We are quickly approaching our mid-quarter for the 3rd quarter & our Parent / Student Conferences.

Conferences are set for Wednesday, the 10th of February from 4-6 PM & Thursday, the 11th of February from 12:30-6 PM.

6th grade need to sign-up for individual appointments on their class sign-up sheet, while 7th & 8th grade families simply need to arrive between the designated times for a conference. Information sheets for the different grades can be found under the files tab at the bottom of the list on this webpage.

MS will not be printing out reports in advance this time. Please print out any class grade reports you want to bring with you to go over with the teacher in advance of your conference time.

Remember, that on Thursday the 11th is a half-day of school & there will be no school on Friday the 12th of February.

Greetings MS Parents!

Shortly we will be introducing the educational games section of the new Amplify ELA curriculum for 6-8th grade students. This will include a collection of games that are educational in nature and designed to help students with English language skills. Some of the games are linked to vocabulary or grammar improvement while the role playing adventure game of Lexica is mostly designed to help with reading comprehension. This game is linked to a 500 book digital library built into the Amplify curriculum. Along with adventure games, students will also have access to a closed online student community monitored by a professional educator and BCCS staff. Here students will be able to share stories they have created, get answers to questions about academic questions or get help with the educational role-playing adventure game. I have attached some information forms to this page (we are also sending a copy home with students) that describes this new opportunity for students. The games will mostly be made available through an after-school club time or during a recess period. They can also be accessed at home through an Apple IOS device. The club is voluntary & parents can choose to opt their student out of the online community if they wish by signing the Opt-Out Form & returning it to the school.

Amplify will be sending a special trainer to the school to instruct staff & students into how to get the most from this new cutting edge academic experience. We are a pilot school for the program & Amplify will be asking students & teachers about their experience to document for their research into the effectiveness of such a program.

I hope conferences went well for everyone. We had a wonderful turn-out & it was so exciting to hear students explaining to their parents what they have been learning this quarter and what their classroom expectations are. I have posted in the files section, the first quarter honor roll report for 6 - 8th grades. We divide honor roll up into 4 categories based on GPA & no D's or F's for the quarter. We had 27 6th grade students, 29 7th grade students & 39 8th grade students who qualified this quarter. Congratulations to all who qualified and for the hard work that went into earning that honor.

We completed our Movie Morning Awards on Thursday for students with 4 or fewer tardies, no office referrals (discipline) no PAW referrals & excessive missing class work. We had about 40 6th graders who qualified and 75 7-8th graders. Congratulations to those students as well.

Next week we will do the AR reward goal times for each area. We had 36 6th graders qualify, 43 7th graders & 30 8th grade students. Congratulations for this accomplishment as well.

Our students are working hard & their accomplishments are beginning to show up in these activities.

We also want to congratulate our Fall sport teams. The girls volleyball team beat the staff on Thursday in a very hotly contested match and the boys soccer team won 1st place in their conference for the season. Congratulations to all who participated!

I have attached the Fall Parent / Teacher Conference Information for 6th grade as well as the Middle School. You will find these at the bottom of the files tab.

There are different formats for these two groups, so make sure you check out the appropriate information. I have also included Spanish & Russian versions for the Middle School letter. The school will be printing a copy of the student report card for distribution during the conference as well. Conferences will take place on Wed the 14th from 4-6 PM & Thurs the 15th from 12:30 - 6 PM.

MS Progress Reports were e-mailed to all 6-8th grade families if the student has a D or an F in a Core class.

We are 4 weeks until the end of the quarter & Parent / Teacher Conference time.

The school did suffer a complete black-out of phone & internet services on Tues & Wed the 15th & 16th due to construction in the area.

Century Link was notified & worked 24/7 to try & correct the outage, which was rectified by Thurs morning the 17th.

Be aware that some messages to teachers sent during this timeframe may not have been delivered here at the school.

If you have any questions regarding homework or grades, please contact your teacher.