This Is How We Lakeview

I hope our students and families have had a great start to Quarter 2. This newsletter is full of celebrations and important information.

First, please join us in celebrating our Lakeview Values students for this past week and our students who earned Honor Roll for Quarter 1. We are so proud of their strong start to the school year!

This newsletter also includes a follow-up survey to our ongoing Family Connectedness Survey, morning drop-off reminders to ensure student safety, Spirit Week themes for next week, and PTO's inaugural Panther Family Circle fundraiser.

Want to recognize a staff member for their positive impact on your child? Check out the link below to send in your shoutout!

Ben Baptist

Principal

Important Dates

Monday, October 26th - Friday, October 30th: Spirit Week sponsored by Student Council

Monday, November 2nd: No School for Students

Tuesday, November 3rd: ELECTION DAY - No School for Students

Congratulations to our latest Lakeview Values recipients! This week, students were recognized for their responsibility.

Congratulations to our Honor Roll students for Quarter 1!

Thank you to the 39 families who took time to fill out the Family Connectedness Survey to give us feedback on our families' connection to the building. The survey is still open if other families would like to fill it out.

Some takeaways from the responses:

- 84.6% of respondents...

• feel welcomed, respected, and valued by our staff.
• trust that the school staff has their child's best interests at heart.
• feel that they and the school share a unified goal for academic and emotional success.

- 76.9% of respondents believe that the school provides meaningful opportunities for families to participate in their child's education.

- 69.2% of respondents believe that the school communicates clearly and regularly about their child's progress.

From these takeaways and the additional feedback that some families shared, clear and regular communication is an area we can focus on to improve how connected our families feel to the school.

Please feel free to add your thoughts/comments to this "Part 2" survey.

This coming week, we will hold one of our required school safety drills for our staff and students during the day. The drill will consist of practicing our lockdown procedures and allowing students and staff to put the ALICE protocol into practice.

I want to take a minute to remind our families of our drop-off procedures in the mornings. We are seeing more and more vehicles not follow our procedures, which can put the safety of our students in jeopardy.

Reminders:

- Please DO NOT pass the buses along the curb by the flag poles.

- Once you commit to a lane in the driveway in front of the school, stay in that lane until you exit the drop-off area.

- If there are no vehicles in front of you or if the vehicles are moving, pull all the way up to the front. Please do not stop short, as it backs up the line and reduces our efficiency.

- The yellow lines in the image below show which path vehicles should follow. Notice the red "X" where vehicles should not drive.

If you have old clothes or shoes sitting around that you don't know what to do with, or maybe there's a bag of clothes sitting in your car that you haven't donated yet, please consider dropping it in the yellow Planet Aid donation bin at the front of our property!

Lakeview gets $.10 for every pound donated, so if you have items that need donated, please help us out!

In celebration of National School Lunch Week, the PLSD Food Services team is creating a recipe book — and they want your family’s favorite recipe to be part of it!

Click here to learn more about this project and to learn how to submit your family's favorite recipe!

On Tuesday, the district sent out information detailing potential cuts, beyond the planned extracurricular cuts, if the November levy fails. The message discussed potential reductions, including some that directly impact Lakeview and the junior high level:

• Elimination of teaming
• An 8-period school day
• Fewer elective opportunities
• Decreased department and building budgets
• Decreased building administrative positions

I want to offer more clarity about what this could end up looking like at Lakeview:

• The first three bullet points ultimately mean a reduction of staff (the district is projecting a cut of 15-20 positions across the junior high level).
• Eliminating teaming ultimately looks like higher class sizes due to reduced teaching staff (estimate of 28-29 students in a class).
• An 8-period school day ultimately looks like removing Study Halls or an elective class from students' schedules.
• Fewer elective opportunities ultimately looks like moving from quarter-long electives to semester-long electives, which cuts students' elective opportunities in half.
• Decreased budgets ultimately looks like fewer instructional materials to enhance student learning in our classrooms. Department and building budgets were already reduced by 25% for this school year due to May's levy failure.
• Decreased building administrative positions could look like eliminating more assistant principal positions at our buildings. Please understand that our assistant principals are often the go-to person for many of our buildings. They typically are more visible than the building principal because 95% percent of their day is spent directly interacting with students, following up on concerns, collaborating with families, and ensuring students are set up for success in school.

Tell us who deserves a shout-out! Lakeview is lucky to have a number of incredible staff members working with your students. We'd love your help in recognizing them!

Click the button below to nominate a staff member by sharing a short message about the impact they have had. Thank you for helping us show our staff just how much they are valued!

Don't wait until its too late and miss out on this year's yearbook! Click the image below to place an order and secure your 2027 yearbook!

Our PTO is excited to introduce a fundraising initiative for this school year, the Panther Family Circle. Your gift supports student experiences, teacher and staff appreciation, classroom enrichment, among other things.

Their big goal for this year is 100 gifts of $100. Giving stays open throughout each school. Families who give $100 or more will receive a Panther Family Circle magnet.

If the QR code below does not work, click on the image to be directed to the website.

We recognize that the holiday season can bring extra financial and emotional stress. If your family could benefit from extra assistance with meals, holiday gifts, winter clothing or other resources, please know that confidential help is available. We partner with local organizations and community initiatives to support our families, and all requests are handled with complete privacy.

Please see the letter below for more information on how to request assistance.

If you are in a position to give during the holiday season to help others in our community, we invite you to participate in our holiday drive. You can contribute by donating to Target, PayPal, or Amazon. Please see the attached letter.

Parent volunteers play a key role in shaping a positive school environment! The Parents on Positivity Patrol (PoPP) program brings caring adults into our schools to spread encouragement and support for students and staff. Together, we are a community!

Want to make a difference? Click the link to join #PoPP today!

This year, one of our goals is to highlight our incredible students and staff through our new Instagram page. Each day, we plan to capture the learning in our classrooms, the excitement throughout the building, and the successes our students and staff experience. We hope you will follow us @lakeviewjuniorhigh!

Pickerington Schools will take reasonable steps to ensure that persons with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) have meaningful access and an equal opportunity to participate in all services, activities, and programs available throughout the district. It is the policy of PLSD to ensure meaningful communication with LEP students and families and to communicate information related to the education of all students. All services needed to comply with this policy will be provided for students and their families in need of such assistance free of charge. For assistance, please call 614-835-2083 or email deepak_dhakal@plsd.us.

Nepali Notice of Language Assistance

Spanish Notice of Language Assistance

French Notice of Language Assistance

We are happy to announce that the new North/Lakeview Athletics website is live! Be sure to bookmark the new website so you can watch for announcements, register through Final Forms, check schedules, and buy tickets. All coaches will be using this website for updates and announcements, so please check here if you have any questions.

When you go to the new site, you will need to hover over "Inside Athletics" at the top of the page and then click on the Final Forms links to begin registration for sports your child is interested in.

One family reached out about the best way to get in contact with the school for attendance purposes. The direct email address for our Attendance Secretary, Kathy Palmer, is kathleen_palmer@plsd.us. We also have a building email set up (lakeviewJH@plsd.us). I have also included our attendance graphic below that was in newsletters at the beginning of the year.

Office Hours: 6:45 am - 3:15 pm

Email: ben_baptist@plsd.us
Website: https://ljhs.plsd.us/
Location: 12445 Ault Road, Pickerington, OH, USA
Phone: (614) 830-2200
Facebook: Lakeview_JH_PLSD

Instagram: @lakeviewjuniorhigh