Middle School Announcements
Welcome to another great school year—2017-2018. This will be a year of exciting changes and many challenges as we transition into our new school building in January, 2018. We have much work to do to get ready for that transition and move, but that work will be exciting and fun.
As we get ready, we welcome 3 new staff members to the middle school. Mrs. Shelley Ahleman will be taking over the duties of school counselor. She has been the high school counselor for several years and will soon take on the middle school! Another veteran staff member who is joining our middle school staff is Tracey Krueger who will serve as an intervention specialist in 6th grade. Lastly, Mr. Nick Mariano is joining the LC team as Middle School Principal. He has had more than 19 years in education and 12 of those as a school principal. We are really excited to welcome them to our middle school team!
Another change for the upcoming school year is our IE period at the end of the day for 5th and 6th grades. This will be a time to reinforce concepts to students who might need a little more help. We will also have the time to provide enrichment for those students who are ready to move to more complicated concepts.
Tiger Challenge will also be a focus this year. We have four jungles—Bengal, Malayan, Siberian, and Sumatran. These jungles will have several competitions throughout the year. The Tiger Challenge involves 16 challenges, including those which emphasize good manners and appropriate show of respect and others which emphasize homework completion. We also emphasize honesty and responsibility in our daily challenges.
Our 1 to 1 Chromebook initiative has really gone well. Every student in grades five through eight will be issued a Chromebook. If a student wants to take the Chromebook home, there is a small fee. Teachers are now able to post homework assignments and help in their Google Classroom for easy access for all students. This greatly benefits those students who miss school.
As we look forward to moving into to a beautiful new building we need to look at a new way of doing business. The focus of the new policies is to help us preserve the beautiful new facility, improve the safety and security of our students, and increase the efficiency of the educational process. In order to make the transition simpler, we will begin the new policies at the start of the school year.
We will be asking students and parents to not hang signs and other things on the lockers. We will not be allowing decorations of any kind on the lockers in the new building. This is to protect the finish on the new lockers.
Students will not be allowed to carry backpacks during school hours. This is a safety concern. We will increase the time between classes in order to allow time to travel to lockers. Students will be expected to keep belongings in their lockers. In order to eliminate temptation it is recommended that students not bring valuables to school. Even with locks on the lockers it is possible for items to disappear.
Liberty Center is a closed campus, which means that students may not leave school for lunch. It is recommended that students either carry a lunch or purchase lunch from the cafeteria. We will not allow deliveries of restaurant food for students. We also ask parents do not bring in restaurant food. Bringing in food from outside may jeopardize the school lunch subsidies provided by the Federal Government.
State attendance laws are changing and that will necessitate the school change the way we respond to tardy and absent students. Parents will receive attendance letters from the school once a child has missed 38 hours of school in a month or 65 hours in a year. This letter will be sent if the absence is excused or unexcused. The school and the parent will be required to meet and develop a plan for improvement in school attendance. If the attendance does not improve, then a court referral will take place.
Check out the Middle School twitter page at @LCMS_Principal for updates that are going on around the Middle School. Go Tigers!