July 8, 2015
Good afternoon to you all.
I
will attempt to cover as many items as possible regarding the beginning of the
2015-16 school year as possible in this message. This one will be much longer than my normal
weekly updates. For those of you who are
new to LMS, what follows will be the standard format I will use for those
weekly emails and blog postings.
CONGRATULATIONS
and THANKS
Congratulations to PE Teacher Stephanie
O’Neal and 2014-15 PE Teacher Assistant Hanna Bremerkamp. Stephanie and Hanna coordinated this past
year’s Hoops For Heart program, sponsored by the American Heart
Association. Due to their efforts, and
those of our 2014-15 students, LMS was ranked in the top ten Missouri schools
this past year.
I wish to publicly thank our year-round
office staff (Nancy Edwards, Peggy Breidenbach, and Carol Stephens) and our
Custodians (Milan Rakic, J.B. Tate and Steve Bell) for all their hard work and
dedication this summer. Most of what
they do during these months goes on “behind the scenes” and is invaluable to me
and us as we prepare for the coming school year. A special thank you goes out as well to our
Administrative staff, composed of Tiffany Taylor-Johnson, Scott Lackey and
Sarah Schwartz for their contributions, time and support.
Thank you to our wonderful Ladue Middle
School Parent Association for their continued support of our programs, our
staff, and our students.
CALENDAR ITEMS
Our office is now open from 7 am to 4:15 pm, Monday through Thursday,
and will be closed on Friday. This
schedule will extend through the week of July 13 – 16. We will resume our five-day workweek on
Monday, July 20, which is 7:30 am – 3:15 pm.
Wednesday, 7/22
6th grade parent meeting; 10
– 11 am; LMS Cafeteria
6th grade parent meeting; 6
– 7 pm; LMS Cafeteria
Tuesday, 7/28
7th grade parent meeting; 6
– 7 pm; LMS Library
Thursday, 7/30
8th grade parent meeting; 6
– 7 pm; LMS Library
Monday, 8/3
Packet Pickup; 7 am – noon; LMS Lobby
(See more about Packet Pickup below.)
Tuesday, 8/4
Packet Pickup; noon – 5 pm; LMS Lobby
Wednesday, 8/5
District Staff meeting; 8 – 11 am; LMS
office closed
Thursday, 8/6
LMS Building Staff meeting; 8 – 11 am;
LMS office closed
LMS Community Night; 4 – 7 pm (Date
change/See more about Community Night below.)
Monday, 8/10
New 7th and 8th
grade student orientation; 8:30 – 10 am (All 6th graders will go
through orientation on the first day of school.)
Tuesday, 8/11
First day of school
Friday, 8/14
LMS parent coffee (all grades); 8:30 –
9:30 am; LMS Cafeteria
Wednesday, 8/19
LMS Meet The Teacher Night; 6:30 – 8:30
pm (More information to follow.)
Monday, 8/24
SRI Reading assessments; Grade 7
Tuesday, 8/25
SRI Reading assessments; Grades 6 and 8
After School Activities for Quarter 1
begin (More information to follow.)
Wednesday, 8/26
School Pictures (More information to
follow.)
CORRECTIONS/ADDITIONS
Should
I leave anything out, or make any mistakes, I will follow up with subsequent
messages.
NEW ITEMS
Community Night
Community
Night (a great yearly event sponsored by the Ladue Middle School Parent
Association) has provided past students and parents opportunities to stock
their lockers, tour the building and locate classrooms, turn in Parent
Association forms, make connections and get information from the LMSPA, and enjoy
dinner provided by the LMS Dads Club. We
have typically held this evening on the Friday preceding the beginning of
school.
At
the request and suggestion of the LMSPA, this event will occur on Thursday, August 6 (some previous
calendars may have listed Friday, August 7) to accommodate end-of-summer family
trips prior to the first day of school.
Due to the change of date, I will not be able to provide office staff
during that evening to handle some of the items above (although I and at least
some of the administrators should be present).
