Dear Beach Park Learning Community,
I hope this communication finds you well, excited about your students future, and happy that school starts in three weeks at Beach Park Middle School. Our District theme this year is, “Our Kids CAN do anything, Just Watch Them, Vision 2030. In working towards, “Our Kids CAN,” I want to take a proactive approach to ensuring our students and staff continue to feel safe and secure in their day to day learning adventures. I would first like to offer some background information for why I will be requesting parent meetings with all new students to the middle school and all 6th grade parents. Each year, our middle school received threats against the school or a specific staff member causing us to thoroughly investigate, place the building in a hard or soft lockdown, or have our students do remote learning so we could assess the threat made and ensure the safety of all students and staff. I believe in being proactive and for this reason I am asking for your partnership, so together we can help our students understand the impact threats have on all students, staff and the entire Beach Park Learning Community and the lasting impact it can have far into our futures.
Last year, I made a bold request to the Board of Education to allow me to hold Mandatory Parent Meetings for all middle school students. This bold request led to our middle school receiving minimal threats during the duration of the last school year. My goal in offering mandatory parent meetings again this year is to educate our families on what will happen when making a false threat and to partner with them early so as to reduce the possibility of threats. While I know attending a mandatory meeting seems like the last thing anyone wants to do, I believe we need to all come together to discuss how we can partner together to stop threats and educate our students on the impact their decisions have on the entire learning community.
We will be holding these mandatory parent meetings in the coming weeks. Sixth grade students and any new students to the middle school will have one day with 3 available times to attend and another day before the year starts with one evening time. If you cannot make any of the four offered meeting times, you will need to contact Diana Contreras, the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent, to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Dr. Denise Wilcox. If a student's parent(s) does not attend any of the meeting opportunities, starting on Monday, September 9, 2024 the student will be excluded from attending school in person until a meeting is scheduled with Dr. Denise Wilcox, the District Superintendent.
Meeting dates and times are listed below:
Sixth grade parents and any students new to the middle school:
Tuesday, August 20, 2024 @ 5:00 pm
Wednesday, August 28, 2024 @ 9:00 am, 3:00 pm, and 6:00 pm
All meetings will take place at Beach Park Middle School in the cafeteria. Parents will need to park in the back of the building where our buses park in the morning and afternoon, and they will enter from the back doors and sign in next to their students' names at the tables in front of the cafeteria. Once you have signed in, you will be asked to go directly to the cafeteria. If you have more than one student at the middle school, you can attend one meeting on behalf of all of your students, and you will be able to sign next to each of your students' names when you sign in. The building administrative team, Dr. Denise Wilcox, Ms. Stephanie Meek, Mr. John Rovenolt, Mrs. Jennifer Grabot, Mr. Nick Divincenzo, and Mr. Bart Fiore (Officer Fiore) will be leading the meetings and discussions. Please know this will not be a town hall meeting; the District team will be sharing important information, and partnering with parents to help ensure we do not receive false threats of violence in our District and problem solve together in the interest of safety and understanding for all. If you have any questions, please email Dr. Denise Wilcox directly: dwilcox@bpd3.org. Remember, my door is always open.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I am solution minded and driven to serve our students and families in an effort to maintain a safe and secure environment for learning for all. Love is Limits, Learning is Not Optional, and Consistency is Key.
In Partnership,
Dr. Denise Wilcox, Superintendent