Written by Christopher Fields, Principal
It’s back to school time and that means it is time to establish contact with your child’s school. At Benjamin Franklin Middle School, our staff is making a concerted effort to keep the students and parents connected to our school. Teachers and students have spent the first few days setting goals for the school year. In many instances this means establishing a contract for what each will do for the other. The instructional staff at BFMS will provide your child a high quality, meaningful and challenging learning environment that is tailored for the each individual child.
We want to take advantage of the RDS Parent and Student Access portal. Parents and students have their own unique online accounts. Your child will be accessing their accounts at least once a week, hopefully more, during their Advisory time. The RDS account will give them access to their up-to-date grade in each class, homework and upcoming assessment reminders, as well as attendance and discipline records. Teachers will also be posting links to important class resources, such as teacher web pages, online textbooks, or supplementary materials and additional study aides.
Parents should be accessing their accounts regularly as well. The same information will be available to them, in addition to links to teacher emails to assist with school and home communication. Our teachers will be making a concerted effort to initiate contact with parents regularly throughout the school year. With the RDS Parent Access portal, assuming parents have provided an accurate email address along with their contact information; teachers have the ability to send emails to all of their students’ parents updating them on classroom events, assignments, and upcoming assessments. It is very important for parents to maintain current contact information in the RDS system. Please log in to your accounts and keep your contact information current.
As principal, I will continue to use the SchoolMessenger system to deliver timely information and reminders via telephone, email and text messaging. Please update this information and your preferences via the RDS Parent Access portal as well. Parents it is important to remember to check your Spam filters with your email accounts. Many of the important communications coming from the teachers and staff are blocked. Please check those filters.
Another opportunity for parents to stay connected with BFMS is to attend our monthly Parent Ambassadors meetings. The purpose of the monthly meetings is to keep parents informed of upcoming events, initiatives and happenings at Ben Franklin Middle School. This meeting is open to all interested parents and is on the second Thursday of the month. I am your host and often I am joined by other BF staff. We encourage interested parents to then share information from the meetings with other parents, neighbors, and the community at large. We look forward to your attendance. The first BFMS Parent Ambassador meeting will be September 12th.
Finally, we encourage your child to become involved in our school outside of the school day. Benjamin Franklin Middle School offers a wide variety of extra-curricular activities to meet the needs and interests of all students. We have a full compliment of athletic endeavors each season, many clubs that encourage community involvement and a sense of being part of a larger citizenry, academic teams encompassing spelling, geography, Science Olympiad and Academic Superbowl, performing arts groups such as Drama Club and The Blues Project, as well as intramural activities and opportunities to work the concession stand at after school events. We want all students to have a greater sense of belonging by connecting with THEIR school.
We at Benjamin Franklin Middle School want to stay connected with parents and students throughout this school year. Take advantage of the opportunities that are available and please, do not ever hesitate to ask questions and contact the school.