Learning and Living As BRAVES

I hope you have had a restful, relaxing summer break. The time just seems to fly, but, fortunately, there are plenty of summer evenings and weekends left to enjoy. Speaking of joy, we cannot WAIT to see our BRAVES family in a few short days!

Staff have been working hard to prepare for another year of learning, growth, and memory-making. So many of our students and staff made outstanding accomplishments and strides in 2024-2025, and I can't wait to see what happens next. A couple notable achievements included:

• We hit record numbers in our Pre-K last year, with almost 100 students over nine (9) different sections. Our Kindergarten teachers always report being able to tell those students who went through our Pre-K due to their readiness to start day one with curriculum and procedures.
• ALL of our third graders were promoted to fourth grade! ZERO retentions from IREAD! Way to go teachers, but, even more, way to go students. For some of them, that mountain seemed insurmountable, but they dug deep, did the work, and never gave up. We are super-proud of all them!
• Already, 58% of second graders have passed IREAD. Our primary team is PHENOMENAL and our summer school staff and programming made a HUGE difference.
• In middle school, we saw some impressive ILEARN growth.
• We started a middle baseball team and high school boys' volleyball team in 2024-2025.
• Bellmont High School SAT scores blew the State average away by 16% in ELA and 11% in math.

Again, these were just a couple things I look back on with pride in 2024-25. I know our staff and students will continue to accomplish great things. Please remember the following key happenings coming up:

• BES Back-To-School Night, Tuesday, August 5th, Last Name A-M 5-6 p.m.; N-Z 6-7 p.m.
• BHS Open House, Wednesday, August 6th, 2:30-6 p.m.
• BMS Back-To-School Night, Wednesday, August 6th, 5-7 p.m.
• First Student Day, Thursday, August 7th

If you haven't registered your student yet, please go to our registration site below. Help registering your child will also be available at all the back-to-school events. We look forward to seeing you there!

- Kim Hiatt, Superintendent

Our priorities under this area include improving the overall the quality of our communications, increasing our presence on all platforms, increasing our acknowledgement of students/staff/alumni, and providing more opportunities for our families. There are multiple ways you can receive and request information here at North Adams. Click this links below to follow or find out more:

1. Social Media--Search and follow North Adams Community Schools on Facebook and Instagram platforms. These are the most frequently updated locations to get the most current information and coverage of your student(s).

2. Athletic Schedules--If you are interested in the most current athletic schedules and coverage, bookmark bellmontbraves.com.

3. SchoolMessenger--Many communications are sent via SchoolMessenger, which sends information in either a voicemail, text, or email depending upon what methods you request to receive that information. The contact information is pulled from PowerSchool, so make sure you have supplied us correct contact information. This will be the quickest way to receive information on school delays, cancellations, safety issues, and/or eLearning. Please be on the look out in a couple days after school starts for a message from our Communications Director, Justin Ayres, that will ask you into text messages from us, if you haven't already. In order to receive texts, you must complete the quick opt-in process.

4. Email--Many staff are best reached at their email. For most staff in NACS, that is their last name with their first initial followed by @nadams.k12.in.us. The Staff Directory on the North Adams website contains the current staff emails. Any general questions can be directed to pr@nadams.k12.in.us.

5. PowerSchool Portal--As a parent, please make sure you have access to your student's PowerSchool and are checking it regularly. From here, you can check their grades, attendance, fees, and bus information. If you need help getting your login-in, please contact Julie Schueler at BHS (schuelerj@nadams.k12.in.us) or email Lillie Hunt (huntl@nadams.k12.in.us), Marnie Shaffer (shafferm@nadams.k12.in.us), or Kari Butcher (butcherk@nadams.k12.in.us) at BES/BMS for help.

6. CANVAS--Our Student Management System (SMS) is CANVAS. This is where teachers post assignments. Again, at BHS, Julie Schueler can help you. At BES/BMS, please contact your child's teacher for help with log-in information.

7. Website--We recently re-did our website, making it much more user friendly. Additionally, it will contain announcements and other up-to-date information about the happenings of the district.

8. Teacher Communication Apps--Most elementary teachers use Class Dojo or Remind to communicate with their parents. If you do notify your student's teacher of an appointment, absence, or change in transportation, please call or email the front office, too. Teachers manage their classrooms remarkably well, but with the activity that 15-20 students bring they may not get the chance to let the office know this information where it must be logged.

