Parent LOV Notes


OurMotto: Excellence, Honor and Service

Welcome Back Lovinggood Families!!!

Parents,

I hope you had a fantastic summer. We are preparing for the return of our students and look forward to helping our new 6th graders become acclimated with the Lovinggood Way. On August 4th the building will be filled with over 1400 students and we are excited and ready to receive your child expecting his/her school year to be a year of learning, fun and success. I have truly reflected on the year and evaluated all of the things that need to happen more often, less often, and in some cases, not at all. The one main thing I want to continue improving is COMMUNICATION. It is extremely important that we exchange information efficiently and effectively. I want you to call and receive a response within a reasonable amount of time. I want you to be informed at all times from the school so that you don’t have to wonder about the “dinner table story” with your child. I want you to know your child is safe and comfortable. Aside from all of the academic goals we have this year, we must remember, you are stakeholders and we want to work with you. More than anything, as the district put it this year, we are all on the same team. The theme for the district is ONE TEAM, ONE GOAL – STUDENT SUCCESS. The message to the Lovinggood students and staff this year is that we are on a mission to CROSS THE LINE TO SUCCESS and we will do this as a team. We are a school that is in the 90 percent range with our core content success - that is fantastic! Now we need to pass the plateau and cross into higher gains. We want to increase the 92.2 CCRPI score by increasing learning enough to impact overall scores. Plans will be communicated in the new SSP posted later in the year. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you can’t find what you need on the website, on synergy, on the marquee, in Parent LOV Notes, through an email, or by way of a call out. Those are the current ways we attempt to stay in touch with you but just know that we have you and your child’s best interest at heart and we will go above and beyond to reach our goals. It is my goal to provide high levels of customer care to you as a community and as a parent. It’s extremely important to me that you feel comfortable and confident that your child is safe, happy and most of all learning.

I am excited to have another year of commitment and service with you.

Let’s have a great year!

We welcome our new staff members:

Assistant Principal – Dr. DanWebb

Campus Officer – Officer Griffith, Nurse – Sherri Sanders, Clerk – Mary Ann Martin, Bookkeeper – Elizabeth Reid, Counselor – Kathleen Bower

Para professionals: Kimberly Evans and Winnefred Floyd

Teachers: Shelly Ferrell, Stephen James, Adriane Moreland, Allison Ramsey, Jeremy Studdard, Lindsey Hadley, Terri Woodward, Michelle Cain-Washington and Stuart Partee

This year we gained a 3rd Assistant Principal, 1 ½ general education teachers and 1 ½ special education teachers, 1 paraprofessional and ½ counselor (which created a full time counselor).


Meet & Greet is Thursday, July 31st.

4:00 to 5:00 for the 7th and 8th Grade Students - Report to the Theater at 4:00 for a brief general meeting with administration and instructions for the evening.

6:00 to 7:00 for the 6th Grade Students – Report to the Theater at 6:00 for a brief general meeting with administration and instructions for the evening.

The break in time for Meet and Greet is simply to address the congestion and traffic concerns that come about when there are large events on the campus. The purpose of Meet and Greet is to allow students to meet their teachers. It is a brief handshake and greeting. We will reserve open house for the in depth discussions of how the teacher conducts the classroom. Students will receive schedules so they can visit their particular teachers. They will receive them again on Day 1.

We look forward to seeing you.

PLEASE BE SURE TO REVIEW THE DRESS CODE WITH YOUR CHILD BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS. CLICK HERE.

Changes to be aware of:

