions as teachable moments.
We use consequences, as part of our discipline plan, to get a student’s
attention much as you and I have done with our own children at home. None of our administrators assign a
consequence without careful thought and consideration for the student’s overall
well being.
·
Although I would
like to, I realize that I can’t please everyone. If you contact me with a concern, I cannot in
good faith make any promises without careful consideration. I can promise, in all situations, that
I will listen and take your concerns or input seriously and thoughtfully.
·
The truly
important people in any school are those that are severely missed if they are
absent on any particular day. In
addition to teachers, I am thinking of school office staff, custodians,
maintenance personnel and cafeteria workers.
If I am gone for some reason, my absence might be noted by a
small portion of the school population.
If one of our wonderful office staff or custodians is gone, we notice
this immediately. In light of this, I
want to publicly recognize the efforts of Nancy Edwards (Principal Secretary),
Peggy Breidenbach (Registrar), Carol Stephens (Scheduling/Counselor Secretary),
Danna Anderson (Receptionist), Mary Lobosco (Assistant Principal Secretary),
Ann Mohrmann (Library Secretary), Milan Rakic (Lead Custodian), JB Tate
(Custodian), Steve Bell (Custodian) and Ray Schaefer (Maintenance) for all they
do.
Please let me know if I have
forgotten to share any vital information prior to the first day of school. If you are a new parent to our building, and
have any questions, please contact me by email or phone (983-5501) and I will
try to provide a timely response.
Sorry again for the pontification
above. As always, my apologies if I have
made a mistake in the information above, or have omitted something important.
I look forward to serving you and your
children this year and hope it is happy and successful for all.
Have a great day,
Greg