9. Phones--If you need to call the buildings, these are the main numbers. Listen carefully to the options after calling.

• District Office--260-724-7146
• BHS--260-724-7121
• BMS/BES--260-724-3137

Our priorities under High Impact Teaching and Learning include offering expansive, evidence-based programming from quality teachers. Here at North Adams, we have extensive options for our students, including:

• Cutting-edge approaches in reading instruction. We are firmly rooted in OG and are adding the following new Science of Reading programs, Wit and Wisdom in K-4 and Amplify in 5-8.
• Progressive math instruction approaches in middle and high school, which evidences our strong growth and achievement in these areas.
• Strong programming and supports, like our own behavior coach, autism teacher, job coach, and sensory room, for special education students. Staff were just trained in a new resiliency- and engagement-building program, WhyTry this summer.
• Hosting 3/4 of the Career Technical Education courses (Welding, Construction Trades, Criminal Justice, Digital Arts, Pre-Engineering, Human Services, Early Childhood Education, Education Professionals, Business and Accounting, Health Science Education, Radio/TV, Manufacturing, Transportation, Culinary Arts, Marketing) available in our county,
• Having a Paths to Quality Level 3 certified Pre-K and accepting vouchers so that many families receive free or reduced cost Pre-K from certified Early Childhood teachers,
• Offering childcare 7:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. year-round, which may be, again, free or reduced cost to eligible families,
• Being one of the first and most successful early college high schools in the State, boasting some of the highest SAT scores, number of transferrable dual credits, and rates of students receiving the Indiana College Core certificate in our area.

Want to know more? Check out a couple of our programs below.

Bellmont Elementary is in its fourth year of using OG. The OG approach involves teaching reading and spelling using sight, sound, touch, and movement. Each skill learned builds toward the next skill. It was originally designed to help children with dyslexia learn to read but was found to be effective for all children. We have a video series from last school year on our District YouTube page that walks through the concepts in more depth. The first episode is linked below!

This summer, North Adams special education department members and administrators received training on the WhyTry Program. WhyTry is a program that provides tools, resources, and strategies as part of a flexible, structured curriculum for K-12 students to build engagement, motivation, regulation, and resiliency.

Many students face challenges. For some, reading may be hard. For others, paying attention, staying seated, or observing good boundaries may be difficult. For others, making friends may seem impossible. Over time, some students may resort to shutting down, withdrawing, quitting, or acting out to compensate for their frustration, overwhelm, sadness, etc. Through this program, teacher work with students to change their mindsets and to improve their skills in areas like decision-making, self-esteem, problem-solving, responsibility, and determination so that they start shifting their perspective from, "There's no point in even trying" to "I am capable, I am worthy, so I will keep working at it until I get it."

In meeting the Science of Reading requirements legislated by our State, schools had to choose literacy curricula from an approved list. As part of our selection for this coming year, we will be continuing with Orton Gillingham, or OG, in our K-3 grades to provide instruction in phonics.

However, there are other parts of reading instruction, like building vocabulary, comprehension (understanding what we read), fluency (how quickly and smoothly we read), writing, and speaking/listening, that must also be addressed. Enter Wit and Wisdom. Wit and Wisdom teaches these other elements of reading instruction through the reading of multiple short novellas around a variety of themes or topics in history, science, or fine arts in a year. For example, in second grade, students may have a theme of Good Eating. They will read multiple stories, some fiction and some non-fiction, about food, nutrition, the digestive system, healthy choices, etc. This approach helps build academic vocabulary, teaches students the different strategies to reading fiction and non-fiction, provides opportunities for different types of writing practice, and teaches them strategies for comprehending what they read.

Under this priority, we focus on striving to use our resources wisely and responsibly so to sustain and grow our opportunities to best serve our students and community. In this edition, we won't go too much into this one, but more things will come in the October edition.

The State budget approved through the 2024 legislative session has resulted in quite significant cuts for public schools throughout Indiana. As we navigate how to maximize our available dollars, our focus is always on how to keep the highest level of services for our students. As discussed previously, our students are thriving with the different interventions and enrichment opportunities we have provided.

One thing that impacts the funding available for some of these interventions is our free/reduced lunch rate. With the wonderful perk of universal feeding (free breakfast and lunch) for our elementary and middle school students that our Food Service department has been able to procure the last couple years, many families have not felt the need to fill out the applications for free/reduced lunch and/or curricular assistance, resulting in our percentage qualifying to drop.

If willing, we ask you to help us get more accurate statistics that may, in turn, help garner some additional monies to help fund a few programs that support your students in the classroom. Please take a look at the Income Eligibility Guidelines linked above. If your family may meet these household income thresholds, please take a moment to fill out the Free/Reduced Meals and Curricular Materials Assistance Form linked above. If you need more information, please call your child's school or email Penny Henkenius, henkeniusp@nadams.k12.in.us, for more information.

Another area where State funding has hit schools is in curricular funding. Two years ago, the State passed a law prohibiting schools from charging for textbook fees. In gathering data on how to fund schools for curricular fees, it became clear that they had underfunded this area by quite a bit, particularly for secondary courses and when including technology. That led to more guidance for the 2025-26 school year that allowed for a distinction to be made between textbook fees and classroom fees. Due to this further clarification, North Adams will be charging for some classroom fees this year. Those invoices will be sent out in late September after we separate the two types of fees. See the infographic below for more explanation.

