Panther Pride Bulletin

At Battle Creek Middle School, all members of the learning community (students, parents, families, colleagues, and partners) are valued and respected. All members learn through culturally responsive teaching and learning. All members meet and embrace high academic and social expectations and beliefs that learning is collaborative and life-long. All members interrupt instances of inequalities and injustice.

Greetings Battle Creek Middle School Families,

We’re off to a great start with the 24-25 school year. The first week of school went well and our students are adjusting to school structures and routines. For our incoming 6th Graders, it is a big adjustment, but we are helping them get adjusted to middle school bell schedules and having 6 period days. We paused lessons for the first few days to reteach routines, expectations, and help students with lockers.

Please review cell phone policies and expectations with your child so they know what is expected. Cell phone is a huge distraction to the learning environment that is why Battle Creek is a no cell phone school from 8:30 - 3:00. If you need to get a hold of your child during the day, please call our office and we can relay the message. Cell phones and personal electronics such as ear buds and head phones are to be left at home or locked in lockers during the school day.

Bus rights and responsibilities - it is a privilege and not a right. Review the information below with your student regarding this expectation. If students misbehave on the bus and fail to listen to instructions given by the bus driver, they can lose their bus privilege and parents will have to find another form of transportation for their students.

iPad distribution for new students starts next Wednesday. For iPads that are lost or broken will happen after the first phase of distributing to students with no iPad. Once they have their iPad, encourage students to bring their iPad charged to school everyday. We are doing the best we can to get iPads in every student’s hand, but it will take time to get to every student. Please be patient with us while we work through the distribution process.

Parents who are dropping off or picking students, DO NOT do so in the Bus Zone during bus drop off (8:10-8:30) and afternoon bus loading from 3:00-3:15. During those times, pick up and drop off must be in the entrance of the staff parking lot. Please help us keep all of our students safe.

Thank you for your support. We look forward to a wonderful year working with you and your students.

For the latest BCMS updates, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

If you missed our Open House, click the link above for information that was provided to families. Keep them handy in case you need them.

We are so excited to be selected as the school to launch Kao Kalia Yang's first middle school book. The official launch date will be Tuesday, September 17. We will host two events that day. The first session will be during the day for our students and then an evening event for the community from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. Three hundred pre-autographed copies of the Diamond Explorer will be will be given away to students and families during these two events. All are welcome to join. Red Balloon will be present to sell all of her books. She will be available to sign them after the reading.

A bit more our our author:

Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences and genres. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the groundbreaking book, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is a librettist for The Song Poet Opera (commissioned by Minnesota Opera). Her children’s books, A Map Into the World, The Most Beautiful Thing, The Shared Room, Yang Warriors, From the Tops of the Trees, The Rock in My Throat, and Caged center Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream, hurt, and hope in it.

Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. She was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Carleton College. Yang is McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.

If you would like to sign your student up for AVID, please contact Frances Jarmick at francis.jarmick@spps.org or (651) 744-2267.

PARENT’S RIGHT TO KNOW TEACHER AND PARAPROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, parents have the right to request information regarding the professional qualifications of their student’s classroom teachers and paraprofessionals. Parents who would like to receive this information should write to the Human Resource Department, Attn: ESSA Teacher Qualifications, Saint Paul Public Schools, 360 Colborne Street, Saint Paul, MN 55102-3299. You have the right to ask for the following information about each of your child’s classroom teacher(s).

• Information about whether the teacher has met state qualification and licensing criteria for the grade levels and subject areas in which the teacher provides instruction;
• Information about whether the teacher is teaching under emergency or other provisional status through which state qualification or licensing criteria have been waived;
• Information about whether the teacher is teaching (subjects or content) in which proper certification is held by the teacher.
• Information about whether the child is provided services by paraprofessionals and, if so, their qualifications.

Hmong

Karen

Somali

Spanish

Instagram: @battlecreekmiddleschool

Email: oulia.yang@spps.org
Website: spps.org/BCMS
Location: 2121 North Park Drive, Saint Paul, MN, USA
Phone: 651-293-8960
Facebook: facebook.com/bcmspathers