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Over the last few years, we have moved to a staggered start for our students to begin the school year. We realize this schedule may not be convenient for some families, but we feel this staggered start time is best for students of a large middle school, and it has been very successful over the past few years. In some cases, buses may not be available for all trips, so please see information below.
So, for week one, the schedule will be as follows:
Tuesday morning, September 3 – Grade 6 students only. Students will arrive for an 8:40am start time and will stay at school until 11:30am. All students will meet on the turf field behind the school. Bus schedule is yet to be determined, so parents may want to arrange rides for the first day. However, we do know bus transportation is provided to and from school on Tuesday, September 3, so it would be a great day for our new grade 6 bus students to try the bus on day one since it will only be grade 6 students riding that day. No school for Grade 6 students on Wednesday, Sept. 4.
Wednesday morning, September 4 – Grade 7 students only. Students will arrive for an 8:40am
start time and will stay at school until 11:30am. All students will meet on the turf field behind the school. Bus transportation will be provided in the morning, but it will not be available for the 11:30am pick-up. We will update you on this as we get closer to September. Parents may want to organize rides for the 11:30am pick up time from school.
Wednesday afternoon, September 4 – Grade 8 students only. Students will arrive for a
12:30pm start time and will stay at school until 2:41pm. All students will meet on the turf field
behind the school. Bus transportation will be provided for the after-school pick-up, but it will not be available for the 12:30pm start time. We will update you on this as we get closer to
September. Parents may want to organize rides for the 12:30pm start time.
Thursday and Friday, September 5 & 6. Full day for all students. School will begin at 8:40am and will end at 2:41pm. This is the regular start and end times for our students Monday to Friday. On Thursday, Sept. 5, we will be asking all students to meet on the turf field in the morning.
GRADE 8 CELEBRATION
Wednesday June 26th, 2024
6:00 – 8:30 pm School Gymnasium
Tickets must be purchased by June 20th
This evening of celebration is for Grade 8 students only
DJ and Dancing, Temporary Tattoos, Photo booth, Karaoke, Pasta dinner, prizes and more!
Ticket price: $20.00
- Tickets must be purchased ahead of time. Tickets will not be sold at the door.
- Students must attend school the day of the celebration.
- Students will NOT be admitted prior to 5:45 pm, unless prior arrangements have been made with a principal or vice-principal.
- Students who leave the building will not be re-admitted.
- Students waiting for a ride home may wait inside the lobby.
- All Students must be picked up by 8:45 pm.
- All school regulations with regards to school conduct and expectations will be in effect and enforced.
- This signed permission slip must accompany the payment when buying your ticket. Payment by cash or cheque. (Cheques made payable to School District 62)
- Tickets may also be purchased online at https://sd62.schoolcashonline.com/
June 11, 2024
Hello Centre Mountain Lellum Families,
Band Concert
We will be having our Band students perform tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 12. Originally the start time was 7:00pm, but the start time has changed to 6:00pm. I know the band families have been notified, but just making sure everyone is aware that it is a 6:00pm start time.
Reminders:
Centre Mountain Lellum Start-Up for September 2024
Over the last few years, we have moved to a staggered start for our students to begin the school year. We realize this schedule may not be convenient for some families, but we feel this staggered start time is best for students of a large middle school, and it has been very successful over the past few years. In some cases, buses may not be available for all trips, so please see information below.
So, for week one, the schedule will be as follows:
Tuesday morning, September 3 – Grade 6 students only. Students will arrive for an 8:40am start time and will stay at school until 11:30am. All students will meet on the turf field behind the school. Bus schedule is yet to be determined, so parents may want to arrange rides for the first day. However, we do know bus transportation is provided to and from school on Tuesday, September 3, so it would be a great day for our new grade 6 bus students to try the bus on day one since it will only be grade 6 students riding that day. No school for Grade 6 students on Wednesday, Sept. 4.
Wednesday morning, September 4 – Grade 7 students only. Students will arrive for an 8:40am
start time and will stay at school until 11:30am. All students will meet on the turf field behind the school. Bus transportation will be provided in the morning, but it will not be available for the 11:30am pick-up. We will update you on this as we get closer to September. Parents may want to organize rides for the 11:30am pick up time from school.
Wednesday afternoon, September 4 – Grade 8 students only. Students will arrive for a
12:30pm start time and will stay at school until 2:41pm. All students will meet on the turf field
behind the school. Bus transportation will be provided for the after-school pick-up, but it will not be available for the 12:30pm start time. We will update you on this as we get closer to
September. Parents may want to organize rides for the 12:30pm start time.
Thursday and Friday, September 5 & 6. Full day for all students. School will begin at 8:40am and will end at 2:41pm. This is the regular start and end times for our students Monday to Friday. On Thursday, Sept. 5, we will be asking all students to meet on the turf field in the morning.
