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Timber Wolf Times

News for TMS Families Week of August 30, 2021

Timber Wolf TimesNews for TMS Families Week of August 30, 2021

Principal Welcome

Dear Trailside Families,


We had a wonderful first two days of school at The Trail. Students and staff were so excited to be back to school. Our focus over the first week of school is relationship building and becoming acclimated to the school and a full return to in-person learning. Students have done an excellent job with following the mask mandate and other health mitigation protocols. Below you will find important information regarding the first days and Back to School Night this week.

I wish all of my Trailside Families health, peace, and gratitude!


Bridget Beichler

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Back to School Night

BTSN is Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021 6:00-8:15 PM

If your child attends Spectrum class (gifted class) please plan to meet at 5:30-5:55 PM in the school cafeteria with Mrs. Dolinich. Parking is a challenges at TMS and we encourage you to either carpool, walk, or park in alternate spaces near the school. Newton Lee and Trailside Park is another option. Transportation is not able to provide shuttles this year or to relocate the buses in front of our school. Our SRO and SSO will be on hand to support traffic direction. There is a virtual option to view BTSN presentations from the teachers. The links to their videos will be sent out on Thursday morning.

1. All parents will begin in your child's 9th block, COMPASS promptly at 6:00 PM. Every class will have 10 minutes with a 4 minutes transition.

2. During Resource block, you may visit your child's locker.

3. I encourage you to print out your child's schedule or bookmark in Parent VUE. We will have paper copies available however the line can be very long.

4. During the evening, please take time to visit the PTA table, cafeteria to meet our cafe manager, library, and our school spirit table.

5. All visitors must wear a mask the entire time they are inside TMS.

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Masks and Health Mitigation Practices

All staff, students, and visitors are required to wear a mask while inside school. Please note the image above as to how the mask should be worn. If anyone should forget their mask, we have plenty of masks on hand to give. Mask wearing will be enforced per LCPS guidelines.


There will be mask breaks outside during the day. For more detailed information, please go to the following link:

https://www.lcps.org/Page/237406


Lunch @ TMS: We will be having lunch offered both outside and inside in order to allow social distancing in the cafeteria. We have seating for 200 plus students outside which will allow for 50% capacity inside.

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Car loop, Dropping off and Picking up

The Clairborne Loop is the longest car loop. You may want to consider using the Gloucester loop, entrance is at Newtown Lee elementary. When you enter the loop, please pull as far up as possible. Please watch for the staff directions. For safety reasons, please do not drop off your child in the parking lot and have your child cross through on-coming traffic. We are very fortunate at TMS to have 2 parent drop off lanes.

Student Names and Pronunciations in Parent VUE

We are asking every parent to please go into Parent VUE before the first day of school. Please click on the following link for directions on how to do this. It can only be done through the mobile app

https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/domain/17270/pvue_help_docs/PVUE_NamePronunciation_MobileOnly_ENG.pdf

Important Dates and Communication


9/1 Back to School Night for Parents Grade 6-8 6:00-8:00 PM, You may attend either in person or virtual


9/3 and 9/6 School Holiday Labor Day Weekend


9/15 Principal Coffee @ 9:30 AM


9/16 School Holiday-Yom Kippur


9/22 PTA Meeting, counselors presentation @ 7:00 PM


9/23 and 9/24 School Pictures out of HPE class

TMS School Spirit Store from Cheers is on-line

https://trailsidetimberwolves.itemorder.com/sale

School Hours

Arrival: 8:10-8:30 AM

Late Bell: 8:35 AM (students are tardy if arriving after the bell and will need to report to the main office for a tardy pass)

Dismissal: 3:23 PM

School Breakfast and Lunch Procedures.

LCPS will be providing free breakfast and lunch to all children this year. If your child would like to have an additional second lunch or items from the snack line, these may be purchased. Each student will be required to sanitize their hands prior to beginning lunch as well as after. We have hand sanitizing stations throughout the school.


For the first couple of weeks of school, students will be sitting with their third and seventh block class. During the first two weeks, we will be going through all of the processes that take place in the cafeteria and outdoor eating area as well as Pack Time. We have an outdoor eating area for approximately 200 or more students. All students will have an opportunity to eat both inside and outside (weather permitting). Pack time (recess) takes place following lunch. Our goal is to have pack time begin within the first two weeks of school. With the health mitigation practices and the instruction of these processes with almost 1150 students, this will require us to take it step by step. We appreciate your understanding and ask that you reassure your child that open seating and pack time will be coming in September.


