The Paw Print
Lange Middle School's Parent Communication Newsletter
Lange Middle School
Dr. Rhonda Jackson, Assistant Principal
Mr. Joe Lauchstaedt, Assistant Principal
Mr. Tim Gardner, Home School Communicator
Email: dfalls@cpsk12.org
Website: https://www.cpsk12.org/lms
Location: 2201 Smiley Lane, Columbia, MO, USA
Phone: (573) 214-3250
Twitter: @lmsleopards
Important Dates
9/1 - Back to School Night 6-7:30 PM
9/5 - No School - Labor Day
9/13 - Lange Student Flu Shot Clinic
9/21 - No school - Teacher Work Day
From the Principal's Desk......
With Leopard Pride,
Mr. Falls
Get Your Flu Shot!
7A Leopards
Hello From 7A!
We wish to welcome our returning Lange Leopards and our BRAND NEW Leopards to 7A. We are all looking forward to working with you this year.
Your teachers this year are:
Top left: Mr. Heasley, science
Top right: Mr. Smith, social studies
Bottom right: Ms. Hughes, English
Bottom left: Mr. Palmer, math
Mr. Heasley will be our team leader this year and Ms. Hughes will send the 7A newsletter to parents and students toward the end of each week.
Let’s start your most awesome year of middle school!
Cell Phones
Cell phones are to remain off and out-of-sight from the time students arrive at school to the time they leave school
Cell phones are not to be used for any reason during the school day
NO phone calls - Must use office or classroom phone
NO Schoology on phones
NO E-Hallpass on phones
NO earbuds
SMART watches, when used in place of a phone, are considered the phone.
This applies to all classrooms and common spaces at LMS…. NO EXCEPTIONS
Visitors
- Visitors are asked to schedule visits in advance with the person you need to see.
- Visitors will not be allowed to come for lunch with students in the cafeteria. An alternate eating location may be arranged if you contact the LMS main office in advance at (573)214-3250. We will let you know if it is possible at the time of your call. Please keep in mind that health protocols change constantly and we can't guarantee that we will be able to accommodate your request to be in the building.
- To schedule an appointment, please e-mail the person you would like to meet with OR call the LMS main office.
- If picking up your student, remain in your car and call the LMS main office and your student will be sent to your car.
Announcing LMS Theatre Arts Fall Play:
Hoodie, by Lindsay Price
Hoodie asks all of the tough questions that middle schoolers deal with every day. What do I wear? What if I wear the wrong thing? What is she wearing? What do I look like? Stop looking at me! Hoodie examines image and appearance in a vignette style and poses what may be the most difficult question of all – Do I stay in the clump or do I stand alone?
Auditions for any gender will be held September 21 and 22 immediately after school in the Theatre Classroom, 200. No preparation required, just attend in comfy clothes ready to read aloud from the play. Any questions? Contact Dr. Edwards (kuedwards@cpsk12.org) by email or find him in his classroom.
SRG Parent Letter
Dear Secondary Families:
Greetings! I am so happy to work with our middle school and high school scholars as the Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools.
I want to let you know about our progress regarding standards referenced learning and grading. We commonly call it Standards Referenced Grading, or SRG. We have been on this journey for a long time, but unless you’ve recently had an elementary student in your house, you might be unfamiliar with it. SRG is focused on grading based on learning skills, separating grades from student behaviors, and allowing students multiple opportunities to show proficiency. (I’ll let you in on a little secret: grading practices haven’t really changed in 100 years. We hope to shift the conversation from counting up points and grades based on an average to demonstrating scholars have learned the skill and understood a concept.)
As a former middle school principal, I know the transition to middle school and high school is sometimes overwhelming. As they move into middle school and high school, SRG will help ease that transition. Families will be able to clearly see what their student is learning and what level they are mastering. That will be the same for every scholar, no matter the middle school or the elementary they come from.
There’s no incentive in our current practices for trying something new and being bad at it at first, participating in a productive struggle, and then analyzing our mistakes to figure out how to improve. As we move to SRG, these things will change. Our scholars will have the opportunity to have time to take academic risks, make mistakes, learn from them, and have multiple opportunities to show proficiency in a skill and a learning target. We are making these changes because when we learn more, we try to do better. SRG is beneficial because it gives our scholars ownership of their learning and clarity on expectations, through specific and timely feedback tied to a proficiency scale. Students know exactly what they have to do to get to the next level. All students learning the same standards in different buildings are evaluated in the same way. Those who take more time to learn aren’t penalized through grades if they acquire concepts and skills a little later. This system honors learning and growth and mastery, not speed.
SRG is beneficial for teachers because it clarifies the state learning standards, for which we are accountable, calibrates the expectation for scoring, and ensures commonality, consistency and fidelity in grading. If a scholar earns a “3” for their work in one teacher’s class it will also be scored as a “3” for another teacher.
Letter grades will still be given and GPAs will still be calculated as normal. We will still receive letter grades for each course on the grade card just like we always have. Eventually we hope to have a system where the final score on each critical concept is reported on the grade card. Our middle schools are already using Success Ready scores to communicate work habits, or learning behaviors, so families know how their scholar is behaving educationally. Last year we set a goal to have any assignments not turned in to be entered as a 50%. This year any assignment not turned in will be a 0 and marked as “Insufficient Evidence”. We heard from guardians and teachers alike that the “Floor of 50” was confusing and contentious, so we have amended that.
