October 23rd, 2020

 Good Evening Parents, Guardians and Students:

Please see the attached flyer regarding Spirit Week next week. In lieu of our Halloween Dance that was cancelled due to COVID, PTO will supply each teacher with candy or some sort of swag to hand out to students during the day on October 29th and 30th. All students are invited to wear their Halloween Costumes to school for some Halloween fun. 

Students will need to continue to wear their masks/face coverings and will not be able to wear a costume mask over their face. Costumes need to be school appropriate, follow the dress code and please no facsimile weapons. If you have questions regarding costumes please let me know.

OPEN ENROLLMENT INFORMATION:

• Existing open enrolled students, resident and non-resident, wanting to continue at the same school next year must complete an "Intent to Renew" form.  Intent to Renew is due no later than January 8th. This form is available on the district website starting October 1, 2020.  Families are encouraged to complete and submit the Intent to Renew form at the earliest possible date.

• Existing open enrolled elementary and middle school students wanting to attend LPS middle or high school must complete a new open enrollment application.

See Newton's website for more information regarding documentation that needs to accompany open enroll forms or check with me for any additional questions.

Enjoy your weekend.

James O’Tremba

Principal, Newton Middle School

 

October 15th, 2020

 Good Evening Parents, Guardians and Students:

SCHEDULE FOR NEXT WEEK:

Next week is a four day week as all students have Monday off.  

• A-K will be Virtual on Tuesday, in person (late start 9:54) on Wednesday, in person on Thursday

• L-Z will be in person on Tuesday, Virtual on Wednesday and in person on Friday. 

New Construction:

Beginning Monday, October 19th, our right turn lane into our East parking lot will again be closed for approximately ten days as the construction crew will be completing water line work for the new building.

PTO wants you to stay informed!

If you haven’t, please join our Newton Middle School PTO Facebook page where we keep real time updates and information. Also, make plans to join our next virtual PTO meeting on Friday, October 23 from 9:30-11am via zoom. Meeting call-in details will be sent out to PTO contacts next week. If you’d like to be included on that distribution list, email newtonptopres@gmail.com.

Register today for the LPS Foundation Virtual Stride and be entered to win prizes for you and your school! 

Last year, Newton received a $1,000 for the most increased registrants from a middle school. Let’s win again! Register at runthestride.com for the virtual event held October 23-25th. The LPS Foundation will be giving out a total of $10,000 in Stride Grants to schools based on participation, school spirit, and random drawing. In addition, there are new contests: Please check them out here. The focus is on health, wellness, community, and school spirit. Our goal is to promote a healthy and active lifestyle along with building partnerships and support for Littleton Public Schools... oh yeah, and raising needed funds for all LPS schools!

FRESHMAN SHOWCASE EVENTS:

Please reference the attached flyer regarding Arapahoe High School Freshman Showcase events. All three of our LPS High Schools will begin Freshman showcase events, please reference each High Schools Website for additional information.

IMMUNIZATIONS:

It is that time of year again that proof of immunizations are due. If you had a signed exemption last year those exemptions expired in June of 2020 and you will need to renew this fall. If your student does not have their  immunizations updated you have been notified by the district several times and by our health assistant here at Newton. 

The exclusion from school date this year for students without updated immunizations is November 6th. If you have questions please contact our health assistant Jessica Schultz.

Students enjoy your long weekend.

Take care!

James O’Tremba

Principal, Newton Middle School

October 9th, 2020

 Good Evening Parents/Guardians and Students:

Picture Retakes

Picture retakes will be held here at Newton next week on Wednesday, October 14th from 3-5:00 pm. Students will need to enter the building through the main office doors. This also includes any TOPS students who still need to have their picture taken.

Register today for the LPS Foundation Virtual Stride and be entered to win prizes for you and your school! 

Last year, Newton received a $1,000 for the most increased registrants from a middle school. Let’s win again! Register at runthestride.com for the virtual event held October 23-25th.

The LPS Foundation will be giving out a total of $10,000 in Stride Grants to schools based on participation, school spirit, and random drawing. In addition, there are new contests: Please check them out here. The focus is on health, wellness, community, and school spirit. Our goal is to promote a healthy and active lifestyle along with building partnerships and support for Littleton Public Schools... oh yeah, and raising needed funds for all LPS schools!

Link your Amazon account to Newton Middle School in time for next week’s PRIME DAYS.

