OUR VISION

• Lilburn Middle School will become a Professional Learning Community committed to working collaboratively to engage students in learning in order to actualize student potential.

OUR MISSION

• Lilburn Middle School is committed to engaging all students in learning the Academic Knowledge and Skills through research-based best practices with mastery being measured by local, state, national, and world-class standards and re-teaching/reassessing students as needed to actualize their potential.

OUR VALUES

• We use research-based best practices to engage students in learning.

• We build healthy relationships with our students, parents, and community members.

• We provide appropriate interventions to support students in actualizing their potential.

• We collaborate with our colleagues toward building a Professional Learning Community.

Quality Plus Teaching Strategy: Literacy

• Do you currently use DBQs in your classroom?

DBQ lessons ask students to evaluate and make a case for which documents will accompany the question. To make such decisions, students must examine the breadth and depth of information in documents, ask hard questions about bias and perspective, and compare value based on a deep understanding of audience and purpose for different documents. This is more than students pretending to be the teacher. Instead they are building critical-thinking muscles—analyzing their thinking in response to big questions that frame the document review. This is a highly rigorous task that gets students truly thinking on a critical level. I have shared three resources that you can use to engage your thinking about using DBQ's in your classroom:

• https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-dbq-document-based-question-

• https://www.onatlas.com/blog/document-based-questions-dbqs

• https://www.dbqproject.com/blog/elementary-teachers-teach-dbqs/ (Lower Level Literacy)

NEW:

Attendance Protocol

• Please review this protocol to obtain guidance on accurately marking students' attendance.

Planning Day Schedule

C & I Updates (past two weeks)

LAST WEEK'S REMINDERS:

COVID Update

As with any family, we are always concerned about the well being of each other. To help with this, I want to go over a few reminders of our LMS health practices. This is really important as we head into flu season. Just a reminder, we are asking all LMS staff to make sure that you are following the COVID prevention guidelines that we have in place. If you do so, you can help us to keep our school healthy and safe. I would also like to share with you that confidentiality regulations (HIPAA laws) still prevent the HRT from engaging in discussion about any individuals involved in contact tracing. Legally, we have to adhere to these guidelines to protect the privacy of anyone involved. Please be assured that the HRT has a specific protocol to follow. This protocol will often involve interaction with several people throughout the interview and investigation process. This does not mean that all individuals involved in this process have COVID. It means that they are trying to trace the concern to see who may/may not be impacted. The list is usually long in the beginning and rather short after the process is concluded. The process is effective in identifying anyone who may be impacted, but it does take some time to get through. All parties who are impacted receive direct communication from the HRT throughout the process.

I want to keep our school as safe as possible and I need your help! Please help with this by 1) not gathering, unless necessary to do so (and you're able to socially distance), 2) remaining at home if you're sick, 3) communicating to us as soon as you are aware of any COVID related health concern, 4) wearing your mask properly throughout the day, 5) maintaining a safe distance from others as you go through the day.

Mustang Mastery Intervention Program:

• • Lilburn Middle School is excited to have the opportunity to provide interventions for students who have excessive NTI’s, gifted learners, and students who struggle to demonstrate mastery. Students with different learning needs require different intervention approaches, so this intervention program will be targeted to support the needs of learners at Lilburn Middle School. There will be three different options offered as follows:

  • Mustang Mastery Math/ELA Remediation: Students who require skill development in the areas of ELA and MA require direct instruction in the areas of their skill deficit.

  • Mustang Mastery Gifted Learner Skill Development: Gifted learners need explicit instruction in the skills needed to tackle more rigorous tasks and apply their learning in new and different ways.

  • Mustang Mastery Academic Assistance/Study Skills: Learners who have excessive NTIs on major assignments that result in a negatively impacted grade. These students have demonstrated standard proficiency, but struggle with work completion. They can use this opportunity to obtain assistance in completing those outstanding assignments.

Please begin to identify students who could benefit from the program. Make your recommendations to your administrators by indicating this recommendation on your failure report. As discussed in CLT last Tuesday, completed failure reports are due to your grade level admin by October 7th.

• • If you are interested in teaching a section of the Mustang Mastery Program, please complete an application. Teacher selection will begin soon. Applications are due on October 9, 2020. Notification of selection will be made as soon as possible. The application can be found at the link below.

  • https://forms.gle/YRNGjzZZk1k3MHEJA

Business Email Compromise

• BEC for short, is a scam in which cyber criminals impersonate or “spoof” district leadership email addresses. Then, they send emails from these phony accounts requesting gift cards, wire transfers, or access to sensitive information. GCPS employees receive thousands of BEC attempts per month.

• The email, seemingly from a principal, will often say something like, “Do you have a moment? I have a request I need you to handle discreetly. I am in a meeting now, so no calls please …” But a closer look will reveal that the email did not come from the principal.

• If you have reason to believe you have fallen victim to a BEC scam, please contact your Mr. Hymon or Ms. Andrews or the Customer Support Center right away! You also should forward any suspicious email messages to Phishing.Spam@gcpsk12.org. Once you forward the message, make sure to delete it from your Inbox, Sent Folder, and Trash Folder.

Attendance Protocol

• Please review this protocol to obtain guidance on accurately marking students' attendance.

PLC Schedule:

• https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wlYcUsPfE41WDhokn4GymRaz46I_jv_qA5WyXheKMWo/edit?usp=sharing

Links to School/Department/Academy Meetings

• Some of us were having trouble with finding the links for meetings that we needed to attend. To help with this, admin has now worked to include these links on the calendar. If you have a meeting, check the calendar and you will be able to get to the link by clicking on the event and the link can be found by going to the event description.

Lost Keys

• Losing your assigned keys brings a security risk to the school and an added expense. Please be aware that there is a $15 fee to replace each key that you lose. You will need to let Mrs. Markitan know if you need to discuss a lost key.

Brief Observations

• All certified staff will receive two 10-minute Brief Observations during the 1st semester and two 10-minute Brief Observation during the 2nd semester. Administrators can rate and provide feedback on any of the 10 Performance Standards. Each Brief Observation will receive ratings and feedback on at least 1 to 4 of the Performance standards.

Dress Code

• Please remind student of our school dress code that is in place. If students are out of dress code, please remind them of the appropriate dress code and follow through the disciplinary process.

• Now that students are back in the building, we return to our professional dress. All LMS staff should adhere to the school dress code policy that is outlined in the Staff Handbook. This includes making sure that clothing are the appropriate length, transparency, and fit and that professional attire is worn each day. Spirit wear may be worn with jeans on Fridays. This includes "LMS" or "Mustang" specific clothing, not just clothing that is within school colors.

Morning arrival

• To ensure that we have adequate supervision, teachers should plan to be at their door greeting students. This can be done safely by reminding students to use the directional traffic flow and by keeping a safe distance as students arrive.

HR Compliance

• If you have not completed your HR Compliance videos, LMS Sign-Off, and Safety Awareness Training, please complete these required tasks ASAP.

Tutoring

• • The return of students to the building means that we will need to resume our tutoring. We will continue to offer tutoring at 8:10AM. The following days are still assigned for each content:

Tuesday: Connections

Wednesday: MA/SS

Thursday: LA/SC

Have a MIGHTY MUSTANG Week!