  • The CRCT has been replaced with a newly developed assessment. It is called the Georgia Milestones. The assessments are designed to produce results more in line with the rigor of the ACT/SAT assessments. In comparison to other states, Georgia has had the lowest achievement expectation on the CRCT/EOCT. The change is here. Students will be assessed through constructed and extended response (only in Math and Language Arts). The Language Arts component will include reading, language and writing. The writing assessment is now embedded within this test for middle school. The scoring for this test will be 4 categories (the names of those categories are forthcoming). I will provide that information as the assessment office distributes it to me. The CRCT cut score used to be 800 which in actuality was an accomplishment of about 50% of the test questions. The stakes are higher with this test. I say this not to alert you, but more so for you to be aware of the importance of student effort this year. Be intentional in taking part in your child’s educational process as much as possible. Simply put, have daily conversations with your child about his/her learning expectations. We will provide more information as we prepare parent sessions this year that will help you in many areas. This assessment is conducted April 15th – 24th. It is extremely important that all of our students are present and ready to test on those days.
  • In the past, the middle school progress reports were distributed per 9 weeks. This year we are on a 6 week distribution schedule. Actual report cards will only be distributed twice within the year – week 18 and the end of year. The end of the year report card will be mailed home. The 6 and 12 week marks, students will receive progress reports.
  • Connections classes were 9 week segments in the past, they are now 18 week segments. This means that students will only have 2 connections classes per school year, unless he/she is in a music class. Music classes are yearlong courses. Health class is not a requirement but we are required to offer it, so if a student has music classes all year, it is acceptable for he/she not to have Health. It is our desire to offer as many opportunities to our students in Connections over the 3 middle school years. We are working on the best ways to accomplish that. The idea is to see that your child has different experiences for connections classes and not repeats of the same classes from year to year. They should not repeat within the year. If a schedule shows the same connections class for second semester as it did for first, simply contact the scheduling Assistant Principal, Rick Hanby. Mistakes are bound to happen.
  • Student agendas are notebook size this year. This was actually not the order request but when 1700 were delivered and they were wrong, I attempted to correct it and found that all middle schools received this size (great county discount). Now I’m just accepting that the book itself is more important than the size. Sorry….can you tell that I wanted what my students wanted?  That’s life – let’s teach them to move on from things we cannot change. LOL!
  • The positive behavior concept will be centered onpositive reinforcement. Students will receive “Silver Hawk Cards” consistently throughout the year from any adult in the building. They should store them in the agenda pouch located in the front of the agenda. (Oh yes, we also ordered pouches with zippers for the agenda, and it was revealed when they arrived, that the company does not make zippers with the pouch). Hopefully, storing the Silver Hawk Cards won’t become an issue. The students will earn rewards at their discretion – they can redeem prizes for their rewards or hold on to them for other opportunities. The reward days (social/outside time) will take place every 2 weeks. They will use Silver Hawk Cards as their tickets for the outside play opportunities this year. Yes, there will be a lot of tickets distributed. If you want to volunteer to help us create them, please contact PTSA – we will need an ongoing production of them. Last year we implemented the positive concept and the impact was beneficial to our student development. There was a direct effect on discipline in the school. We saw improvement in discipline last year. We hope to improve school wide discipline even more this year!
  • As you may already be aware, food and nutrition laws have limited our ability to sell Chick-Fil-A biscuits. This will have a great impact on our intake of funds that were used to assist in operation of the building. It is our plan to develop a school foundation this year. Please keep a look out for school council dates, where we will discuss getting the foundation up and running.
  • Track and Field Status: The field has been repaired and is in much better shape for us to install the track. We are not allowed to use the field until September. According to the company, the best time to install the track is next summer. If we attempt to build on it now, we could damage what was just repaired. Thanks for your patience but the track is coming as promised. This has been a 3 year wait but I believe it will be worth it. With the initial quote 3 years ago, I’m afraid that we will have to get a new quote, possibly needing to raise a little more money. I will keep you posted.
  • 8th Grade field trip information will be communicated in August. We are solidifying facts to present to you. Once we are done, we will contact you.
  • Late Work Policy will be in next LOV Notes edition and it will also be posted on the website during the first week of school.

New parents: This communication comes from the Principal approximately once a week, sent by e-blast as you sign up with PTSA. Please tune in as I provide pertinent information continuously throughout the year in LOV Notes.

I look forward to working with you!


Change is invetible and sometimes there are stress factors that come with change. Keep in mind that your child needs to see the “calm” in you so that they can display the same. When we as adults model the best ways to handle stress, our students will pick up the habit. I want the start of school to be smooth for all of us and the administrative staff is in position to serve you during the transition into the new school year.

We are happy the students are coming back!