Safety to and from School
We live in a very busy neighbourhood and as we settle into our second year at Centre Mountain Lellum, we would like to remind all families to be careful, safe and to be patient when picking up or dropping off students.
If your child is walking or riding their bike to school, please ask them to follow the safe route and to avoid the very busy roundabout. The following message has been sent a few times, but it is time for a reminder for all:
We would like to thank our school community for your ongoing support accessing safe routes to school. We appreciate the feedback that we have received and continue to work with the City of Langford to improve student safety on their way to and from school.
Recommendations to improve student safety were adopted that we would like to remind you of.
Our Occupational Health and Safety and Transportation teams have worked closely with the City of Langford and RCMP to address safety concerns around roadways near our schools. A decision was made to move the location of our crossing guards.
Changes effective as of May 1, 2023:
- The two crossing guards that currently operate on the roundabout at Westshore Parkway will move. The traffic using the roundabout is heavy and the added merge lane just after the roundabout means that drivers are often not paying attention to the crosswalk but focusing on getting out of the roundabout. This location remains a significant safety concern for pedestrians. Moving forward, we do not encourage students crossing at this location.
- There will be two crossing guards at the bottom of the hill at Westshore Parkway and Constellation Ave. It will help with the volume of drivers turning right, off Constellation Ave and will direct students along the school-side of the sidewalk.
- The crossing guards will be supporting students crossing Westshore Parkway. Crossing across Constellation at the bottom of the hill will not be supported. Students should cross in the marked crosswalk at the top of Meridian if they are coming along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the schools.
With the change to the crossing guards at the Westshore Parkway roundabout, we encourage families to cross at safer locations and make their way on the Northeast side of Langford Parkway to cross near Constellation Ave or Westshore Parkway where they can cross at Meridian Ave. That could look like crossing at the lights near the Tim Hortons or the marked crosswalks near Commander Court which is single laned with clear sight lines.
Attached is a map of the locations of our crossing guards to help you plan your route to school.
Please note that schools and the district are not responsible for roads or sidewalks. If you have a concern about a road or a sidewalk, please contact the City of Langford directly.
If you would like to report an incident or a concern about driver behaviour, please contact the Westshore RMCP directly.
Important Dates:
June
Band Concert for Grade 6 students – Wed, June 12
Evening Band Concert for Parents – Wed, June 12 at 6:00pm
Harbour Cats Field Trip- Thurs, June 13
Grade 8s to Cultus Lake – Wed, June 19
Grade 7s to Hamsterly Beach – Tues, June 25
Grade 8 Leaving Evening – Wed, June 26
Grade 6s to JDF Fields – Wed, June 26 all day
Full School BBQ and yearbook distribution – Thursday, June 27
Darren Russell Michaela Mistal Glenn Bedard
Principal Vice- Principal Vice-Principal
Please email cml@sd62.bc.ca to report your child’s absence from school.
Please indicate your child’s name, homeroom if possible and dates they will be absent from school.
Parents are able to check their child’s attendance by logging into the parent portal.
Dear families:
Beginning on January 23, 2023, families who have students who have been force transferred to an
overflow school (placed in an overflow school due to space constraints) will have an opportunity to
submit a School Change Request (SCR) form to return to their in-catchment school.
Families that would like to request a change to an out of catchment school may apply at this time.
Priority will be given to students who have been force transferred and would like to try return to their
in-catchment school.
Please note SCRs will not be reviewed until after Spring Break. Schools will respond by June 1, 2023
whether or not the change request can be accommodated.
School Change Request Period: January 23 – February 3, 2023 for the 2023/24 school year.
Apply online: https://www.sd62.bc.ca/changerequests
Open to students who were force transferred to an overflow school by the district or made the
choice to leave their in-catchment school and would like to return.
Open to students who are requesting a transfer to an out of catchment school.
Important Information
A critical piece you should consider is district provided transportation services (if applicable).
You decide not to apply for an SCR.
You will no longer be considered a “force transfer” student. By not submitting an SCR to return
to your in-catchment school, you will be choosing to continue at your current through personal
choice. As a result, you will be ineligible for district provided transportation services.
If you apply for an SCR, but are not successful in receiving a seat at your in-catchment school.
Your child will still be considered a “force transfer” and you will be eligible for district provided
transportation services.
You apply for an SCR and are successful.
You can still apply for district provided transportation services; however, transportation
registration is dependent on your primary home address and whether safe walking routes have
been identified by the Transportation Department.
You apply for an out of catchment school, and are successful.
You are making a personal choice to attend an out of catchment school and therefore ineligible
for district provided transportation services.
Definitions
In-catchment School is your designated neighbourhood school based on your home address.
Out of catchment School any school other than your designated neighbourhood school.
