Dr. Irish's Message for the Week
Quality Plus Instructional Strategies
To Do's
Important Dates
Lilburn Middle School will become a Professional Learning Community committed to working collaboratively to engage students in learning in order to actualize student potential.
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.
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.
We know that the greatest enemy of greatness is variance. We will be consistent in our implementation of effective instruction, assessment, and response to student learning. This consistency will be driven by careful understanding of the curriculum (AKS). At Lilburn Middle School, we put students first in all that we do. We ensure that we are developing the whole child by incorporating SEL, developing appropriately aligned and engaging lessons, and embracing collaborative planning. We will ensure that the LMS instructional framework is upheld. At LMS, all adults speak positively of our school, our students, our community, and our colleagues. We practice a growth mindset. We leverage high expectations, high-quality lessons, and belonging to support the success of each and every child.
Everyone can learn. It starts with the consistent belief from self and others that this is true. ~Dr. Irish
Greetings, Mustangs!
This Friday, November 11th, is Veteran's Day. On November 11th, we pause to express our deep gratitude and sincere appreciation to our Veterans for their brave and selfless service to our country. We offer our heartfelt thanks to every LMS Mustang who has ever worn the uniform of the United States Armed Forces. Thank you for answering the call of duty; thank you for your courage; and thank you for the extraordinary sacrifices you and your families have made on our behalf in the name of freedom, liberty, and peace.
As many are aware, we have several Veterans on our staff. Each of them is an awesome example of what it means to be an everyday hero. Our heroes inspire us to always be committed to our goals and never give up on our hopes. We are so proud to call them Mustangs!
Wishing a very Happy Veteran's Day to the members of our staff and any family members who have served.
Ms. Dudley - Army
Ms. Corts - Army
Ms. Washington - Army
Mr. Dabney - Army
Mrs. Brown - Navy
Mr. Melendez - Army Reserve (Currently Serving)
Mr. Coprerds - Marines
Sgt. Diaz- Army
Mr. Ponraj - Navy
If you have served and are not listed here, please email Dr. Irish.
Your Proud Principal,
Dr. Irish
For teachers, by teachers
Each week, we will feature an instructional practice/strategy/tool that our very own LMS teachers are using.
The Blueprint is designed to ensure our Portrait of a Graduate becomes a reality. The Blueprint will also drive the intentional culture shifts that reflect the guiding vision of the Learning 2025 community of practice. Our Blueprint for the Future defines our strategic priorities in four areas: empathy, equity, effectiveness, and excellence.
At this time of year when emotions are high, it is easy to fall into the trap of engaging students in a back and forth of heated discussion when our expectations aren't being met. (I have caught myself doing this, too!). This has been proven to be the least effective way of getting the behaviors that we seek. Please read the article for ideas to incorporate some strategies that work to respond to students in this situation. Let me know which you try and/or which you plan to try.
Thank you to our counselors for leading our monthly SEL moment and for organizing our Advisement lessons.
Thank you to Mr. Ponraj for handling a recent situation with calm, professionalism, and with a student-centered approach. Your contribution was greatly appreciated!
Thank you Mrs. Markitan and team for always stepping in to help when needed. You are awesome!
Congrats to our JLC Cadets for their hard work this past Saturday in their Final Raider Meet. Thank you to Sgt. Diaz for his passion and leadership of Mustangs as they competed at the recent JLC Raider Meet. Special mention to Jermaine Williamson, Alena Muller, Mike Doyne, Shanel Allen, and Yearbook Club students for their support of JLC Cadets.
Congratulations to Mrs. Constantino and our LMS Chorus students on their recent performance in Athens at the District Honors Chorus competition,
Want to share good news or thank someone at our upcoming faculty meeting? Use the link to submit your message LINK HERE
Peak:
We have launched our SEL initiatives to help support students' behavior and emotionality. This includes our Champion Circles, Advisement, and coming soon will be Tier III SEL supports.
