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Willow Springs Middle School Principal Newsletter - October 25, 2018
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Dear WSMS Parents and Guardians,
We have had a great Red Ribbon Week at WSMS in honor of living drug free. During todays Red Ribbon Week pep rally, we had a drug dog demonstration from Interquest Detection Canines of North Texas. As a way to help keep our students safe on campus, Interquest Detection Canines of North Texas will be visiting WSMS and LHS over the course of the year.
Please take some time over the weekend and throughout the next few months to talk to your students about the dangers of drugs and what they plan to do when they are confronted with drugs. They will thank you for it later.
Sincerely,
Kent Messer
Principal
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Student School Holiday - Friday, October 26th
Tomorrow is a Professional Development day for all LISD campuses. There will be no school for students. Enjoy your 3 day weekend!
National Prescription Take Back Day - October 27th, 10am - 2pm
Did you know the non-medical use of Rx drugs ranks second only to marijuana as the most common form of drug abuse in America? The majority of teens abusing Rx drugs get them from family and friends - and the home medicine cabinet. We encourage all WSMS families, to take their old and/or unused prescriptions this Saturday, October 28th to a center near you. There are locations in Fairview, Allen, McKinney, Plano, Murphy, and Wylie! Click on the link for the location nearest you:
https://takebackday.dea.gov/
ParentPortal Update Needed ASAP
The PowerSchool ParentPortal is now open for you to complete the online Enrollment & Student Information Forms. Pleaseclick here to access the Parent Portal. Completion of these forms is required every year for every student. Please take a few minutes to update your contact information, emergency contacts, authorized pickup, FERPA acknowledgments, Student Code of Conduct, Student Handbook, etc.
As of today, there are 30 students whose forms have not been updated.
PLEASE NOTE: Regarding the Release of Directory Information for School Use:
In order for your child's picture to appear in the Yearbook, you should answer "YES".
IMPORTANT - Students and parents have a separate login/password for PowerSchool. Students should never have access to ParentPortal or use their parent login. If students were to access the ParentPortal on a school or public computer and not log out, family demographics as well as sibling's grades would be open for others to access. If you have any questions, you may contact Carol Vik at 469-742-8415.
WSMS Theatre - Save the Date! November 1, 2 and 3
The WSMS Theatre and Choir department will be presenting Disney's The Little Mermaid Jr. Click here to purchase your tickets!
WSMS Career Day 2018
WSMS will hold Career Day on Friday November 2, from 10am - 12:50pm. All WSMS students will visit 4 career presentations, learning about a variety of industries. There will only be two lunches on Friday, November 2nd, so the cafeteria may be more crowded than usual. All students are asked to dress for success on Friday as we host over 40 industry professionals in our building. If you have any questions about Career Day, please contact your student's counselor.
PTA Reflections - "Heroes Around Me" - Deadline November 2nd
WSMS PTA is excited to kick off another year of celebrating Arts in Education with participation in the National PTA Reflections Competition. All students are encouraged to get in touch with their inner artist by interpreting the 2018-2019 theme, "Heroes Around Me." Students may submit work(s) in dance choreography, film production, literature, music composition, photography, or visual arts. For rules and entry forms click
here
or visit the WSMS front office. Entries are due to the Willow Springs office by November 2nd. Please contact Nicole Dubree at
[email protected]
with any questions.
Yearbook Early Order Deadline - November 2
There is still more time to order your WSMS Yearbook at the lowest price of the year of $40.00. Yearbook may be purchased online only by electronic check, PayPal, debit, or credit card. For more information, please click here. The price will go up to $50.00 after November 2.
7th Grade Hearing /Vision Screenings - November 6th and November 7th
Tuesday, November 6th and Wednesday, November 7th, WSMS nurses will be performing the required State Hearing/Vision screenings on all 7th grade students. If your child wears glasses or contacts, please make sure they bring them to school on those dates.