All students will be eating with their grade levels except in 7th and 8th grade, there may be a very small number of students who are in mixed level classes such as Algebra, Pre-Algebra, and World Language. In the past we have had parent requests to change their child's schedule due to the lunch block however we are not able to honor these requests.

Harris Teeter Card

Beginning August 1, Trailside Middle School proudly joined Harris Teeter's Together in Education program to help raise funds for our school. It's easy and it's FREE. Simply give the cashier our code, 2529, and your VIC card when you check out and your card will be linked for the entire school year. That's it! You only have to link your VIC card once each school year. Once your card is linked, Trailside will receive a percentage of your Harris Teeter brand (Harris Teeter, T.T. Traders, Harris Teeter Organics, HT Farmers Market, and purchases in the HT Pharmacy) purchases credited back to our account.

This program does not interfere with your VIC savings or cost you any money!

Don't forget to link your VIC card to our account code next time you are shopping at Harris Teeter

TMS Online Payment Portal

Easy access to TMS's Online Payment Portal - now that PE Uniforms, Sketchbooks, Class Fees, Instrument Rentals, etc... are posted. Parents can always check the site for updates regarding products posted.

https://tinyurl.com/TMSOnlinePaymentPortal

Trailside Middle School

Online School Payments (OSP) portal is a service provided to parents to facilitate payment for school fees for a variety of products and services.

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Green Team @ The Trail


This year we have a Green Team at Trailside. We will be inviting both parents and students to join our team. One of the biggest initiatives we have begun is composting throughout the school. This includes cafeteria, teacher workroom, and our FACS classes. The biggest lift is teaching the students what goes into the compost bin, trash bin, and Recyclable bins. If you are interested in joining this team, please email Bridget.Beichler@lcps.org. We are also looking for volunteers who can support over the lunch blocks to assist students in separating out the three categories. More information regarding the Green Team will be coming in the next two newsletters.

Outdoor eating support

We have about 20 tents/canopies and 10 umbrellas to support our outdoor eating area. The task of putting up and taking down the tents each day is a big lift. If you are interested in supporting our set-up and take down for lunch, please email Bridget.Beichler@lcps.org. We will be working on a volunteer schedule.


We are looking for a more permanent solution, with either a the building of a structure to protect from the elements or the purchase of a commercialized tenting, like you may see at outdoor venues and receptions. If you are able to support this initiative or have contacts who could donate this to our school, please email Bridget.Beichler@lcps.org


We are hopeful that we could expand our outdoor eating throughout the year and also open this up to outdoor classes.

The Pack is Back Spirit Week! August 30-September 10

The Pack is Back


Assessment Information

Virginia Growth Assessments 2021 – 2022

The information below was sent to families by the Office of Assessment Services on August 23, 2021 concerning the new Growth Assessments.

The new school year brings a welcome return to in-person learning, creating opportunities to see what academic skills our students retained from last year and what supports they need for success this year. It is important that teachers spend time collecting data to inform their instruction so they can consistently remediate and enrich student learning. Some of the data is collected through day to day informal assessments and other data is obtained through formal methods, such as state and federal testing.

To support student learning, the Virginia Department of Education has developed new growth assessments in reading and math which will be administered for the first time October 1-15, 2021. These tests will aid teachers in identifying any unfinished learning from last year and set a benchmark for measuring future growth, within year and across years. The online, computer adaptive growth assessments will be administered to students in grades 3-8. Students will take these tests in addition to the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests.

Student Detail By Question (SDBQ) score reports from the growth assessments will be available for parents/guardians in ParentVUE under the Documents tab, soon after the test window has closed. The reports will show the academic standards on which the student was assessed and whether the test item was answered correctly, without assigning a passing or failing score. Questions about the report or the test administration can be directed to your student’s school.

Trailside will be administering the Reading Growth Assessment on Wednesday, October 6 and the Math Growth Assessment on Thursday, October 7. Additional information is available via the Office of Assessment Services webpage and the Virginia Department of Education’s new webpage concerning Growth Assessments. Virginia does not have an assessment opt-out provision; however, parents/guardians may refuse to permit their student to participate in one, some, or all of Virginia’s required assessments. Annual refusals must be made in writing via the Permission Click

Parent/Guardian Refusal Form for the Virginia Growth Assessments 2021 – 2022 form.