In this category, our strategies are centered around providing students opportunities, experiences, and programming to grow their resiliency, citizenship, work ethic, literacies, and post-secondary readiness.

In this edition, I will clarify the new Attendance legislation and the impact for families.

You may have read or heard information about the newly enacted attendance legislation, Senate Enrolled Act 482, that took effect July 1, 2025. I want to reassure you that these changes will not change what you have experienced at Bellmont schools in terms of excused and unexcused absences. Our policies have not changed with the exception of being required to have attendance conferences for five unexcused absences in any ten-week period of time in high school, too, this year.

All this goes to say that school attendance is very important and every effort should be made by students and their families to be present every day. As most of us are parents too, however, we understand there are times and situations that may require a student to be absent. Some things I would like to emphasize about absences would include:

• We absolutely support students receiving therapies and services as well as attending appointments that treat chronic or intermittent diseases, disorders, or conditions that may require several absences across a year. Please, contact your school offices to discuss these circumstances with the assistant principals so that they may work with you to make sure your child's absences are coded correctly, you have the best information about times in their day to schedule appointments that are the least disruptive to their learning, and that they receive the documentation they need to support you and your child.
• Since few regularly scheduled appointments take more than an hour to ninety minutes, we do expect that your child, typically, should be able to attend school prior to and/or after appointments.
• We also understand that some children suffer from anxiety that may make it difficult for a them to attend school here or there. However, mental health providers have typically communicated to us that allowing a child to often miss school due to anxiety may not be the most appropriate plan to address their feelings or condition. In these situations, we have found that the best outcomes happen when families work with the school and their child's mental health provider to develop a plan to address their anxiety while ensuring they are accessing their education.
• Finally, in general, doctor's or other professional provider's notes are accepted without question and will be applied toward an excused absence. However, when regular incidents of absences may appear from different providers from absence to absence and/or without appropriate documentation of a disabling condition, State law has been clear that school administration may determine whether an absence is excused or not. Again, communication, transparency, and documentation are key as we all want to make sure that children's needs are met and education is accessed.

The infographic below, from last year, explains the State attendance laws and our attendance policies.

This strategic priority involves the things that go into positive teaching and learning: facilities, transportation, food service, technology, procedures, safety, etc. In this edition, we will briefly visit some of the things that have been happening around campus this summer as well as give you some key reminders about parking and traffic on campus. For those of you who are new to Bellmont, below is a video below that goes over the District drop-off and pick-up procedures. It is important that these are followed to allow for a safe and efficient process.

We ask anyone picking up high school students to NOT park along Stadium Drive by the west end of the pool at the high school. The pick up line for high school is in the front of the building and lining up there creates a danger for busses and other traffic as they enter and leave campus. Similarly, we ask drivers NOT to cut through the student parking lot to get to Stadium Drive. This has created several close calls with student pedestrians. Citations will be issued by our SRO if unsafe driving and/or parking is observed.

In working with law enforcement on safety measures at dismissal, also note that when busses are dismissed to leave campus at the end of the day, they will continue moving nose-to-tail until they reach the stoplight on 224. This is to keep drivers from trying to slip between the busses, which is more likely to cause an accident. This also means if you have parked in the softball lot (again, not the pick up protocol) to wait for your student, he/she should NOT cross Stadium Drive when busses are exiting campus. Our coaches hold middle school cross country runners by the high school until busses have exited.

Our work in replacing old cast iron pipework in our first phase of plumbing work this summer mostly occurred underground and in the walls. There are a few things that students and visitors may notice, however. In the high school, the locker rooms in the Aux Gym have a bit of a facelift as do the restrooms in B Hall and the Shop area. The high school administration and guidance offices also received new carpet.

At BES/BMS, the scope of the work allowed for a complete renovation to the RAS Hall area, including new casework, lighting, flooring, ceilings, and layout in the art and music rooms. Middle school students will also appreciate new carpet in the hallways and renovated restrooms upstairs and downstairs.

We were able to get several projects done this past Spring and Summer, including resurfacing our small parking lots, replacing some fencing, completing some needed concrete work in several areas, asphalting the tennis court bleacher pad, adding stone under fences and around buildings, completing the new ADA platform at the stadium, and installing decorative fencing along Stadium Drive.

Again this year, we have enough bus drivers to have one dismissal time for all students! We are always looking for bus drivers as several of our county route drivers will be retiring in the next couple years. This job is perfect for a retired person who wants a little extra income; someone looking for a second job to flex around another job with flexible hours; or for a parent who wants a job that will work with their children's school schedule. These jobs have a competitive hourly rate ($34.30-$43.75/hour) and offer insurance. Contact our district office at 724-7146 to learn more!