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Campus Information and Reminders
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Safety Corner - Red Ribbon Week Follow Up
Parents, as Red Ribbon Week is coming to an end, it is a great time to talk to your children about drugs and alcohol. It is not a matter of "if", but instead a matter of "when" your children will be approached to try alcohol or drugs. Are they prepared? This week WSMS students went through a program called IMAP. Students discussed the impact of drugs and alcohol on their personal goals, discussed new information about vaping, and brainstormed ways to say no when approached to try these things. Please talk with them about a plan to help them those tough situations. Here are some talking points for you from this week's RRW discussions:
*Tell me more about the video you watched about Hayden. What happened?
*What are you goals? (2 year goals, 6 year goals, 10 year goals, and 15 year goals)?
*Tell me something new you learned about vaping and alcohol?
WSMS Robotics Club
Robotics club is open to any and all students. Sign-up is a google form that can be found in the library google classroom, Ms. Woods and Coach Keebles classrooms. As of today we have 42 that have signed up. For now communication is going to happen through the Robotics Club google classroom stream. The classroom code is 4dbnqr.
Morning meetings are Wednesday and Friday mornings,
8:00am to 8:43am. Afternoon meetings are Wednesday and
Thursday, 4:00pm to 5:00pm.
Those interested in competition are studying the game rules and generating robot concepts. Teams will be established once we see who will be attending which meetings, so they may work together on their team bot. Those not interested in competition are free building and exploring gear systems. Coding is to come. More information will be coming regarding competitions.
WSMS All Region Orchestra Results
This past weekend the orchestra department competed in the All Region Orchestra. This is an individual competition where students are competing for a spot in an "All Star" Orchestra. We are competing against orchestra students in Lovejoy, Allen, Rockwall, Sherman and McKinney. There were over 700 students auditioning for a spot in one of these orchestras. We are extremely proud of all students that took the initiative to learn the music and go through this process. We are pleased to announce the following students who made one of the All Region Orchestras.
Willow Springs MS All Region Orchestra Members
MS Brahms Orchestra
Ayana Dalley - 4th chair violin
Cecile Zhang - 7th chair violin
Alissa Chang - 16th chair violin
Harry Wang - 20th chair violin
Kent Iyoki - 30th chair violin
MS Beethoven Orchestra
William Simpkins - 10th chair cello
Hannah Mao - 1st alternate viola
Sloan Creek All Region Orchestra Members
MS Beethoven Orchestra
David Wang - 11th chair violin
Perfect Attendance 1st Nine Weeks
During the first grading period, we had 264 students (36% of our entire student body) that had perfect attendance. This means these students were in class every period of every day during the first nine weeks. Let's continue to work together to encourage students to increase our perfect attendance. For a complete list of students who had perfect attendance, please
click here.
Students feeling under the weather?
As you know, it is prime cold and flu season. To help best manage our students and to keep in line with the policy in the Student Handbook, if students are not feeling well at school, they need to be checked out through the school clinic. The student must be fever free (Temperature of 99.9 or less for 24 hours without the use of over the counter medications to keep the temperature down) and must NOT have vomited or had diarrhea in the last 24 hours.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
The WSMS Store will be open every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Stop by to get your school spirit gear!
If you are interested in volunteering in the school store this year, please email
Reporting an Incident at WSMS
One of our top priorities at Willow Springs Middle School is to ensure the safety of all of our students. Our most important asset in this is the eyes and ears our students can provide us on campus. We will begin using the Safe Schools Alert System this year for students and parents to report incidents they are aware of happening. You can access the system by going to
www.lovejoyisd.net
. Under Quick Links click on "REPORT IT!" You will have four ways to submit an incident. Furthermore, you will receive an access code to follow the progression of how an incident is being handled.
