Principal's Welcome Letter

Dear Parents, Guardians and Students: Welcome to Beach Park Middle School, the home of the Eagles! We, BPMS teachers and students, soar like Eagles and strive for success. We are proud of our students, teachers, staff, School Board and community for supporting our efforts and believing in our students. We have made many accomplishments throughout the years. Our most recent are the creation and implementation of our RtI and PBIS programs. RtI is Response-to-Intervention. We create intervention plans to address the individual academic needs of our Eagles. The intervention plans include identifying the problem, creating and instituting interventions to reduce or eliminate the problem, monitoring the progress of students using the interventions, evaluating the success of the interventions, and modifying the interventions (if needed). We use data to identify the lack of academic successes in reading, writing and math. The progress of student is monitored every other week to ensure that students are successful. We use AimsWeb to keep track of the data collected from the progress monitoring tools we use in RtI classes. The tools are research and scientifically-based instructional tools to measure our students’ progresses. These initiatives are positively impacting student achievement and the overall climate of our school. When students experience successes, they are more likely to perform better in school both academically and behaviorally. Several years ago, we began aligning curriculum. After aligning our teaching practices and resources to the Illinois Learning Standards and Curriculum Frameworks, we were able to more efficiently deliver instruction. The Illinois Learning Standards and Curriculum Frameworks are the skills students need to know and understand to be successful on the Illinois ISAT assessments. Additionally, we have recently created Power Standards. Power Standards are the Illinois Leaning Standards, Common Core Standards and the College Readiness Standards (ACT) combined and condensed into the main or big ideas that students must know to be on a college path. They also prepare our Eagles to be self-learners and productive citizens. These are the critical skills in reading, writing and math that prepare our students for high school and college. Due to the integration of standards and alignment process, our students continue to improve achievement in reading, writing and math. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) reports scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) by subgroups. The subgroups are African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Low Income, and IEP (students with Individualized Educational Plans or students in special education). In 2006, BPMS met or exceeded the expectations of the state on the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests (ISAT) in all academic areas, and almost all subgroups. We have made progress ever since. Words cannot express how much we (teachers, staff and administrators) appreciate the efforts of our students. Their efforts continue to be evident and make a difference on the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests. We believe that the RtI classes and PBIS have much to do with raising student performance on the ISAT (Illinois Standards Achievement Test), classroom grades and the overall learning of our Eagles. We offer some AE (Academic Explorations) classes after school this year for those students who need more time to complete homework and get additional instruction. In order to ensure that students continue to close their learning gaps and are motivated to do well on assessments, we need the continual support of our parents. You can support our efforts by having your students participate in the RtI and AE programs and making them a priority, when your student is requested to be there. These are free services. We will need the support of our parents to ensure that our students get the services so that all students experience successes to be prepared for the real world. Lastly, we encourage parents to join in the efforts at BPMS by attending PTSA meetings. Parent involvement is integral for the development of our school. Meetings are one time per month. These meetings are posted on the BPMS website. RSVP is not necessary. Just come to the main office at the times and dates posted on the website.

“Once an Eagle, always an Eagle!!!”