J.A. Leonard Middle School

We have school pictures scheduled! They will be on Tuesday, April 6 for the Monday/Tuesday cohort and Friday, April 9 for the Thursday/Friday cohort. If your child is fully remote, come in between 9 and 11 A.M. that day, and we will fit you in.

8th Grade Families...save the date. Old Town High School virtual Open House and Registration.

Mrs. Tuttle worked with the Cole Land Transportation Museum, and they gifted us these 10 beautiful ukuleles! We will put them to good use, with kids and with teachers. Thank you, Cole family!

Tomorrow, February 2, is a snow day. There will be no remote learning. Enjoy the day!

School is on for this week! Unless something changes, our in-person days are a go for this week, on the regular schedule. Our amazing nurse, Vanessa Koch, has been on the job all weekend talking to families and tracing COVID exposures. We are pleased to say that, as of right now, there have been no positive cases in the school. All exposures to positive cases happened outside of the school. We will continue to monitor those exposures, and update you if necessary. Due to the increasing cases in the community, we are going to postpone Intramural offerings until Monday, February 8. Our first goal is to keep students and faculty safe, and to keep school open. Thank you to all families for reporting exposures immediately and keeping your children home when they are sick or have been exposed. Your continued diligence is much appreciated, and allows us to keep our doors open. If you haven't lately, send Nurse Vanessa your thanks. Her job is challenging and non-stop during this time, and we are very grateful to have her leading our team.

Leonard Middle School will be remote-only tomorrow--Friday, January 29. Out of an abundance of caution, we are closing down in-person learning while we investigate possible COVID exposures. Anyone who has had direct exposure has already been notified. All students should follow their schedule for remote days.

We are experiencing some sporadic technical difficulties with Google Meet and Classroom. Do the best you can to connect, and we will adjust accordingly.

PTC Meeting Wednesday, January 13, 6:00 - 7:00 P.M. Agenda: Fundraising and online store Please join us! Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://maine.zoom.us/j/82833964951 Password: 934035 Meeting ID: 828 3396 4951

Dear LMS families, Welcome back from winter vacation. We have had a great start to our week and are so happy to have all the kids returning in person and online. As is always the case the first few days back into the routine is a difficult transition. This being the case we would like to send along a friendly reminder to everyone of some of our in person and remote expectations. In person kids are doing a great job of wearing their masks and social distancing. Keep it up! We appreciate everyone's help to keep our community safe and allow us to remain in our hybrid model. It is important to remember that if you are not feeling well or anyone in your household is symptomatic for COVID, or awaiting a COVID test it is best to stay home and attend class remotely until everyone is well and it is safe to return in person. When you are remote, for any reason, please make sure that you are familiar with your schedule so you can check into class on time and remain in class for the duration of the session. While in class please try to keep cameras on throughout, unless you have permission from your teacher. This helps maintain the pace of class and allows teachers to better support kids by gauging attention and understanding. Also only use the chat for class purposes, never screenshot meetings, and contact your teacher if you have any questions, technical issues, or have to be absent for any reason. We appreciate everyone’s commitment to this difficult year and are eager for the day we can go back to normal, in school and in life. Until then, stay safe and let's make the best of the second half of this school year. Thank you, LMS

How well does screen time work for your child on days of remote learning? We are always looking to improve, and are seeking your thoughts on this VERY BRIEF survey. https://forms.gle/XdBHpMBvkGy3Dk5X7 If you would prefer a paper copy, please contact Gert Nesin and she will get one to you.

We were able to support 17 families and 50 students, thanks to Mrs. O'Connell and these wonderful people: Old Town Police Department, Old Town Fire Department, Maine Lambda Master, Means Family, Debbie Gilman, and George and Francine Criner. Much appreciation to all!

This is a reminder that this coming Monday and Tuesday (12/21, 12/22) will be in-person for our Thursday/Friday cohort. This is meant to give our Thursday/Friday students the same in-person time as our Monday/Tuesday cohort whose schedule included the two days before Thanksgiving.

Google is having difficulty all over the country. If it doesn't get fixed, we will adjust attendance and expectations accordingly.

PTC Meeting Our next PTC meeting is Wednesday, December 9, 6:00 – 7:00 P.M, on Zoom. The link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/71338090649?pwd=L3lvMC9qZzhmQk52dFlHTE8wZmRBdz09 Agenda: Fundraisers—LMS clothing, laptop covers (Chromebook), auction

Mrs. Fitzsimmons, our STEM teacher, has flickering power this morning. She sent this message for students and families for this afternoon... If the meeting is not open by 1:05, it is because I have lost power. If I do not join due to a power outage please do the assignment that I assigned in Classwork. There is also a tutorial for this project in Scratch, please feel free to follow that if you need to. The assignment is scheduled to open for you at 1:05 in Google Classroom. As always email me with questions if you have any and I will get back to you as soon as I can!

We realize that many families are without power and internet. We will adjust our attendance and our expectations accordingly. Our annual Halloween outage waited until after Thanksgiving!

Two more days to fill Ben's bus! All food collected goes to our RSU#34 resource center, located at OTES. We are having a homeroom competition at LMS, but we invite ALL to donate. Drop your food off at LMS, and we'll get the bus over here on Tuesday.

Dr. Sharon Klein, University of Maine Professor in the School of Economics, spoke to the Puffin Team today about solar energy. She was fantastic! Thank you, Dr. Klein.

Mark your calendars! Our next PTA meeting is Wednesday, December 9, 6:00 - 7:00 P.M. The PTA will provide a Zoom link and an agenda before the meeting.

Next week and the week of December 21, we have school only on Monday and Tuesday. To balance times between the cohorts, we will use the following schedule: Monday/Tuesday, November 23 and 24, the Monday/Tuesday cohort will be in-person both days, and the Thursday/Friday cohort will be remote both days. Monday/Tuesday, November 23 and 24, the Thursday/Friday cohort will be in-person both days, and the Monday/Tuesday cohort will be remote both days.