Developing Student Ownership in Learning
One of our goals is to work with students to build ownership and responsibility in their own learning. Consider having your student make first contact with his/her teachers by emailing them about assignments and/or tests. For example, if your student has not completed a homework assignment or a test, please encourage your student to do the following:
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Go to the Google Classroom to print off and complete the assignment and/or any test preparation materials
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Email their teacher and ask questions about the assignment or missing work
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Talk to their teacher about the missing assignment or test
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Know how and where to turn in the assignment or complete the test
Student Nutrition Newsletter for October
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Volleyball Results vs Wylie Cooper - October 18th
7th Grade
A Team - Won
B Team - Lost
C Team - Won
8th Grade
A Team - Won
B Team - Won
C Team - Won
Football Results vs Wylie Cooper - October 23
7th Grade
Red - Tied
Black - Won
8th Grade
Red - Won
Black - Lost
Athletics Transition to Winter Sports/Offseason
Girls will transition on Monday, October 29th, and Boys will transition on Wednesday, October 31st.
RUN-A-THON ---RESCHEDULED - MONDAY, OCTOBER 29TH
We are planning on having our first ever Run-a-thon at the middle school on October 15th!! Coach Kelly and I are still tossing ideas around... but we thought it would be really fun if we did this in an evening under the stadium lights around the track and had glow in the dark gear for the kids. We asked the kids about it, and they were pretty excited. We will start the event at 7:30. There will be a cap of 25 laps (around 6.2 miles).Mark your calendar ASAP because I think it will be a blast for the kids!
Girls Basketball Tryouts for 7th and 8th Grade
Tryouts for 7th and 8th grade girls basketball will take place October 30th-November 1st. Tryouts will take place at Willow Springs Middle school. The girls need to have turned in a physical and completed the online forms found at: www.lovejoyathletics.com
The schedule for tryouts can be found below:
Tryout Schedule - Practice at Willow Springs MS
7th Grade:
October 30 - 7:15 - 8:50
October 31 - 7:15 - 8:50
November 1 - 7:15 - 8:50
8th Grade:
October 30 - 3:25 - 5:00
October 31 - 3:25 - 5:00
November 1 - 3:25 - 5:00
Boys Basketball Tryouts for 7th and 8th Grade
Tryouts for 7th and 8th grade boys basketball will take place October 31st-November 2nd. This year the basketball team will have three teams for each grade with 10 players on each team.
Tryouts will take place at Willow Springs Middle school. The boys need to have turned in a physical and completed the online forms found at: www.lovejoyathletics.com
If you have any questions, please contact Jeff Higgins at [email protected]
The schedule for tryouts can be found below:
Tryout Schedule - Practice at Willow Springs MS
7th Grade:
October 31 - 8:00 am through 1st period
November 1 - 7:00 am through 1st period
November 2 - 7:00 am through 1st period - pickup tryout letter after school
8th Grade:
October 31 - 8th period through 5:00 pm
November 1 - 8th period through 5:00 pm
November 2 - 8th period through 5:00 pm - Decisions Made
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On behalf of Lovejoy ISD we would like to thank
Reinhard Real Estate
for participating in the Lovejoy ISD
Circle of Partners
. We thank Reinhard Real Estate for their support of Lovejoy ISD and the important value they place on the education of our children.
Reinhard Real Estate pledges 10% of gross commission to several non-profits including Lovejoy ISD. Their website can be found at
Reinhard Real Estate
. Jeff and Terri Reinhard own Reinhard Real Estate. They are proud Puster parents to fourth grader Ben, and second grader Max.
Lovejoy ISD is pleased to welcome Tutoring 101 to the Circle of Partners. Tutoring 101 and Lovejoy ISD have formed a revenue generating/sharing partnership to bring their services to Lovejoy families. Please see below for several offerings.
Private tutoring is available for students in grades K-12 in all subjects. Tutoring 101 recommends once a week tutoring for an hour to increase grades and learn subject matter more deeply. A once a week appointment usually results in an increase of one letter grade or more. Turn those C's into B's.
What is your SAT/ACT score? Want a better one? What do you need it to be?