Valley:
We are still working as a school to implement these interventions with fidelity. Fidelity is key to properly implementing these programs and ensure that students are getting what they need. Alot of hard work goes into preparing these lessons and they are focused on observed needs of our students in that moment of time. Our implementation rate is much lower than expected. See below:
Advisement:
14% (258 students) completed out of 1882 students
14% (246 students) started out of 1882 students
725 (1378 students) Not started
Champion Circles:
Walk-throughs reveal that we averaging 6 of 10 classes facilitating the Circles at the start of ELT. That is, 60% of students are getting this intervention. The district expectation is that ALL students participate. Please make modifications to ensure that you are including the Champion Circles at the start of your ELT.
Tier III Support:
We are still working to get all Tier III facilitators trained and ready to receive students. Tier III students are rostered and will be moving to their Tier III groups soon.
NEW (faculty meeting updates in GREEN):
Welcomes, Congrats, and Thanks:
See the slides with the monthly LMS Congrats, Thanks, and Welcomes
Schedule Adjustment
Due to a special education compliance need, you will notice a change in the master schedule to account for 5 additional minutes being added to ELT. This is to ensure that students' IEPs are in alignment with the time that we serve students. Please see above for a copy of the adjusted schedule. You may get a copy HERE.
Digital Learning Day (November 8)
See the DLD Schedule HERE
Literacy Block and Advisement Reminder
As a reminder, we are engaged in Literacy Block each month on the 2nd and 3rd Fridays. Advisement is scheduled for 1st and 4th Fridays. This is school wide and should be taking place in all classrooms during ELT on Fridays.
Champion Circles are still expected the 1st 10 minutes of ELT each day.
Before Issuing a Failing Grade
There are about 6 more weeks (including breaks) until the semester ends. That means that we are continuing to have conversations with students about their progress this semester. Make sure to incorporate the guidance outlined below as you determine if students are on track for promotion:
What To Do Before Issuing a Failing Grade
MTSS Update
All teachers will participate in an MTSS Update on Tuesday. This will be brief and will inform of LMS's current MTSS standing.
Holiday Guidelines
As the November and December holidays approach, the Anti-Defamation League -- one of the nation's premier organizations defending religious liberty -- know that many school districts are faced with difficult questions about how to appropriately acknowledge the December holidays. In an effort to help you comply with the United States Constitution and create a school environment that celebrates diversity by respecting differing points of view concerning religion, they offer the following suggestions.
General Rule: When a school does choose to acknowledge the December holidays, it is essential that the school must never appear to endorse religion over non-religion or one particular religious faith over another.
Any religious activities must be through the lens of the AKS
Religious symbols are not appropriate seasonal decorations in public schools.
Students should not be put on the spot to explain their religious (or cultural) traditions. The student may feel uncomfortable and may not have enough information to be accurate.
Basketball Season
Basketball season is almost here! Please make sure to check the calendar for the upcoming game dates. Our students love to see us support them and the basketball players and cheerleaders (and coaches) are working very hard to prepare for the upcoming season and would love to see you there!
First game: November 10th at Lanier
In Gwinnett County Public Schools (CPS), we aim to create a school calendar that fosters student achievement while at the same time meeting the needs of our students, families, and communities. We design our school calendar around requirements codified in state law (180 school days for students and 190 days for teachers). In addition, staff and community preferences drive the various breaks throughout the school year.
While it is still early in this school year, we are seeking your valuable input and feedback on the calendar options for the 2023-24 school year. The calendar options were built based on feedback we have received from students, staff, families, and our community from previous school calendars. In these options, you will find an option that is very similar to the current 2022-23 calendar, as well as options with different features like the removal of staggered start days, the removal of some or all digital learning days, and the addition of holidays that are inclusive of the rich diversity we have here in Gwinnett County.
Please use this link to review and then share your thoughts on the 2023-24 School Calendar options.