We are also including information (linked below) to give you more details if you so desire. We call these documents “bridges”, a link from the old way of doing things to the new way of doing things. We are currently on “The Bridge”, connecting us from the way we previously looked at assessments and grading, to our goal of implementing Standards Referenced Grading 100%, K-12, in Columbia Public Schools. Administrative, teacher and coordinator teams have been working tirelessly this year to make the middle school and high school Bridge documents for SRG relevant, purposeful and accurate. Please consider familiarizing yourself with the revised bridge documents and other SRG material for your level found here: Families / Standards Referenced Grading (https://www.cpsk12.org/Page/20225).
SRG will help us with the following F.A.S.T. acronym:
Fair: The same work, by the same student, should receive the same grade, even if the teacher or school is different.
Accurate: Grades are based solely on achievement, which means other factors, like behavior and attendance, are not used to calculate a grade.
Specific: Grading policies will be so clear that students should be able to tell teachers what grade they have earned, even before the teacher calculates it.
Timely: Feedback to students is so timely that students can actually use that feedback, right away, to improve their performance on tests and assignments.
In order to share more information with families, and receive your feedback and questions, we have a number of items in our SRG communication plan for the 2022 - 2023 school year. We will share parent videos – one for middle school and one for high school – explaining more about the philosophy and process of SRG. We hope to email you links to these videos within the first few weeks of school. We have been learning with the Marzano Research group, a team who has dedicated their professional lives to working with SRG and instruction, assessment and curriculum learning. Jan Hoegh from Marzano will be here (dates below) – she will host “Parent/Community Universities” on SRG each of these days - look for more information coming your way soon.
September 20 – RBHS, 6pm
October 12 – HHS, 6pm
January 18 - BHS, 6pm
Thank you for sending your scholars to learn and grow with us in Columbia Public Schools. We are excited about this school year and look forward to partnering with CPS families.
Sincerely,
Dr. Helen Porter
Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education
Columbia Public Schools
TutorMe
PTSA Information
Treasurer: Our PTSA is looking to fill the position of Treasurer. If you have a willingness to serve and have some time to donate throughout the school year, our PTSA needs you! There is lots of support to train the new volunteer. You may contact Jason Russell jasonrussellj@gmail.com to get more information or you contact our main office.
Meeting: The next PTSA meeting will be held on September 6th, at 6PM in the Lange cafeteria. Please mark your calendar to attend this meeting. You will be able to get some valuable information about the start of school. We hope to see you there!
Give back to LANGE MIDDLE SCHOOL with Casey’s Rewards
Dear LANGE FAMILY,
We’re excited to share that our school is participating in Cash for Classrooms, part of Casey’s Rewards. This opens up LANGE MIDDLE SCHOOL to new funding opportunities to help improve learning environments for students.
The best part? Donations don’t come out of your own pocket. When you buy from Casey’s and use their rewards program you can simply turn your points into a donation to our school.
Help LANGE MIDDLE SCHOOL make the most of this program and learn more at caseys.com/schools.
Sincerely,
Dominique Falls
LANGE & GERBES COMMUNITY REWARDS
Earn Money for Lange Middle School PTSA when you use your Gerbes loyalty card!!!!
The Kroger Family of Companies is committed to community engagement, positive social impact and charitable giving at the national and local levels. Every community is unique, but our common goal is to partner with the neighborhoods we serve and help the people there live healthier lives.
One of the ways in which we do this is through our Gerbes Community Rewards program. This program makes fundraising easy by donating to local organizations based on the shopping you do every day. Once you link your Card to an organization, all you have to do is shop at Gerbes and swipe your Shopper’s Card. Here’s how it works:
1. Create a digital account.
A digital account is needed to participate in Gerbes Community Rewards. If you already have a digital account, simply link your Shopper’s Card to your account so that all transactions apply toward the organization you choose.
2. Link your Card to an organization.
Selecting the organization that you wish to support is as simple as updating the Gerbes Community Rewards selection on your digital account.
1. Sign in to your digital account.
2. Search for your organization here.
3. Enter the name (LANGE MIDDLE SCHOOL PTSA) or NPO number (UI506) of the organization you wish to support.
4. Select the appropriate organization from the list and click “Save”.
Your selected organization will also display in the Gerbes Community Rewards section of your account. If you need to review or revisit your organization, you can always do so under your Account details.
3. Your organization earns.
Any transactions moving forward using the Shopper’s Card number associated with your digital account will be applied to the program, at no added cost to you. Gerbes donates annually to participating organizations based on your percentage of spending as it relates to the total spending associated with all participating Gerbes Community Rewards organizations.
If you have any questions, please contact our Customer Service Center.
Whether you’re a customer or an organization, get started today!
Note: If you are a customer, make sure you have a preferred store selected (GERBES ON PARIS RD) to view participating organizations. If you are applying on behalf of an organization, please select a store in the same area as your organization.