Invest in a PSAT/SAT/ACT Prep program not just a class. Tutoring 101 helps high scorers get top scores, average students raise their scores and poor test takers achieve the scores colleges want. Tutoring 101 students have earned admissions and scholarships, and have saved thousands of tuition dollars every year.
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Specialize in working with individual students and their specific needs
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Day-of-test strategies
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One-on-one/small groups
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PSAT/SAT Classes: Tues or Thurs or Saturdays
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ACT Prep Classes: Mon/Wed or Sat
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One on One and Online Prep also available
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School District Employee Discount
Learn about Tutoring 101's all-inclusive PSAT/SAT/ACT programs:
Classes are conveniently located at Lovejoy High School. Call 972.359.0222 or email [email protected] for additional information.
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Foundation for Lovejoy Schools
New Date! Men's Tailgate Tournament - Wednesday, November 7, 6:30 PM
Tickets on sale now!
Gentlemen, please plan to join the Foundation for Lovejoy Schools for food, beer, and a double elimination cornhole tournament, guaranteeing all players two games. The tournament will be at the home of John and Kris Dunaway on Wednesday, November 7. Sponsors for the event are Renfrow Dunaway Group, Lee Lewis, Fable Security, Chick-fil-A Stacy Road and Twin Creeks Village, and Lovejoy HVAC.
Click here
for additional information and
click here
to register.
Please contact Vicki Deerman, Interim Executive Director of the Foundation with any questions.
Kendra Scott Gives Back Party - Thursday, December 13
Benefitting the Foundation for Lovejoy Schools
Denim and Diamonds - The Party - Saturday, February 2
The Foundation for Lovejoy Schools is planning a great party on February 2. Everyone is invited to participate. The Party is being held at the Marriott Legacy in Plano at 7:30 PM. There are no reserved tables this year. Buy your ticket and come have fun trying our new food stations, music, drinks, a poker tournament, casino games and live and silent auctions.
Click here for additional information.
We need your help to make The Party a success. Sponsorships are needed to pay for the cost of the venue, food, etc. so that proceeds from the event will go directly to support Lovejoy schools.
Click here and
here for details. Your donations are needed for the silent and live auctions. Vacations, parties, fun items, restaurant gift cards, etc. are needed.
Click here for details. You may visit the
Foundation website for additional information.
Thank you in advance for making this the best Denim & Diamonds party we've ever had.
New! Senior Project - Raised Funds for Autism
Zachary Taylor
, a senior at Lovejoy High School, thanks the Lovejoy community for their support of his Senior Project:
"Hello! I would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who bought a ribbon or two at Leopard Friday and to those who donated online for the Autism Walk this past weekend. We had a great turnout and the weather was perfect during the walk. We finished just in time before the rain started to come down on us. Not only did I meet my goal of raising $500 toward the walk, the donation total was over $700. If you would still like to donate, the deadline is October 29. The combined donations from the ribbons sale and the walk was over $850. We had a fun time walking for such a great cause. Thank you everyone for your love and support of Autism Awareness!
LHS Band
Join the Band for the Lovejoy Community Garage Sale on October 27 from 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM. The event will be held in the back parking lot of Lovejoy High School by the tennis courts. You rent a spot, you keep the profits!
Click here to rent a spot or click
here for additional information.
2nd Annual Lovejoy Professional Network Golf Tournament - Friday, November 2nd
The Lovejoy Professional Network is pleased to announce the 2nd Annual Lovejoy Professional Network Golf Tournament on Friday, November 2from 1:30 PM - 8:00 PM at Heritage Ranch. This year the proceeds will benefit the Lovejoy family of Casey and Jamie Sullivan. Casey passed away earlier this year. He was an avid golfer, music lover, coach and proud father of Ainsley (9th), Ryder (8th) and Piper (4th).
The Lovejoy Professional Network's goal is to fill the course with 144 golfers. The event will include a dinner with a silent auction and raffle giveaway. If you are unable to attend the tournament, you are invited to attend the celebration dinner for Casey. You may click here for details. Please contact Mark Urbin for additional information.