We value your feedback on the calendar options provided for the 2023-24 school year. Thank you in advance for taking the time to review these options and share your thoughts with us.
Remind Sign Up (we still need a few staff members to sign up. Please take care of it this week.):
Thank you to everyone who has signed up for Remind. This will serve as our emergency phone tree (along with Messenger) in the event of an emergency.
As mentioned in the faculty meeting, communication is a priority for our school team. You also heard that Remind is a major part of our emergency communication procedures. Please go ahead and sign up to receive our school's Remind messages.
REMIND:
Sign up to receive messages through Remind. This will be used in case of emergency, or if there is a need for urgent/time-sensitive communication. Text @f637g3 to 81010.
Feedback Wanted:
Please complete this brief survey to let me know how the year is going. Thank you to all of those who have already provided feedback.
ELT
We will continue the Tier I model of ELT through Fall break. We were scheduled to move into Phase II this week, but we will need to delay that plan until after Fall break. We are making a change because we are still awaiting access and training on some of the intervention platforms that are required to be used. When these technical issues are worked out, then we can begin Phase II of our ELT plan. At this time, students will continue to receive Tier I, II, and III instruction in their content classes during ELT. The only students who will move are those who are attending special education ELT groups and selected EL students. These students have already begun reporting to their off-team groups as of last week.
As a reminder, we are rotating through the academic periods (Monday- PD1, Tuesday- PD2, Wednesday- PD3, and Thursday- PD4, Friday- rotate Advisement and Literacy Block. Our Monday-Thursday ELT plan consists of the following teacher actions:
1) Begin the period with a warm-opener (student check-in): We will begin ELT each day with our Champion Circle (First and 10 Check-In). Ms. Hall did send out information about this.
2) After the check-in (Champion Circle), Tier I and Tier II teachers (team teachers) will move students into one of four activities:
remedial/extension independent activity to address CFA area of weakness or content skill practice
small groups- targeted students should be pulled to participate in a small group during ELT. Ensure that you use data to determine who is pulled into the Ongoing Small Group Instruction (OGSGI).
Mini-lesson that comprises no more than 15 of ELT instructional time (about 5-7 minutes of teacher-led whole group instruction).
Data collection to determine upcoming groups/instruction.
We are in the first phase of ELT installation, so we are working to host Tier I, II, and III students on team at this time. Only special groups (EL, Special Education) students will move to a different location. Data-driven intervention and small group instruction is expected to occur during ELT. This is a district expectation and a major focus of our ELT. It is critical that we all follow the ELT plan.
When we move to Phase II after Fall Break, we will introduce the online intervention platforms that will support students' learning needs at the Tier II and Tier III levels. Please refer to the ELT FAQ document for additional guidance about ELT instruction.
Champion Circles (updated):
We didn't have enough time to go through the entire training at our faculty meeting, but Mrs. Hall, Ms. Edwards, Ms. Parrish, and Ms. Julio mentioned a brief overview. During the First & 10 Check-In, you will conduct a class meeting with your students for the first 10 minutes during ELT. Students who travel to other groups will participate in the group that they report to each day. The change to move this time to during ELT is another effort to preserve the instructional time of first period.
Please remember that this effort to address SEL is not only a local school focus but a district expectation that we must provide for our students. The final plan has been communicated on Friday through the ELT overview email that was sent out.
The community circles will be a part of our normal school day. The First & 10 Check-In is an LMS expectation of all teachers and will be ongoing throughout the school year.
Progress Reporting Timeline:
Progress reports are sent out regularly for our students to receive communication about their progress in each class. Teachers should follow the progress reporting timeline to ensure that we are consistent in our communication with our families. Please see the link for the progress report/report card schedule for this year. We will update this schedule if the need arises and the dates will be added to our calendar.