As such, we will provide alternate times for the collection of such
items and other functions as outlined in the following topics. For more information regarding Community
Night, please check out the LMSPA website at http://mylmspa.com/
Packet Pickup
Student packets, including schedules, locker assignments, and forms, can
be acquired from LMS on Monday, August 3 from
7 am to Noon and on Tuesday, August 4 from Noon to 5 pm. Please be aware that:
·
A parent of each
student must be present for the packet to be released. Packets may be issued to a student’s sibling,
neighbor and/or family friend if we are provided with a hand-written, signed
note by a parent specifying the student name, the parent designee
name/relationship, and the reason for the request.
·
Information regarding
Proof of Residency must be current before packets can be released.
·
Incoming or returning
8th grade students are required by State law to have their required
TDaP (tetanus, diphtheria and
pertussis) immunization on file with our School Nurse before they can begin the
school year. Packets cannot be issued
until we receive that documentation.
·
New enrollees, who
have not met with their Counselor by the stated Packet Pickup dates, will not
be issued a packet (with a schedule, team assignment, and locker assignment)
until they do so.
If, for some reason, you are unable to retrieve your student’s packet on
the dates and times above, packets may be acquired from our office on:
·
Wednesday, August 5;
12:30 – 3 pm
·
Thursday, August 6;
12:30 – 3 pm
·
Friday, August 7; 9
am – 2 pm
Lockers
Although we provide a locker for each student, please be aware that you
and your child will need to provide a personal lock. This can be of any type, as long as we have a
record of the combination (in case we need to open the locker, without cutting
off the lock).
With
the change in date of Community Night, resulting in the absence of office
staff, students and parents will be notified of locker assignments during
Packet Pickup and will be able to provide lock combinations at that time. Please, if possible, bring your student and
their lock for Packet Pickup so that they can put it on their locker then. If time permits, you and your student may
also stock their locker at that time.
If
you are new to our building, please be aware that lockers may be decorated on
the inside (no permanent decorations or marks), but we do not allow decorations
or other items to be attached to the outside for any reason.
One
last note regarding lockers: We face a yearly challenge when students do not
use their assigned lockers, but rather place their items and their lock on any
that appear “better” (i.e. closer to a friend, etc.). Please help us make sure that your student
uses only their assigned locker and
prevent unnecessary confusion.
Contact
Information
It is important for the middle school to
have the correct contact information, address, and phone numbers for your child
in case of an emergency. Address
changes must be done by contacting our registrar and providing appropriate
documentation. Please take a few
minutes to make sure your child’s contact information is correct by logging on
to the Parent Portal. If you have not signed up to access the Parent
Portal, please stop by the middle school with a picture ID and see our
registrar, Ms. Breidenbach. You can also update your information by
contacting our registrar, Ms. Breidenbach at 983-5511.
Schedule Changes
In years
past, a massive amount of schedule changes have been requested in the last few
days leading up to the first day of school.
I would like to discourage this practice.
We
have been working on the master schedule, and scheduling, since registration
forms were completed and returned this past spring. We have been able to make team placements
based upon parent input regarding their student’s learning styles and needs, we
have determined the best placement of core and elective classes to meet the
majority of course needs and requests, and we have worked diligently to balance
our class section sizes as much as is possible.
If a
schedule is incorrect, we will certainly do our best to correct it. I am asking that you and your student refrain from asking us to make “I want
to be in _____ class with my friend” changes.
There
may also be instances in which your child did not get their first Elective
class choice. We do our best to meet
these requests, but with limitations in class sections and class sizes, we may
need to look at a student’s second or third choices (that is why our
Registration form asks for a listing of prioritized choices).
Should an incorrect schedule require our attention, Mrs.
Stephens in our office will be available on the following dates and times:
·
August 3; 7 am – Noon
·
August 4; Noon – 5 pm
·
Wednesday, August 5;
12:30 – 3 pm
·
Thursday, August 6;
12:30 – 3 pm
·
Friday, August 7; 9
am – 2 pm
Please
be aware that no schedule changes can be
made on Monday, August 10. Schedules
of all students will be printed that day in preparation for the beginning of
school on Tuesday. Schedule changes that
meet the criteria outlined above that arise on or after Tuesday, August 11
should be made through the student’s grade level counselor.