10th Annual Turkey Chess Tournament - Saturday, November 3rd
Register now for Lovejoy's 10th Annual Turkey Chess Tournament. This is a five round USCF (United States Chess Federation) event that will be held at Sloan Creek Intermediate School. Click
here
to register for the event.
Buddy Walk - Sunday, November 4
Jonathan McGill is a 3rd grade student at Lovejoy Elementary and has Down Syndrome. His family is working to raise money for the
Down Syndrome Guild of Dallas
. This organization provides support to people with Down Syndrome, their families, and the community. The McGill family will be participating in the Down Syndrome Guild's largest fundraiser, the Buddy Walk, on November 4 at Fair Park. The purpose of the Buddy Walk is to promote acceptance and inclusion of people with Down Syndrome while raising funds. Please
click here
if you would like to support the McGill family and the Down Syndrome Guild of Dallas.
Lovejoy High School Thirst Project Hosts Fundraiser - Tuesday, November 6
The Thirst Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to ending the world water crisis. They raise money to provide clean and safe drinking water to those in developing countries, like Africa, India, and the Philippines.
The Lovejoy High School chapter of the thirst project is dedicated to helping out the millions of people facing the world water crisis. Throughout the year, the Lovejoy High School chapter will host events to raise money for the Thirst Project's mission and raise community awareness.
You are invited to join the Lovejoy High School Thirst Project on Tuesday, November 6 at Wild Salsa for a fundraiser. Click here to access the flyer to present at Wild Salsa. 20% of the proceeds will benefit The Lovejoy Thirst Project.
You may click here for additional information regarding the Lovejoy Thirst Project, and to donate.
Lovejoy Letter Campaign - A Message from the Lovejoy Letter Liaison
We need your help to let our teachers and staff know how much our Lovejoy ISD community values them and the impact they have on our children! Teachers' salaries include a 1 ½% payment (annual compensation) on the Friday before Thanksgiving break. In addition to the payment the staff receives, we would like to include a handwritten letter from Lovejoy families expressing gratitude and appreciation to each teacher and staff member on our campuses.
We would be so grateful if you would write a letter or letter(s) to any teacher(s) or staff member(s), either current or past, who have played a valuable role in your child(ren)'s educational experience.
Please clearly label the envelope with the teacher's/staff name and LLC (Lovejoy Letter Campaign) and return it to the front office of the applicable school by Friday, November 9.
The letter campaign has become a meaningful Lovejoy tradition. We appreciate the time and effort your contributions will make to this year's letter campaign. Remember #shortandsweet #showappreciation.
Sincerely,
Lovejoy Letter Liaison
3rd Annual Running Over Depression - Saturday, November 10th
Please join us for the 3rd Annual Running Over Depression Run on Saturday, November 10th at Lovejoy High School. The 1K Fun Run will begin at 8:00 AM and the 5K Run will begin at 8:30 AM at Leopard Stadium. Running Over Depression is an event being organized by Lovejoy Seniors
Brett Pedersen
,
Michael O'Brien
and
Carson Hockersmith
for their Senior Projects. The goal of this run is to raise awareness about teenage depression and suicide prevention. All proceeds from the run will be donated to The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Please
click here
to register. If your business is interested in sponsoring Running Over Depression please email [email protected].
Lovejoy High School Fall Blood Drive - Tuesday, November 13
Lovejoy High School will host a blood drive on November 13. The Blood Drive will be run by the Red Cross and is open to LHS students (16 and older), staff members, parents, and community members. The drive will be held from 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM in the LHS Auxiliary Gym. Pre-registration is not required. A parent signature is required for 16 and 17 year olds to donate.
Every person who donates blood has the potential to save three lives.
Lovejoy Fine Arts Festival - Save the Date! November 30 and December 1
The Lovejoy ISD Fine Arts Festival is around the corner.Click here for updates on performance schedules, art galleries, and more!
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