Ballyshannon 411
Published: August 19
Thank you for coming out to our We Are Bally night. We hope you loved the building as much as we do!
IMPORTANT CONTACT INFO
School Number: 859-905-2620
Assistant Principal: james1.demetrakis@boone.kyschools.us
School Counselor: meredith.palmer@boone.kyschools.us
School Resource Officer: mark.jump@boone.kyschools.us
Attendance: jill.stinson@boone.kyschools.us
Finance: holly.morgan@boone.kyschools.us
Volunteers: crissy.nelson@boone.kyschools.us
Health: heather.simpson@boone.kyschools.us
Cafeteria: mary.butsch@boone.kyschools.us
District 2 Bus Garage: 859-586-0878
Board of Ed: 859-283-1003
School Hours
Breakfast: 7:00-7:30am
Tardy Bell: 7:40am
Buses, Walkers, Bike Riders dismiss: 2:25pm
Car Riders dismiss: 2:30pm
Office closes: 3:30pm
Our Reporting Tools for 18.19
Infinite Campus
Edulastic and Mastery Connect
Kickboard
Academic Spotlight
You should not expect to see information in Infinite Campus yet. We anticipate using Infinite Campus (IC) in a few weeks. When information does appear in Infinite Campus, it will be solely reported on a mastery learning scale of 0-4. All students will begin with a 2 in every content area. As they move through the content and gain knowledge and mastery of standards, the goal is for them to move to levels 3 and 4 for all standards in all subject areas. If a student dips below a level 2, the grade becomes an I (Incomplete) and we will contact you so we can develop a remediation plan for your child to bring their grade at least up to a level 2. All parents need a Parent Portal login so they can access student grade and attendance information this year. If you have never received a Parent Portal login, please visit our office during office hours to retrieve yours beginning next Monday the 27th.
We know this sounds like another language right now, but soon it will make great sense.
Beginning NEXT week, we will send you two videos. One will be an overview of Edulastic (used for 6th and 7th graders to assess mastery of the standards). These are teacher-created assessments that are uploaded into a system that reports mastery to the student as the learner and you as the parent. The other video will be an overview of Mastery Connect (use for 8th graders). This is the same concept as Edulastic. We are trying both tools this year to determine which is best in the long term for our kids.
Your students will not receive letter grades or averaged percentage grades this year. Will this set them back in high school? No. Quite the opposite. If we can retrain our thinking that we're working toward mastery of the academic concepts rather than points accumulation, we are creating an atmosphere of academic rigor that is incomparable to a simple points system. By developing this mindset, your kids will be a step ahead when they get to high school and will no longer be playing the points game. Mastery equals an A in it's truest form. It is the highest level of academic achievement.
Much more information and support to follow throughout the year. Don't worry. We won't leave you in the dark.
Work Skills and Behavior Spotlight
We will be reporting three indicators in the Kickboard platform this year (which you will have access to and we will link off of our website for you. We will create tutorials for you to help you navigate this information.
Kickboard reports in real time:
- Positive Work Skills (work completion, participation in class, grit & perseverance)
- Negative Work Skills (not completing work, not participating in class, not showing grit and perseverance)
- Minor Behavior Infractions (disrespect, lying/cheating, destruction of property, profanity, physical contact)
Students will report their Kickboard progress to you at their student led conferences each quarter at Bally. " Accountability is our friend" will be one of our mottos this year. If you own it, you have to own it. We believe using a transparent process like this will give you a much clearer view of your child's work skills at school as they relate to the immediate and the future.
Social-Emotional Learning Spotlight
SEL is time to invest in our students as humans. It's time to take a deep breath, learn to stay balanced, learn to deal with stress, learn to handle social issues more effectively. Ask them to tell you about their rock-paper-scissors game from Friday. They should mention eggs and chickens and dinosaurs and superheros (and I'm forgetting one!!)
Family Handbook
CAFETERIA MENU AND PAYMENTS
Thursday
Bus evacuations
Volleyball at home vs. Turkeyfoot (5, 6, 7)Friday
Volleyball tournament at St. Pius
Weekend
Upcoming Dates
* Volleyball games: 6th grade at 5pm, JV at 6pm, Varsity at 7pm
AUGUST
16: Volleyball at Ockerman
21: Volleyball at Summit View
23: Volleyball AT HOME vs. Turkeyfoot
24, 25, 26: Volleyball tournament at St. Pius
27: Volleyball at Beechwood
28: Volleyball at Twenhofel
30: Volleyball AT HOME vs. Woodland
SEPTEMBER
3: No school--Labor Day
4: Volleyball at Camp Ernst--Everybody show up!
5. Volleyball at Campbell County
7, 8: Volleyball at home for Shamrock Classic
10: Volleyball at Conner
11: Volleyball AT HOME vs. Grant County
13: Volleyball AT HOME vs. Gray
17: Volleyball at Highlands
20: Yearbook Photo Day and Volleyball AT HOME vs. Ockerman
21: Tentative first dance sponsored by the 8th grade
22: 6th grade volleyball tournament at Gray
25: Volleyball AT HOME vs. Beechwood
27: Volleyball AT HOME vs Conner
OCTOBER
19: Conner vs. Cooper Tailgate at Bally
26: Dance sponsored by ___________________
Spirit Sales
PTSO spirit sale going on this week. We'll email the order form out this week!
Text Updates
- All students and parents: @allbally
- 6th grade: @bally2025
- 7th grade: @bally2024
- 8th grade: @bally2023
- Positive messages: @BallyRocks
SOCIAL MEDIA
@ballyshannonms
@ballyshannonms
About us
Email: erika.bowles@boone.kyschools.us
Website: http://www.boone.k12.ky.us/29/Home
Location: 7515 Shamrock Avenue Union, KY 41091
Phone: 859-5551212
Facebook: facebook.com/ballyshannonms
Twitter: @ballyshannonms