Overflow School when a neighbourhood school is at or over enrolment capacity, the district will
designate an overflow school for additional registrations for students.
Force Transfer are students who cannot attend their in-catchment school due to space limitations.
Students are placed into an overflow school at the direction of the district.
Eligible riders are considered to be those students travelling to their catchment school or students
attending an educational program of choice or academy program not offered at their catchment
school.
Educational programs of choice are defined as:
• French Immersion
• Trades Awareness and Skills Knowledge
• Nature Kindergarten
Hello Families,
A special ‘Thank You’ to all the families who joined us for the Family Games Night on Thursday, Feb 2 at Centre Mountain Lellum. The Board Game Café hosted this evening event and we had up to 300 people attend. The organizers had never done this event at a middle school, but it was such a huge success, they are now going to visit other middle schools in the Greater Victoria area, and we hope to have them back at Centre Mountain Lellum again. It was a great way to bring our school community together.
Leadership Team
We would like to provide an update on our leadership team at Centre Mountain Lellum. Pam Gerrits, our vice-principal, is currently on leave. During this time, we welcome Kelly Dvorak to the role of Acting Vice-Principal. Kelly is in the middle school VP pool and was in an acting role this fall at Spencer Middle School. She is in a wonderful position to step back in and support our school community. Thank you to Kelly for taking on this leadership role. Our thoughts and good wishes are with Pam as she takes the needed time to focus on her health.
Welcome to our newest staff members
We would like to welcome Tom Kritikos and Izzy Spencer to our teaching staff. Kyla Pelletier, teacher for division 7-04, has decided to take Thursdays off, so Tom will be the Thursday teacher for the students in this class. Izzy is a band teacher at Belmont Secondary and will be teaching our band class in the absence of Pam Gerrits. Izzy will be at Centre Mountain Lellum on Wednesday and Friday mornings. We are excited to have these teachers join our team.
The name of our school
We are very fortunate to be gifted the name of our school by Beecher Bay Nation – Centre Mountain Lellum Middle School. Lellum (Lay/Lum) meaning ‘House’ and ‘The idea of community, where we raise our children’. Chief Russell Chipps said, ‘To me it means a place of coming together’. This name means a lot to us and we are doing our best to honour the name and not shorten the name to Lellum, Centre Mountain, or CML. It is so easy to shorten a name or use parts of the name, but we will be using the full name and we would like our community to do the same. Please help us by using ‘Centre Mountain Lellum’ when referring to our school.
Thank you.
Craft Show & Silent Auction
Please join us on Saturday, March 11th from 11:00am – 3:00pm at Centre Mountain Lellum for our first annual Craft Show and Silent Auction. We were going to have our band perform during this event, but in the absence of our regular band teacher, we will not be able to perform at this time.
We are looking for help for the craft sale/silent auction on March 11th. Artists can purchase a table for $30 to sell their products at the craft sale. We are also asking these Artists to donate one thing to either the silent auction or craft sale. We are also looking for donations for the silent auction and hoping we will have volunteers to help us run this event.
Let us know if you think you can help with any of the above. Please email Donna Newman (our head secretary) at dnewman@sd62.bc.ca if you can help. If you know someone who could help with a donation or wants to participate, please send the information their way.
Students not feeling well
Since the winter break, we have had a number of staff and students absent due to illness. If your child is not feeling well, we are asking you to please keep them at home until their symptoms have settled down. We realize this can create some challenges at home, but we really appreciate your support.
Parking/Drop-off/Pick-up
We are so close to opening our lower staff parking lot at Centre Mountain Lellum. Since Nov. 14, we have only had the upper parking lot available for staff parking, so many of our staff have had to park along the road or even in the lower gravel lot at the bottom of Constellation Ave. If the weather cooperates, the line painting for the lower staff lot will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 15 and our staff should be able to us the lot as of Tuesday, Feb. 21.
Parent drop-off and pick-up of students will continue to be in the lower parent loop. The sidewalk has just been completed, so it will be much safer for our students as they will not have to walk along the road in the lower parent loop. We are very fortunate to have this lower loop for parents and we will continue to improve the routines and procedures to keep our students safe. There will be parallel parking for parents along this loop and now that the sidewalk is completed, there will be more parking spaces available for parents in the lower parent loop.
There will be 4 accessible parking spaces in the lower staff parking lot. Right now, we do not have any staff who need to use these accessible spaces, so if there are any families with accessibilities needs, and you need to come into the school, you are welcome to use the accessibility spaces in the lower lot.
The upper driveway and parking lot is strictly for buses and staff only. This is no space for parent parking, or for student drop-off and pick-up.
Sooke School District is Hiring
We are now hiring Education Assistants and Supervision Assistants in our District. Please see the attached information if you are interested.