Did you know that Newton Middle School can earn a small percentage from every Amazon order you place if you choose our school as the beneficiary of your Amazon Smile account. Link your account to our school today in time for next week’s Amazon Prime Days. Every order you place will earn us a little something. See the attached flyer for instructions. To note: Even though each LPS PTO has a unique EIN, the IRS has the primary name of each organization listed as ‘Littleton Public Schools Parent Teacher Organization’.  So, when you search for Newton Middle School, what will pop up to display in AmazonSmile is ‘Littleton Public Schools Parent Teacher Organization’.  This makes it difficult to know whether you are selecting your organization in AmazonSmile, but trust us, we get the funds. Please search for the following name when selecting us AmazonSmile: Newton Middle School PTO.

International Baccalaureate program at Littleton High School

Beginning October 14, LHS will have virtual 8th grade visits. Sign up here. During those visits, our IB Coordinator will be available for questions. More info about IB can be found on our website and the IB application and info about why we like students to apply in 8th grade can be found here.

Parent/Teacher Conferences COVID Style

During a typical school year, we would be inviting all parents into the building for Parent Teacher Conferences… parents would walk around, wait in line, meet with teachers for 5 minutes and then move onto the next teacher, and receive feedback of how things are going for your child. 

However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we are unable to host any parents in our building this year.  Additionally, teachers are unable to schedule 5 minute conferences via Google Meets, as they will see upwards of 150 students every week.  That would be 12 ½ hours of conferences, with zero minutes of breaks between and unfortunately, impossible to organize and schedule.  We do have some time next Wednesday evening and Thursday during the day to set up time to discuss concerns you may have, but if every parent is looking to talk with a teacher, it will cause quite a hardship for our teachers.

That being said, we do want to be able to provide feedback “if you have concerns” in regards to your children and how things are going thus far. If you are interested in receiving feedback from your children’s teachers this year and have concerns, please complete this form.

We hope that if things are going well, that you can honor our teacher's time and email, as needed, if you develop concerns as the semester/year moves forward.  Once again, we appreciate your patience with us as we are trying to develop relationships, provide academic support and enrichments, and help your children grow academically.

Once again, please fill out the form if you have concerns.  We will do all we can to provide valid feedback and help to team with you to support your children and their academic needs. We need the google form completed by 6:00 pm on Monday, October 12th.

Have a great weekend. James O’Tremba Principal, Newton Middle School

October 6th, 2020

Good Afternoon Parents/Guardians and Students:

Tomorrow's Virtual Schedule is VIRTUAL ODD DAY for all students

• ​Period 1:         9:55
• Period 3:        11:05
• Period 5:        12:15
• Period 7:          2:10

​TEACHER CONFERENCES:

During a typical school year, we would be inviting all parents into the building for Parent Teacher Conferences… parents would walk around, wait in line, meet with teachers for 5 minutes and then move onto the next teacher, and receive feedback of how things are going for your child. 

However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we are unable to host any parents in our building this year.  Additionally, teachers are unable to schedule 5 minute conferences via Google Meets, as they will see upwards of 150 students every week.  That would be 12 ½ hours of conferences, with zero minutes of breaks between and unfortunately, impossible to organize and schedule.  We do have some time next Wednesday evening and Thursday during the day to set up time to discuss concerns you may have, but if every parent is looking to talk with a teacher, it will cause quite a hardship for our teachers.

That being said, we do want to be able to provide feedback “if you have concerns” in regards to your children and how things are going thus far.   If you are interested in receiving feedback from your children’s teachers this year and have concerns, please fill out the form below: 

Conference Request Form

We hope that if things are going well, that you can honor our teacher's time and email, as needed, if you develop concerns as the semester/year moves forward.  Once again, we appreciate your patience with us as we are trying to develop relationships, provide academic support and enrichment's, and help your children grow academically.

Once again, please fill out the form if you have concerns.  We will do all we can to provide valid feedback and help to team with you to support your children and their academic needs.​

James O'Tremba

Principal, Newton Middle School

September 25th, 2020

 Good Evening Parents/Guardians and Students:

OPEN ENROLLMENT INFORMATION:

• Existing open enrolled students, resident and non-resident, wanting to continue at the same school next year must complete an "Intent to Renew" form.  Intent to Renew is due no later than January 8th. This form is available on the district website starting October 1, 2020.  Families are encouraged to complete and submit the Intent to Renew form at the earliest possible date.

• Existing open enrolled elementary and middle school students wanting to attend LPS middle or high school must complete a new open enrollment application.

See Newton's website for more information regarding documentation that needs to accompany open enroll forms.