Progress Report/Report Card Timeline
Instructional Supports:
Mustang Walks- Please hang the QR code that was placed in your mailbox in a visible area in your room. This is a link to the feedback form that administrators and guests will use when conducting informal walk-throughs (known at LMS as Mustang Walks). If you did not receive a form, please email Dr. Irish. Although teachers will receive feedback through this process, these walks are non-evaluative and only serve to provide feedback to teachers about their instructional practices.
We expect to see every content teacher that we evaluate at least once per week (walkthroughs or informal walk-throughs)
Mustang Rounds- Teachers will resume peer observations (Mustang Rounds)beginning on September 20. The details will be discussed in your content meeting. Mustang Round Overview
Communication Reminder:
As you know, we are continuing to support an ongoing effort to reduce disruptions to the instructional process. Please refer to the weekly newsletter, social media, morning announcements, and PM announcements for regular updates of events/activities occurring within our school. Please refrain from sending 'All Staff' emails throughout the day. Please also be mindful of intercom announcement requests. If you need an 'All Staff' email to be sent or an intercom announcement to be made, please confer with Dr. Irish before doing so. If you have an announcement request, please send it to 625 LMS Announcements. Announcements will need to be submitted by 3:30 PM in order to be included that day. The announcement email group is monitored by all of the individuals who make/organize announcements (including messages to our community). When making your announcement request to the email group, specify which platforms you want the information to be shared (weekly staff newsletter, weekly parent newsletter, social media, news show, etc.)
Please be mindful of what is placed in emails as it is subject to an Opens Record Request and can be requested by a parent or the media (this extends to any other platform that is facilitated by GCPS).
Required PD- We should all be just about completed with our required PD. If you haven't started, please take care of it this week. Let's get it done before the deadline.
Make sure to complete the required district PD courses:
Cybersecurity Awareness Training All Employee Portal Security Awareness- 11/1/2021
HR Compliance- Required by All- located in the PD&E # 29377
Tutoring & Clubs
The tutoring rotation is as follows: Tuesday-Connections; Wednesday- Math and Social Studies; Thursday- Language Arts and Science
Here are a couple of reminders:
Please make sure to communicate your tutoring schedule to your students/students' parents in order to make them aware of the schedule.
Remind parents that tutoring is free and available each week unless there is a communicated cancellation.
Students do not need to make an appointment for tutoring on the regular tutoring days. This is a tool that is available as a Tier I intervention for all students.
Please make sure to be present and ready to receive students starting at 8:10 AM on your content's assigned tutoring day. Students arrive at 8:15 AM.
Any cancellations of tutoring must be communicated to your grade level administrator in advance.
Regarding Clubs: We are still working to get club meeting dates on the LMS calendar. If you have a club that you would like to sponsor, please reach out to Ms. St. James with your proposal.
Silent Lunch
Silent lunch is an option for teachers to use to address MINOR behaviors that occur in the classroom. Please use room 5.130 as your first option. You will need to work with your grade level admin if you are in need of a silent lunch in your classroom (for class-wide silent lunch). We need to ensure that the admin is in the loop to help with any parent communication that may result from the class-wide silent lunch. Additionally, the admin will help to ensure that Mrs. Markitan's team is aware of the additional cleaning needs that are required when classroom lunches occur.
Title IX Reminders:
Title IX Coordinator- Cecilia Carmichael; Title IX Investigator- Onika St. James; Title IX Decision-Maker- Nicole Irish
When should I contact our Title IX Coordinator, Mrs. Carmichael:
Whenever a student reports misconduct that could qualify as sexual harassment
A student does not have to use the magic words "sexual harassment" to address with the Title IX protocol.
Whenever you observe behaviors that appear inappropriate, harassing in nature, or if a student or staff appears uncomfortable.
It is your duty to make sure you report any conduct that you observe.
What can I do to ensure compliance?
Do:
Take each report seriously
When you observe concerning behavior, ask a student if they are doing okay.
