The Patriot Pride
#riseup!
Post from the Principal
Week of the Patriot
Monday, September 28-
- Volleyball Game-Patriots vs. Vance-HOME 5:00
Tuesday, September 29-
- Zoom Faculty Meeting-3:00-4:00(because we can't have one in October due to Fall Break. YAY for FALL BREAK!)
- Volleyball Game-Patriots vs. RNR-HOME 4:30
Wednesday, September 30-
- Gizmos Training for all Science Teachers-Zoom
- 8:00-10:00-Session One
- 11:00-1:00-Session Two
- Weekly Team Pulse Checks-If Needed-Just contact Holly Y or N
Thursday, October 1-
- Girls' Basketball Tryouts-LBMS Aux Gym-3:00-5:00-All paperwork and physical muts be on file to participate. Please arrive early for check-in and tempterature screening.
Friday, October 2-
- Hound Dogs Food TruckGirls' Basketball Tryouts-LBMS Aux Gym-3:00-5:00
- Girls' Basketball Tryouts-SHHS Old Gym-3:00-4:30-All paperwork and physical muts be on file to participate. Please arrive early for check-in and tempterature screening.
Save the Date:
11/13/2020 --Flu Shots-1:00-3:00 pm LBMS--Sign up is on the small bulletin board in the office.
First Wednesday of Each Month: Zoom Faculty Meetings-3:00-4:00 (except October because that is FALL BREAK! YAY!)
Second Wednesday of Each Month: Content Meetings-3:00-4:00-Location TBD
Third Wednesday of Each Month: LBMS Leadership Team Meeting-3:00-4:00-Library
October 5-9-FALL BREAK-NO STUDENTS PRESENT
Patriot News
fyi:
Both our boys and girls’ cross country teams qualified to go to state. At 8:20 this Friday, we will make an all call for students to go out into the hall to send off our teams. We will have students line up in the top of the red, blue and white buildings so students on the bottoms of the buildings would go to the top.
2. Then, the teams will walk the halls from the blue building, through the white, down the ramp to the top of the red and exit out the door leading to the bus., If students would like to exit the doors and continue our cheering line all the way to the bus, that is also fine! Signs are welcome!
3. Due to Covid, we will need to tell students not to hug or high five, but we can certainly have them cheer!
- For Report Cards: Conduct grades will only be given to each child's home base. Effort grades will be given in each content area.
- CANVAS: Please remember that each team needs to have Canvas home pages look the same in terms of of organization and navigation. Please remember that remote/remote teams should have a "Week at a Glance"" available so that parents and students can see what assignments are due each week.
- Remote/Remote Teams--I have shared with parents that they need to make sure that students are logging on to your classes at their assigned times. I have shared that if they do that, their children have time to do most of their assigned work with you all present. I have also shared that it isn't our desire that students be spending more than an hour, total, on homework after the school day and to contact us if that is happening.
- Teachers, if you need sneeze shield, please let Andreas know. She has several extra of the blue and plastic ones.
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Also, Andrea will let you know sometime this week about picking up more wipes, hand sanitizer, and gloves. It should be Tuesday, but she is still waiting on the wipes to get here.
Langston Center
From Dr. Bentley about our Fake Test
I want to provide you with information as we prepare for students in grades 2-8 to try out our new district assessment platform. Below are points of information.
1. Each student in grades 2-8 will take two assessments next week: ELA and math. This trial run is for both remote and in person learners.
2. Remote learners are not required to come into schools to take Checkpoints.
3. Your school has total flexibility as to when students take the assessments as both tests will be opened beginning Monday, September 28. The assessments will be opened until Friday, October 16 should you need students to take them as make-ups.
4. Almost all building testing coordinators attended two days of Illuminate training in July, attended a training on September 16, and participated in a Zoom review on September 24.
5. Testing Coordinators will assign tests to your teachers and communicate the process for how students will access the test:
a. Students will use their portal single sign-on.
b. Students will choose the “Illuminate” tile.
c. Students will be prompted to either “continue to portal” or “take assessment” – they are to choose TAKE ASSESSMENT.
d. Any assessments that have been assigned to students will be displayed on the menu.
e. Students will select the assessment – for example: “2 math practice test” or “6 ELA practice test”.
f. Once students select the test, they will need to click the green “BEGIN” icon.
