SMMS Weekly Update

This week, two of our students, Marissa Bloom and Lilly Swope, shared their experiences with our Student Leadership Team and Renaissance. Ms. Sanchez and Ms. Yeargan shared their experiences as well. With the Renaissance framework, we have worked to create a school where students are engaged and thriving and staffulty love coming to work! Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work.

Due to the generosity of our local community and school, Spring Mills Middle School is happy to be able to provide assistance for Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you are in need of assistance, please fill out the following Google Form by Friday, Sept. 19. All responses are confidential. If you have any questions, please email Margaret.james@k12.wv.us

This week, we practice our emergency preparedness plan with all students. Students should now know where to rally in the event of an evacuation and the process for each of our code incident drills. Thanks to Mr. Bennett and Officer See for overseeing this preparation.

Consider using the QR code below to thank a teacher on October 1 when Travelin' Toms Coffee will be visiting SMMS. As always, we appreciate your support!

Walkers

Students who are walking from the Hammonds Mill subdivision must cross at the cross-walk and walk on the sidewalk in front of the primary school and up the sidewalk next to the SMMS side parking lot. The sidewalks are there for student safety; please use them! We cannot have students cutting between cars in the road and in the side parking lot. Students, please watch for traffic.

Parent Drop-off

Drop-off in the front circle ends at 7:12 – we cannot block buses from dropping off there. If you are later than 7:12, parents must enter the side parking lot and circle to drop off at the side door. Officer See will be at the side door, along with several staffulty members, to greet students.

SMMS admin worked with Dean Olack, the county security officer, to design a traffic pattern for the afternoon that would create the safest situation for students. Please use the directions and image below to review our procedures.

• No parking along Campus Drive.
• Line up, single-file, in the primary school bus loop.
• No one may park in the primary loop and pick up their student. We have permission to use the lane as a staging area, not for parent pick-up.
• Once the buses leave, the cars in the primary bus loop will enter the bus loop at SMMS with the assistance of a staff member directing traffic on Campus Drive.
• No left turns from Campus Drive until all the cars from the primary loop have filtered into the middle school front loop.

Please complete your Annual Forms & Information Update, which includes the following:

• Acceptable Use Policy
• Student handbook
• Photo permissions
• Emergency contacts

Scan or click on the QR code.

SMMS offers several opportunities for students to engage in competitive athletics at the middle school level. All students need to have a WVSSAC Physical form on file at the school before you can start. All students must have a 2.0 GPA from last semester.

Cross Country

Cheer

See the flyer below for more information about our cheer program. Tryouts will take place on the following dates:

• Friday, September 5 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• Saturday, September 6 from 10:00-completed

Boys Basketball

Boys basketball officially begins in the winter, but our teams are holding optional flex/conditioning days. See the dates below. All conditioning dates run from 5:30-7:00 p.m. Contact Coach Payton with any questions at noah.payton6@gmail.com

• 9/11
• 9/18
• 9/25

Girls Basketball

Girls basketball officially begins in the winter, but our teams are holding optional flex/conditioning days. See the dates below. All conditioning dates run from 4:00-5:30 p.m. Contact Coach Coindet with any questions at luz.coindet@k12.wv.us

• 9/11
• 9/25
• 10/2
• 10/9

Next week, all students will receive information about our after school clubs. Please sign and return the permission slip if your child is interested in joining one of our clubs.

In PLTW, Ms. Whetzel and her classes explored chemistry by making ice cream.

Students in Ms. Detzel's classes had to form triangles and determine if

side lengths and patterns impacted their investigations.

A team from SMMS attended the Educational Futures Conference this week. We shared our ideas and perspectives to help design the next decade of facilities and instructional planning for

Berkeley County Schools. The insights shared during the conference will directly inform

updates to our Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan (CEFP). The conference was designed to prioritize projects, envision future learning environments,

and ensure facility improvements align with our district’s instructional goals.

Today at lunch, we celebrated perfect attendance by drawing names of students who were here all week for a free ice cream! We had 711 students with perfect attendance this week!

Mr. Aikens taught a lesson on Heart Rate discovery and physical activity earlier this week.

Students tested out different airfoils to discover the forces of flight in PLTW with Ms. Whetzel.

• September 10- LSIC in Media Center at 3:30 p.m. (All Parents Welcome)
• September 17- 2HR Delay for Students
• September 18- Quarter 1 Interims
• October 1- 2HR Delay for Students
• October 7- Picture Retakes