Address trends in sexual misconduct in your class (such as separating problematic students)
Adhere to your training (ask for additional training if you are still unsure)
Do Not:
Investigate to determine the truth of the report
Issue accommodations/consequences to address the concerns without alerting a Title IX Coordinator
Communicate with parents about sexual harassment concerns
ALL PARENT COMMUNICATION SHOULD BE THROUGH TITLE IX COORDINATOR
ALL Concerns/Complaints are to be kept CONFIDENTIAL - Those not assigned a role in the TITLE IX process do not have a need to know
GET FIT CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK:
Let's take it back to the basics! Let's work toward getting 10,000 steps in each day. If you hit this goal, put a pic of your step count in the LMS Chat (on Teams)!
STUDENT/STAFF SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY:
We will have our first SWAT Team Chat on November 15th at 4:45 PM in the TRS- (reference the email from Irish- 10/26)
LMS student leaders reviewed the Wellness Screener data and made some suggestions for addressing the results with students. One suggestion was to present the survey topics to students in their daily Champion Circles. We will focus these efforts on the survey items related to student belonging. Here are the questions that you may present to your students during their Circles:
COVID Safety Protocols
Complete a health assessment before leaving home. If you are not feeling well contact your grade level AP as soon as possible (Special Education Teachers contact Ms. St. James). If necessary, follow the absence/sub protocol immediately. Then email the HRT team at 626 HRT Lilburn LMS.
Wearing masks in the classroom with students and throughout the building is strongly encouraged. The current recommendation is to use the medical grade masks (not mesh masks).
Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer throughout the day.
Remember to social distance as much as possible.
Make sure to review the last few pages of the Pre-Planning Agenda to keep up with your completion of required compliance professional learning. There are several deadlines coming up soon, so stay on top of it. You can get to the agenda here.
All staff are required to read and reflect on the LMS Staff/Faculty Handbook.
The LMS Faculty Handbook is located here: LMS Training Page
GCPS Personnel Handbook is Located Here: GCP Personnel Handbook
Just-in-Time Leveraging iReady as a Tier 3 Intervention
This professional learning will focus on the use of iReady resources with students needing Tier 3 interventions.
What: Professional Learning around how to implement and monitor iReady as a Tier 3 Interventions
When: November 9, 2022
Where: Virtual
Please Register in PD&E, Course Number: 30481
Adobe Learning Opportunity: How to Build Digital Literacy and Creative Fluency in your K–12 Classroom
Get ideas and insights on how to help your students become digitally literate and then develop creative fluency. Using a digital storytelling project as an example, you will learn how Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Express work together to provide a scaffold for building skills across grade levels.
Participants will see how students can transition from easy, template-based tools to tools using greater skill levels. Who: Any K-12 Teacher What: Live webinar
When: Thursday, October 13, 2022 1:00pm to 4:00pm Where:
Online How: Click Below to Register
1) Monday, November 7
ELT (1st Period)
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
2) Tuesday, November 8
ELT (2nd Period)
Connections Tutoring
Digital Day #2
Election Day
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
3) Wednesday, November 9
ELT (3rd Period)
Math and Social Studies Tutoring
CFA Slider Sales
Assistant Principal's Staff Development @ISC - APs OOB in AM or PM
Local School Council Meeting
Picture Make-Up Day
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
4) Thursday, November 10
ELT (4th Period) (Fall Break-Cancelled)
Language Arts and Science Tutoring
LMS Counseling Advisory Council Meeting- 4:30
LMS Basketball at Lanier
Progress Reports Out (#3)
Teacher of the Year Celebration 6PM- Streaming on GCPS TV
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
5) Friday, November 11
Literacy Block
CFA Slider sales
Veteran's Day- Lunch for LMS Veterans
Grade Level Academy Meetings
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
6) Saturday, November 12
Rest and Relax
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
7) Sunday, November 13
Rest and Relax
PTSA Papa Johns Spirit Week
Coming up next week:
Principal for the Day, American Education Week