UPDATED ITEMS
Staffing for 2015-16
We
will welcome eleven new members to our LMS faculty this coming school
year. These changes come as a result of retirement,
relocation, and/or professional advancement.
Our new faculty members are:
·
Shaina Fall; FACS
·
Yvette Sykes; Counselor
·
Adam Durham; Grade 7 Science
·
Christine Earnhart; Grade 7 Science
·
Lisa Stein; Grade 6 Science
·
Megan Grossbauer; Grade 7 Mathematics
·
Melshonda Lowe-Dobbins; Art
·
Quentin Alimayu; Grade 7 Social Studies
·
Rachel Renna; Grade 8 English/Language Arts
·
Nikki Foristel-Weiss; Grade 6 English/Language Arts
·
Sonja Brewer; Apogee
Several returning staff members will also
serve new or revised roles this coming year.
They are:
·
Amy Bullman; FACS
·
Melody Frese; Library/Media Specialist
·
Suzanne Costanza; Grade 6 Mathematics
·
Erin Heckendorn and Jennifer Gardner; Math Intervention
·
Matt Strayhorn; Grade 8 Mathematics
·
Velma Valadez; Grade 8 English/Language Arts
·
Marion Allen; Reading Intervention
Our final round of interviews will occur
this month in order to fill remaining Teaching Assistant positions.
REPEAT ITEMS
Student Drop Off, Pick Up
As in recent years, we ask that you not
drop off students at school until 7:15 am.
Prior to that time, I do not have assigned staff in the building for
supervision and do not wish for students to be standing outside our doors
(particularly in inclement weather).
Morning student drop off by car can occur
at the front entrance to our building prior to around 7:50 am, when buses typically
begin arriving. At the arrival of the
first bus, cars will then be directed to the rear of the building with drop off
at the rear doors to the Gym. Cars will
then be directed to the exit on Clayton Road (not through the Circle Drive),
with the sincere request that each makes a right-hand
turn onto Clayton. Cars attempting
to make a left-hand turn onto Clayton, when busy, cause significant delays and
congestion in our parking lot. Please also
do not drop off students by car in the front of our parking lot, as this can be
potentially dangerous and causes buses entering the lot to be restricted.
Buses begin lining up in the Circle Drive
for student dismissal around 2:45 pm. We
ask that, should you need to pick up a student by car before the 3:05 pm
dismissal, that you park in one of the available spots in our parking lot and
not block the Circle Drive for buses.
Cars for afternoon pickup will be directed to line up in the back of our
building, along the Maintenance Road.
After buses load and depart (typically by 3:15 pm at the latest), cars
are then released to pick up students in the Circle Drive at the front of our
building.
Please be aware that parking in the bank
lot, across Conway Road from our campus, is restricted for business customers
only (particularly in the afternoons). I
also ask that cars not line up in the front of our parking lot in the
afternoons, thereby blocking exiting staff members and visitors (and causing
potentially dangerous situations).
I am attaching a diagram of morning and
afternoon traffic flow to the Blackboard Connect email, if this helps.
Incoming 8th grade students/Immunizations for 2015-2016
Students entering 8th grade in the state
of Missouri are required to receive the TDaP (tetanus, diphtheria and
pertussis) immunization. This is usually
given by a doctor at age 11 or 12. If
your child has not received this immunization, please consult your physician. If you have records showing that your child
has received it, please provide them to the nurse's office.
LMSPA eBlasts
If you are not currently receiving LMSPA
email news blasts but would like to, please click on the following link to
subscribe:
Board Briefs
Information regarding Ladue Board of
Education meetings and work sessions can be found on boardbriefs.blogspot.com
Thank you for your time in
reviewing the above information. There
is very likely something that I have left out.
If so, I will send out follow up messages as needed. I hope you and your families enjoy the
remainder of your summer. My family and
I are counting the days until we can get away for some trout fishing beginning
next Wednesday. I look forward to seeing
you and your children in August.
Sincerely,
Greg
