Tukes Valley Families,
I find it hard to believe that we are already at our halfway point for the school year! It seems like it was just last week that we had our Back-to-School Night. But here we are at the beginning of our second semester for the 2017-2018 school year. I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with some information and updates about what we have been working on at Tukes Valley Middle.
We will be holding our Academic Achievement Assembly for first semester on Wednesday, February 7th at 8:30 in the morning. Parents are welcome to attend the assembly. We will be recognizing students for the following:
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- Honor Roll: Students who earned a grade point average of 3.25 or higher. Please check your student’s report card (semester gpa, not cumulative gpa) to determine whether or not your student qualified for Honor Roll.
- Academic Improvement Award: Student’s whose GPA for 1st semester was at least .50 higher than their 2nd semester GPA for the 2016-2017 school year will receive this award. Parents will be notified in advance if their student has earned this award. However, we won’t be able to notify parents until Monday, February 5th.
- Specialist Awards: Our exploratory teachers will be awarding students from each grade level for outstanding performance in their classes. These teachers will notify parents of students who are receiving an award.
- Alpha Award: This is a new award at Tukes Valley Middle. Students from each grade level will be given this recognition for leadership and citizenship. Parents will be notified prior to the assembly if their students will be receiving this award. Please don’t tell the students! We want it to be a surprise!
We are continuing our focus on student attendance during second semester. Our school goal for this year is that our overall percentage of students who miss less than 10% of the school year will increase from 79% to 85%. Our current percentage is at 77%. In other words, 23% of our students missed at least nine days of school during first semester. I expect this number to improve as we get further into the year, as we have been significantly impacted by illness over the past month. We are continuing to work with students and families to improve student attendance. Please contact us if there is anything we can do to help get your child to school on a regular basis.
Another goal area for us is reducing the number of students who face discipline at school. Our goal is that 98% of our students will have no suspensions (out-of-school) or expulsions. We hope to meet this goal through continuing to implement restorative practices, focus on de-escalation strategies, and reinforcing positive behavior choices. Currently we are exceeding this goal with over 99% of our students with no suspensions or expulsions. This is part of a concerted effort to implement strategies that keep students in school. We try to use in-school suspensions when possible.
One question that comes up regularly to school principals everywhere is, “What do you do about bullying at your school?” At TVM, we have a number of methods that we use to address this kind of behavior.
- Education and Awareness: We start with a school-wide effort to educate our students about what “bullying” means. Many students report that they are being bullied when they have had one negative interaction with a peer. While this is problematic, it is not “bullying.” The table below is included on our Student Incident Report forms to help students differentiate between “mean” behavior and “bullying.”
| Disagreement | Rude Moments | Mean Moments | Bullying |
| When people have different ideas about something | Hurting someone’s body or feelings on accident. | Hurting someone’s body or feelings on purpose. | Hurting someone’s body or feelings on purpose. |
| Usually no one’s feeling are hurt. | Someone isn’t being careful with their body or someone isn’t thinking about the other person. | Happens just one time or every once in a while. | Happens over and over again. |
The person doing the hurting has more power:
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| Example: Arguing over whose turn it is in a game. | Example: Cutting in front of someone in line. | Example: Calling someone a mean name 1 or 2 times. | Example: Repeatedly harassing someone on the bus, even after asked to stop. |
- Social media adds a significant challenge to addressing bullying. We recently held an assembly for our 6th and 7th graders that addressed bullying and harassment, especially through social media. This assembly focused on being an “upstander” by calling out bullying and harassment and reporting it.
- We can’t address an issue if we are not aware that it is happening. We have a number of ways that students (and parents) can report bullying and harassment.
- Student Incident Report: These forms are available in the main office.
- Tell a staff member.
- Complete a report through SafeSchools on the TVM website.
Click here to read the BGPS policy on Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying.
Want to show your school spirit? We have Tukes Valley Middle School spirit wear available for order through Brainless Tees. You can access their online store by clicking here. There are T-shirts and sweatshirts available for purchase.
Thank you for entrusting us with your children every day!
Brian Amundson
Principal
The Principal's Office 