6. As communicated to teachers by academic coaches, Illuminate training modules are located in the Canvas PD section.
7. Regarding read-aloud accommodations for students with IEPs: The Illuminate read-aloud feature is not available for this assessment. The feature is under development with the new item bank and should be ready before the first official Checkpoint. I spoke with Dr. Woods and her guidance is that it can be a school-based decision since the tests have no accountability or academic value. She said that special education teachers have been conducting read-aloud assessments with remote special education students through Zoom this school year. Again, special education remote learners with read-aloud accommodations may take the test or not take the test – it is your call.
8. Testing coordinators have been asked to collect any feedback/concerns/issues with the trial run. The collection will be forwarded to me and I will work with our implementation manager to get answers and resolve issues ASAP.
9. I am attaching two modules from our Illuminate training that will assist you with examining your students’ results. There is also information regarding data analysis in the Canvas PD course modules.
Thanks to our testing coordinators and academic coaches for their support. Several of our teachers have already used Illuminate with students through their own assessment development. Their feedback has helped us in trouble-shooting possible issues for next week’s trial run. Thank you and please let me know if you have questions.
Debra R. Bentley, Ed.D.
Before/After School Contracts (Safety Net, Extended Allocations and 21st Century Grant)
GREAT NEWS! Liberty Bell Middle School has received a 90K grant for extended day learning. We have opportunities before and after school remediation/tutoring and enrichment. This can be in any area...academic...the arts....health and wellness...other...
We also have Safety Net funds for tutoring.
We ALSO have Extended Learning Allocations for opportunities for enrichment, etc.
With all of these opportunities, we want to make sure we capture EVERYTHING that interests anyone could be provide for our students whether it is extra tutoring, enrichment. Once we have the names of everyone who is interested in an extended contract and an idea of who wants to do what, we will have you sign contracts. The contracts for each of these is $20 an hour.
I will share our eplan with you very soon. The opportunities for extended learning day options are for ALL students, but please also be keeping in mind how we can specifically target students in our subgroups who can be stretched by enrichment programs as well as students in our subgroups who could benefit through extra help. Subgroups: Economically Disadvantaged, English Language Learners, Students with Disabilities and Black/Hispanic/Native American students. Please know that when we are talking about needing to make gains with our subgroups, that means for ALL students in our subgroups--not just those who are not proficient. We can make a real difference in the lives and progress of students by targeting enrichment opportunities as well!
Exciting Times!
Here is a list of teachers who reserved an area with me. Dr. Flora you might want to add this to patriot pride.
Thursday October 1st & 2nd:
Orange- field at the end of the red building till (8:00am-1:00pm)
Purple- upper soccer field (11:00am-2:30pm)
Turquoise- lower soccer field (8:00am-11:00am)
Yellow- baseball field (8:00am-12:00pm)
Crimson- plaza (10:30-11:30) and little theater from (12:00pm-2:30pm)
Meet Meredith!
Meredith Owens is the new site director for Liberty Bell for Coalition for Kids. Please see below to "get to know her."
MEET THE SITE DIRECTOR
About Me:
Hello! My name is Miss Meredith and I am so excited to be working alongside you and your students this year! I am from Abingdon, Virginia but I now live in Johnson City, TN. In my free time I love hiking, singing, and spending time with my friends and family. I have worked in childcare for about 3 years and I have a passion for children and ministry. I began at C4K as an intern in January and just really loved this organization, so I became a Site Director.
My Education:
I recently graduated from East Tennessee State University with a bachelors in Public Health Administration and a minor in Psychology. I am very interested in going back for my Masters in family counseling!
About Coalition for Kids
Coalition for kids is a faith based, non-profit organization that strives to help your students with reading advancement, homework completion, and character development. For liberty bell my goal is to do all of this in addition to: engaging in STEM activities, bible studies, transformative life skills, college/career prep, leadership lessons, and more. Although we do strive to help each student in our program to complete his/her homework every day, it is not our main focus. It is our goal to provide your students with activities and opportunities that will enrich their lives, both inside and outside the scope of completing daily homework assignments. A lot of the kids we work with are what we call “at risk”, which basically means that they have a higher probability of failing academically or dropping out of school in the future years. Even though a lot of our kids that we serve fit that definition, it is definitely not a requirement of our program. Some of our kids just need a safe place to go after school, and others just need extra help with homework. The great news about our program is that we are completely FREE!
