Happy Friday LEMS Families!

We have made it through another week, and we wanted to provide you with some additional information about next week’s schedule.

Starting Monday, we are having what we refer to as “Safety Week.” Thompson School District uses what’s known as Standard Response Protocol (SRP) to provide clarity and communication in the event of an emergency. Throughout the week of September 30th, we will practice multiple drills. Students will be reminded of the specific drill with their classroom teacher in the morning and then later hear the SRP directions over the PA system.

Knowing some students may be nervous or uncomfortable when practicing in the event of an emergency, we simply wanted to provide you with reassurance that we practice these drills so that in the event of a real emergency, we are best prepared to keep everyone safe.

This week’s drills will include a “Secure” where we practice what to do in the event of threat outside and/or nearby within the neighborhood. We will conduct a “Lock Down” to prepare for what to do if there was someone or something dangerous within the school building. One drill is called the “Hold in Place.” We would use this procedure if a student, staff member, or guest was having a medical emergency that required everyone hold in place to allow for privacy and/or quick access of medical personnel to the scene. We will practice a “Shelter” drill to know what to do in the event of a weather incident that causes us to take shelter. Last but not least, an “Evacuation” drill to know how to safely evacuate the building in the event of a fire or other hazardous situation.

Please visit with your student(s) about these drills and contact the school if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Lucile Erwin Middle School Admin Team

September 30th

• 4:30pm Volleyball Round 1 (site TBD)

October 2nd

• 4pm Volleyball Final Four 6th grade at Walt Clark

• 4pm Volleyball Final Four 7th grade at Turner
• 4pm Volleyball Final Four 8th grade at RCS
• 4:30 Volleyball Consolidation 6th grade (3 matches)

October 4th

• 3pm Cross Country at North Lake Park
• 6pm LEMS Orchestra Concert

For more information, please visit our Athletics page on our website.

Students and staff who missed the opportunity to take their school photo will have another chance. Retakes will occur on October 8, 2024. All information is on the flyer. Please come in your Sunday's Best outfit.

Hello LEMS Families,

We are sending you a Google Form to request interpretation for Fall conferences which will be Wednesday, October 16th and Thursday, October 17th this year. Please complete the form so that your students' teachers can begin scheduling conferences with our wonderful interpretation team. You can translate the form by right clicking on the orange margin and choosing your desired language. Please return this form as soon as possible. If you prefer your students' conference be conducted in English only, please let us know in this form.

More information on Student Led Conferences will be communicated in the days and week to come.

Thursday evening we held our first State of LEMS Night, and I want to thank each parent that joined us as our admin team presented our CMAS data, TSD initiatives, our LEMS priorities, expectations, SMARTIE Goals, Major Improvement Strategies and Action Steps associated with our School Unified Improvement Plan (SUIP).

We had great conversations and received constructive feedback as we continue to build, sustain, and cultivate our school-to-parent/community partnership and relationship. We know that our success as a school is interdependent on all stakeholders working together with the common goal of transforming LEMS into the blueprint of excellence to be emulated by schools across our district, state, nation, and the world.

We concluded the night with a "Best Hopes, Worst Fears" activity. Here is what parents in attendance shared with admin and staff:

