Barrington Middle School BMS Connected learning Newsletter 5.7.2018 The BMS Learning Community is Respectful, Responsible, and Ready to Succeed! Upcoming Events: (Note: Please review the dates as dates are subjected to change due to a number of factors from one newsletter to the next).
Looking Ahead:
Note from Dr. Anderson This week, the week of May 6, 2018, BMS will be celebrating teacher appreciation week. Mrs. Bulk and I are so appreciative of each and everyone of our faculty/staff. We feel fortunate to work with such an amazing faculty/staff who are incredibly talented, professional, and caring. We (Students, Parents, Faculty/Staff, and Administrators) all equally play unique and pivotal roles in making BMS such an amazing learning community. However, it is because what our teachers do on a daily basis with your children that really brings all of the pieces together. This week, please help Mrs. Bulk and I celebrate our amazing teachers! BMS Spotlight on Learning This week we would like to shine our BMS Spotlight on entire BMS Learning Community! Last week T74 (The 74 Million), a National organization, published an article that featured Barrington Middle School! Earlier in the year T74 learned of Rhode Island’s personalized learning initiative and wanted to feature it in one of their major stories. The article focuses its attention on Deeper Learning at Barrington Middle School. Please see a copy of the article here: https://www.the74million.org/article/sketchbooks-makerspaces-student-startups-inside-americas-largest-personalized-learning-experiment-how-one-rhode-island-lighthouse-laboratory-is-reimagining-school/ Great work BMS! BMS News you can Use BMS Building Update: The new building construction is well underway. To help with communication, each week I have been releasing the BMS Building Project Blog. You can access the blog by visiting the BMS Building Project Homepage or the direct link to the BMS Building Project Blog. In addition, each Tuesday morning we will have a student volunteer give updates to our student body during morning announcements. BMS Building Groundbreaking Ceremony: The BMS Building Groundbreaking Ceremony is scheduled for Monday, May 7, 2018 from 9:00 am to 10:00 am. Plans for the Groundbreaking Ceremony have been fluid and evolving. Due to logistics, safety, and security, we felt it was best to move the ceremony inside. Due to the change in venue, our 6th graders had an opportunity to participate in the speaking component of the Groundbreaking Ceremony. What we are very excited about is that all 775 BMS Students will have an opportunity in the near future to participate in the “topping off” ceremony. All students and faculty/staff will have an opportunity to sign a celebratory beam, and that beam will be forever part of our new middle school. Please stay tuned for more information regarding this unique opportunity for all of our students. BMS Cluster Experience and Program Preference Forms: Last week, I emailed our BMS Cluster Experience and Program Preference forms to our families. We ask that families complete the form by Monday, May 21, 2018 as we will be using the information you provide to begin the scheduling process for the 2018 - 2019 academic school year. Please know that we understand the excitement that can build around the cluster assignment process. For a middle school student, cluster assignments can be a big deal! Throughout the summer months we work hard to ensure each cluster is balanced by gender, needs, and abilities. We do take into consideration cluster experience preferences from families, but due to the above mentioned considerations, not all preferences will/can be fulfilled. (Note: typically only 60% of preferences are fulfilled.) Once a child is assigned to a cluster, there will be no changes made to cluster assignments. Barrington Police Department Anonymous Tip Line: The Barrington Police Department has set up an anonymous tip line at 401-437-3933. Chief Lacrosse welcomes students, parents, and community members to use the line if they would like to remain anonymous and have something to report. BMS Robotics Boot Camp! Our Barrington High School Robotics Team will be running a 4 week BMS Robotics Boot Camp for our BMS Students. This will be a unique opportunity to get our BMS students reacquainted with competitive robotics. Although we do have some BHS parent volunteers, we would love to have some BMS parent volunteers as well to help monitor the sessions. In addition, it is important to note that BMS does have a BMS Robotics Team, however, we were unable to participate over the past couple of years because we did not have a coach. If you, or anyone you know, is interested in being a BMS Robotics Boot Camp parent volunteer or be our BMS Robotics coach, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. RICAS (Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System) This year, we introduced the new RICAS assessments (or Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System modeled after the Massachusetts Comprehensive State Assessment) in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA)/literacy. All students in grades 6 through 8 will participate. Students will take RICAS assessments using a laptop and will complete two sessions for both Math and ELA. The RICAS ELA assessment began April 3rd. The Math RICAS assessment will begin May 8th. Released items and practice tests are available. RICAS Student Tutorial and Practice Tests can be accessed here: ricas.pearsonsupport.com RICAS Released Items can be accessed here: ricas.pearsonsupport.com/released-items New Science Assessment Our state science assessments, will also change this year. Students in grade 8 will continue to take the new assessment (Next Generations Science Assessment or NGSA) aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Students will take 2 sessions of this assessment using a laptop. This assessment will be administered as a field test and will begin May 21st. Test Items can be found at AIR Science Practice Test Items for Middle School https://airscience.tds.airast.org/student. BMS Assessment Schedule: Note: Barrington Middle School will be administering the following tests and the testing period for all tests is from 8:15 am to 11:00 am. Teachable Moment
BMS Family FAQ Page: I frequently use the expression, “People don’t know what they don’t know. And, people begin to know what they don’t know.” A few years ago, based on parent feedback, BMS created a BMS Family FAQ Page. This document captures what people may not know about procedures that may be unique to BMS. I encourage you to review the document as it will give you further insight to our learning community. If you still have a question(s), please email your question(s) to Mrs. Skadberg ([email protected]) and we can add it to the document. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NuukKpjHRfyJkJ_vtuQG3vrB3Qt3NcwWNKwWCjxhZlI/edit?usp=sharing Barrington Middle School Parent Newsletter
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