Contact Info
Meredith Owens
Liberty Bell Site Director
Email: sclibertybell@coalitionforkids.org Phone: 276-274-7229
Online referral form
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfDPmE4turg0fX68WX-gtnGjPZ2x6dTzeQN4eQbp0tAHO3_Sw/viewform
TEAM Teacher Observations
This week, you will be getting an email from your evaluator for the Fall semester. We will be starting observations with in-person teachers. TN Compass should show each of you how many observations that you have. Your observer can also share this with you.
Also, please know that your LBMS admin want to be in classrooms as much as possible to be a support and encouragement to you! If you see us walk in, please feel free to keep teaching! We just want to be present as much as we can for you and for the students.
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Suggestions from CO regarding COVID safe conferences:
Zoom meetings are highly encouraged for conferences.
If conferences take place in person on a certain afternoon or evening, parents are asked to stay in their car until they are called by the teacher to come in for their conference. This will avoid a crowd in the hallways or or office lobby.
Calling All Science Teachers
We have just confirmed with ExploreLearning that Liberty Bell’s Gizmos training will occur on Wednesday, September 30, 8:00 AM-2:00 PM.
Each grade level will have their own remote training with a live facilitator who will guide teachers through the two-part training. The training consists of Introduction to Gizmos (e.g., Teacher platform and student use of Gizmos) and Expanding Teacher Use of the Gizmos platform (e.g., Assessments, Data analysis, etc.).
Is there anything else you would like me to convey to the ExploreLearning training lead?
The lead for their training department said they use Adobe Connect for their live webinars (no in-person training at this time due to COVID-19). She said they run into complications when teachers are on Chromebooks; I told her that our teachers do not use Chromebooks. I will ask if there are any other tech specs needed for the training day.
Food Truck Fridays
October 2-Hound Dogs
Friday October 16-Fam Food Experience
Friday, October 20-Hound Dogs
Friday, November 6-Hound Dogs
Friday, November 20-Baked and Loaded
Friday, December 4-Trucky Cheese
Friday, December 11-Fam Food Experience
Friday, January 8-Baked and Loaded
Friday, January 22-TBD
Friday, February 5-Trucky Cheese
Friday, February -TBD
Friday, March 5-Baked and Loaded
Friday, March 19-Fam Food Experience
Friday, April 2-TBD
Friday, April 16-Hound Dogs
Math Cafe Professional Learning
We are so excited about our Math Café’ PD offerings that will be ongoing throughout the year. Please register through our fabulous JCS Learning Center. All meetings are virtual @ 3:45. Please sign up here.
October 22nd, Taking Action Book Study—Deep dive into Effective Math Teaching Practices, Target Audience Grades K-8.
Also Pre-K/K/1 friends, if you are interested, here is a great opportunity for a free class through NC State, The Friday Institute. Click here Teaching Math to Young Children. This class starts on October 5th.
Thank you for all you do!
Sincerely,
Tiffany and Sherry
Sherry Cockerham, EdD
District Math Curriculum Specialist
Johnson City Schools
Duties
To access the morning/afternoon duty schedule please CLICK HERE.
To access Related Arts Supervision document please CLICK HERE.
We need YOU to join our PTA!
Signing up is easy, go to this website - https://libertybellmiddle.new.memberhub.store/store for online membership payments or complete the bottom of the form below. Please turn it in to the school office or mail it to the school with a check made out to LBMS PTSA.
Patriot Pride -Parent Edition
Props to these Patriots!
Cross Country Celebrations
Liberty Bell Boys XC qualify for the TMSAA State Cross Country Championships in Clarksville! John Sevier boys proved TMSAA Upper East TN Sectionals Champions at the Beacon School in Greeneville with 38 points, while Ross N Robinson scored 53 and Liberty Bell scored 53, earning the State berth.
Top 5 Scorers in the 2 mile course
2nd Brock Wilhjelm 12:25
7th Adam Kelley 12:50
16th Grant Gentry 13:10
20th Christian Nutter 13:33
22nd Oliver Teal 13:35
Support Varsity
23rd Bryson Wilhjelm 13:35
24th Samuel Lane 13:39
The Lady Patriots were crowned TMSAA Upper East TN Sectionals Champions (37 points), holding off John Sevier (47) and Ross N Robinson (50). Their next test will be the TMSAA State Cross Country Championships on October 3 in Clarksville.
Scoring 5
5th Alana Iglesias 13:39
6th Rainie Hunter 13:44
8th Sophie Wooten 14:00
10th Emma Rhea 14:05
11th Ella Smith 14:07
Support Varsity
15th Lauren Yobst 14:27
16th Bailey Jensen 14:31
Thank you!
Nancy