PTO Needs You! If you have one or two hours a month to help out, please consider Newton’s PTO. Volunteerism is down. And with the pandemic, we weren’t able to recruit in the typical ways last spring. We have some gaps on this year’s board we need to fill ASAP. If you’re new to middle school, PTO is a much smaller commitment than it was at the elementary school level. With more volunteers, everyone does less. We even recommend grabbing a friend and partnering up to co-chair the roles. Current open positions include: 

•       Community Relations > Work with the LPS Foundation to represent and promote Newton participation in all events: The Stride 5K, the Spirit Celebration (gather items for PTO’s auction basket), and work with Arapahoe Credit Union to schedule Newton volunteers for Shred-A-Thon. Time commitment: +/- 4 hours per event

•       VP > As the PTO VP (or co-VPs), your main role for the year would be to attend monthly PTO meetings and understand the flow of the year so you’re poised to be President(s) next year and run meetings, help when  needed. Time commitment: +/- 3 hours per month.

•        Co-Secretary > This year, you will serve as an understudy (covering meeting minutes when our secretary is unable) and next year, you will be responsible for taking minutes at the monthly PTO meetings. Time commitment: +/- 3 hours per month.

•      Fundraising/Communications > This is more of a communications role: responsible for developing communications for our “annual fund” fundraising campaign the first few month of the school year. Time commitment: +/- 4 total hours, completed by November 1.

• 
  

If you are willing and able to step up, grab a partner/co-chair and contact PTO president becca Winslow (newtonptopres@gmail.com) in the next few days to learn more. Please consider giving the school a few hours of your time this year. Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

James O’Tremba

Principal, Newton MIddle School

September 18th, 2020

 Good Afternoon Parents and Guardians:

The State of LPS: Moving Forward in a Pandemic

Parents, Staff, and Community Members:Please join LPS Superintendent Brian Ewert for a virtual update on the state of LPS.Topics will include:

• Budget concerns and the debt-free schools mill levy override

• How the school year is going

• New school boundaries

• Ongoing bond projects

Mr. Ewert is taking his community roadshow virtual. Each school community will be invited to hear him present and ask him questions. While parts of the conversations may be geared toward the schools for that particular time, anyone can watch any of the presentations and ask questions.

Access the links to the meetings on the LPS website to watch the live feeds and submit questions. We hope you can join us!

Newton’s designated community evening with Mr. Ewert will be Monday, September 21st at 5:00 pm. Please access this link to access the community meeting.

WEDNESDAY VIRTUAL SCHEDULE:

All students should be attending virtual classes each Wednesday. Next week will be an odd day. The times for classes on Wednesday whether they are ODD or EVEN days are as follows:

• 9:55

• 11:05

• 12:15

• 2:10

YEARBOOK INFORMATION:

This year's Yearbook will certainly be a memorable one. It will also be a commemorative edition since this is our final year in our current Newton building. We want to preserve as much as we can for our students and make it an amazing memory book for them. This is where you come in!

We need your help with photos and we want to include as many students as possible. We're looking for summer photos, the start of school photos, summer/fall sports and activities. Please see the attached flyer for specific details on how to share your pictures with us. Thanks for the help!

I will be purchasing a yearbook for all students at Newton this year as a gift to our students as we leave this building and move to our new facility next fall.

Picture Re-Takes

Picture retakes, Wednesday, October 14    3pm-5pm in mini theater for all students.

Bring Your Water Bottles

Remember that the main office cannot supply water bottles for students and our drinking fountains are not available. If your student needs water during the day please send them with their own water bottle. Water bottles can be refilled throughout the day at our filling stations located in A, B or C wings.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

James O’Tremba

Principal, Newton Middle School

September 11th, 2020

 Good Afternoon Parents, Guardians and Students:

Calling all parents!

Join us for the first virtual PTO meeting of the year next Thursday, September 17 from 9:30-11:00. If you’re interested in joining, email PTO President becca Winslow and you’ll be sent the zoom details prior to Thursday’s meeting: newtonPTOpres@gmail.com

Nutritional Services  is offering free meals to all students and meals for students off days spent in virtual learning days. Please access this link to learn more. https://littletonpublicschools.net/nr/usda-funds-free-meals-nutrition-services

Newton Middle School picture retakes for all students will be held on Wednesday, October 14th, 3pm-5pm in mini theater. Specific information as to enter the building will be announced as we get closer to the October 14th date.

Enjoy the weekend.

James O’Tremba

Principal, Newton Middle School