Good afternoon Urbana Middle School families,

Next week, we welcome you to UMS as you join us for your scheduled in person Parent Teacher Conferences. As we shared last week, due to limited availability, if something happens and you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your conference so that someone else may utilize your timeslot. Also, if you prefer a virtual conference, please contact your child's teacher directly so they can provide you with a link for a virtual conference.

Thank you for your time and as always, please reach out to one of your child's teachers if you have any questions.

Drew Kibler

Principal

UMS

Oct. 7th: 4 hr late arrival, Parent Conferences

Oct. 8th: 4 hr late arrival, Parent Conferences

Oct. 9th: 3 -1/2hr early dismissal, Parent conferences
Oct. 18th: School Closed
Oct. 25: Last day of Term 1
Oct. 28th: School Closed

Nov 5th: School Closed

Nov. 11th -15th: Scholastic Book Fair

Nov. 14th: Picture Retake Day

Dear UMS Parents and Guardians,

School pictures are ready! To order, log in to your account on mylifetouch.com or create an account using your student's student ID number.

All families can also log on and order a FREE Digital SmileSafe card. More about the Smilesafe program here.

Thank you!

- Lifetouch

8th grade girls results:
8th Place Emily King

14th Place Cate Callander

20th place Clare Dufosse

7th grade girls results:

32nd Place Elizabeth Pullen
7th grade boys results:

2nd Place Brendon Matesa

18th Place Tristan Melson

6th grade girls results:

22nd Place Charlotte Fritzsche

6th grade boys results:

21st Place Brooks Teran

If you see any of these students please congratulate them on participating in this meet!

The i-Ready diagnostic is one assessment that provides students & families with important feedback on the progress your child is making on the FCPS Learning Journey. Please view the attached video to learn more about this diagnostic tool and look for more detailed information soon about how this assessment is being utilized - from your child's language arts and math teachers.

Data from the fall testing window will be included with Term 1 Report Cards.

Hello! I’m Megan Adkins and I'm the new Career Coach at Urbana Middle School. We now have career coaches in every middle and high school in FCPS! My focus is to help UMS students discover their strengths and interests, explore potential career pathways, and inform students of the opportunities available to them in high school and beyond. Throughout the year, students will be able to sign up for guest speakers, career-related events, and individual career conversations. Field trip opportunities will also be available to 8th grade students. All events will be posted on Schoology and students can sign up there or they can stop by my office (A124). Also, I will be sending out requests for speakers soon. If you are interested in coming in for our career speaker series, stay tuned for more information. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. I look forward to working together!

Hello UMS Families,

We are excited to be opening the UMS 2024 Fall Online Spiritwear store to support our UMS PTA! You will find some fun new UMS swag designs including car magnets. The spiritwear store will be open until Friday Oct 11th. All orders will be shipped directly to us, and we will email everyone once orders are in with pick up directions. Please email us with any questions. Happy shopping!

SHOPPING LINK: http://tinyurl.com/urbanamiddle

UMS Spirit wear Co-Chairs,

Ashley Sowers (ashleyesowers@gmail.com)

Angie McLeod (angela9317@aol.com)

From Mr. John Czapski our UMS Tech Specialist

It has come to my attention that there are concerns with students’ browser histories being deleted due to students removing their accounts from the Chromebooks. This is something that has to be done to fix two issues that started to occur after there was an update to the Chromebook software. These two issues are the device not being able to verify the student’s account when they attempt to sign in, and the other is not allowing them to connect to the network properly. This is the only time that students should be removing their accounts from the device. Unfortunately, there is nothing stopping students from removing their accounts whenever they please. However, from my experience with the Chromebooks thus far, the necessity to remove the accounts to fix one of these two issues should not be happening on a regular basis (as in multiple times a week). If a student claims this to be the case, then they need to come see me in the Tech Shop so I can either attempt to fix this issue or replace their device. I apologize that I cannot offer any other solution at this time, but I wanted to clarify why and how often this should be happening.

Looking for a previous version of a Tales From the Nest Newsletter, check out our website under the News tab. You can visit the link directly here.