Metis Nation of Greater Victoria Community Potluck
Please see the attached information regarding the Community Potluck.
Chess Club
We now have our chess club running every Monday and Thursday at lunch. We are excited to announce that Centre Mountain Lellum will be hosting its first Chess Tournament March 13 to 17th. All students are welcome. Students are required to follow the “Chess Etiquette” as outlined by the facilitators, Ms. Efford, Mr. Douglas and Ms. Clement.
Any parent volunteers are welcome to email sefford@sd62.bc.ca
Important dates for your calendar:
Friday February 17th – Professional Development Day
Monday February 20th – Family Day
Saturday March 11th – Craft sale and Silent Auction
March 20 to March 31st – Spring Break
Sports for this week
Monday, Feb 13th: 6/7 girls, both teams practice @ lunch
Boys team home game, 3:45-5:45
Tuesday, Feb 14th: 7/8 girls, both teams practice: 2:45-4:00
6/7 Girls, Ms. Bilous’s team @ Cedarhill, 3:45-5:45.
Wednesday, Feb 15th: 6/7 Girls, Ms. Pelletier’s team practice @ lunch
7/8 Girls comp team home game, 3:45-5:45
Thursday, Feb 16th: Boys and 6/7 girls (Ms. Bilous’s team) practice: 2:45-3:45
Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022
Hello Families,
We are getting closer to our move to Centre Mountain Lellum and we are all very excited to finally get there. This week, we have scheduled many delieveries, including all the student desks and chairs. It will finally look real to have our new desks and chairs set up in these beautiful classrooms. Other delieveries include office furniture, Library furniture, staff room furniture and supplies, music equipment, and all the PE supplies.
Over the next week, our custodians will be working in the building cleaning up the classrooms and getting the school ready for our staff and students. Farmer is putting the finishing touches on the classrooms and they will continue to work on some areas of the school. We do not have final occupancy yet, but any staff who complete the safety orientation course, will be able to access the building with the proper safety gear. Once we have final clearance from the City of Langford and the Fire Department, we will be able to come and go without the personal protective equipment.
We know there will be some definciencies when we move in, but the school will be operational and safe for all the staff and students. As it stands right now, there will be a few rooms on the lower level that may not be ready, but they plan to complete these rooms shortly after we take full possession.
We will be sending a map to all families outlining the bus zones, the parent pick up and drop off areas and the walking route for our students. We hope to get this map out within the week.
Centre Mountain Lellum PAC
Our PAC had a meeting last week and hope to see some new PAC members join in for the next meeting. Our PAC hold their meetings on the last Tuesday of the month, so the next meeting will be scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022 at 7:00pm at Centre Mountain Lellum.
Routines and expected behaviours at Centre Mountain Lellum
Over the next week, we will be scheduling grade assemblies at each school to chat about our transition to our new school and discuss some the expectations we will put in place from day one. Some discussion items will be as follows:
- All students will be outside in the morning until the bell rings. We will have dedicated doors for each classroom to avoid a massive crowd in the foyer. These locations will be discussed on the first day of school.
- Day one we will be meeting all students on the turf field behind the school. We will have signs on the fence with 6-1, 6-2, etc. Once all the students are accounted for, teachers will lead their students to their dedicated entrance and go right to their new classroom. We realize that students will want to see the whole school right away, but we will spread out the tours throughout the day to avoid a crowded hallway.
- Similar to the other middle schools, students will not be using their cell phones inside or outside from bell to bell. Students will be expected to keep their phones turn off in their backpacks and kept in their locker.
- There will be absolutely no food or drinks allowed out of the classrooms. Keeping our environment clean and garbage free will be a priority from the day we arrive.
- Respect for our space. With this amazing new building, we want all staff and students to feel proud of our school and our community. We will all do our best to keep this school clean inside and out.
- All students will be outside for the lunch break – rain or shine. The exception would be to participate in clubs or using the gym for inside activity.
- Giving students a variety of options at lunch would be a great way to build relationships and have students make connections with others. We are hoping to start up a few lunch time activities and clubs, so please have you child listen to announcements so they do no miss out on these opportunities.
- Our school has 3 levels with lots of stairs and open spaces to the lower floors. In some areas of the hallways, you can see the lower level and in some areas, you can see the first floor from the third floor. It is important for all students to understand that nothing is thrown over the railing in the hallways. We will be letting our students know that this is unexpected behaviour and all staff will be strictly enforcing this rule.
- Lastly, we will be letting our students know that all staff members of Centre Mountain Lellum are very excitied about this move and we are all very lucky to have this amazing opportunity.
Please watch for further information .
Sincerely,
Michaela Mistal, Glenn Bedard and Darren Russell
Vice-Principals and Principal
Centre Mountain Lellum Middle School