Best Hopes

• "Love all of your goals for SUIP, especially strategies to enhance engagement and ownership of learning. Students who are excited about their learning will display less problematic behaviors. Excited about the direction you are taking the school."
• "Goals that are achieved are set. Math can improve for middle schoolers. Communication improves students can get accurate status on assignments--Planners will be good."
• "Test scores to get back to an acceptable range showing that we are meeting an acceptable range. More importantly, students show respect and grow responsibility."
• "Homework--projects due: advanced notice instead of just late/missing."
• "IT to fix discrepancies between Google Classroom and Infinite Campus notifications."
• "School competition (example: Like we're saying "versus Bill Reed") except at a level where students can visually see academic progress vs. other schools."
• "Code of honor, not just R.O.A.R, but personal values listed per classroom and per student."
• "Simplified English v. Standard English"
• "More parent communication and involvement. More parent involvement with the school in general to improve school's goals and students' success."
• "Create a culture of student success that students feel comfortable taking risks. That students can join activities at any skill level. No "missed deadlines". Allow students to explore."
• "Open communication between parents and students. Advisory as a point person for individual student/parent/teacher conversation (rather than me emailing 6 students)"
• "The school start performing at a strong academic level."
• "Better communication from admin on serious situations."
• "That my children will be prepared for high school no matter where they go. I want them to be able to move schools and not be behind. The reputation of LEMS starts not to be the reality."
• "Student engagement, feel sense of belonging. Happy to go to school. Friendships."
• "Teachers --feeling satisfaction, happiness, progress."
• "Students feeling safe. Feeling like they can talk to teachers, adults."
• "Not to get grades at the last minute before parent-teacher conferences. Grades in a timely manner."
• "That my daughter is reading at her grade level, and able to feel confident in practicing her math problems. She is safe at school."
• "We get on track as a school together. We surprise everyone and have success."
• "More communication to families."
• "More transparency on course standards."
• "More accountability in classroom management and admin watching does not solve nor give true indication of what this is."
• "Goals to help students with impacts on social media and programs with learning outcomes."
• "Computer skills: Planner/Calendar, typing (proper placement), and research (how to make an argument)."
• "Fill out form incident management/handling improvement: communication to parents, resolution, and conclusion."
• "Timing of important school events"
• "Absence process improvement"
• "Notetaking standards?"
• "Communication on how these processes and improvements will be communicated (dates, methods, goal-tracking progress?)"
• "Athletics/Activities Payment Calendar (gear order, school products order, yearbook)
• "IT: what should kids know about their laptops/Chromebook? When problems arise, what is the resolution process?"

Worst Fears

• "Doing too much that other areas fail or as a whole 2 steps back instead."
• "LEMS academics and behavioral issues stay the same."
• "Communication and relationships with teachers/admin don't improve."
• "My student is not meeting standards and we will not know until high school impacting college."
• "Math goals don't improve. Communication remains"
• "When a student has an issue--what happens? So far, my daughter has been to the office twice and I didn't receive a phone call at all."
• "We fall behind as a school or as a district. Also that we have an environment that we can't get teachers to want to be a part of."
• "Strife caused by inaccurate "missing" reports. It's causes strife in the home."
• "Safety of our smaller students."
• "Kids will go to high school with few or no computer literacy skills."
• "Kids are not learning notetaking skills which they will rely on in high school and college."
• "Confusing accountability for both students and parents will impact consequences, and therefore, discipline."
• "Behavior continues to impact learning."
• "Teachers are forced to be in lock-step and can't deviate from curriculum. Needs to be based upon student dat and allow differentiation, and teacher creativity."
• "Parents/community pushes against inclusion and culturally responsive strategies."
• "My daughter won't be ready for high school. She gives up on herself and learning."
• "I miss important things at LEMS because of communication."
• "Dr. Gillespie moves on to a different school before we can implement progress."
• "Goals and progress need to be communicated through progress."

This list will be given to staff. We will look for common themes and prioritize what we can do to not only evoke confidence in our parents, families, and community regarding our direction, but also put forth an implementation plan inclusive of progress measures to report at our next State of LEMS meeting in November. More information to come.

Again, thank you to all of our parents in attendance. Your presence, conversation, and feedback are essential to our success.

For the parents and families not able to attend the State of LEMS, we have included the School Performance Framework (SPF) that was presented to families.

Dear Parents and Families:

Several of you have asked about policies for both LEMS and TSD. In response of the ask, I am attaching links to the Student and Parent Handbook and Policies and Procedures on our website that directly links to the TSD website where you can find district policies regarding different categories.

Once reviewed, if you have further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our admin team.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gillespie

Thank you Wildcat community for helping us to live our expectations everyday!