Parent Weekly Update

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 11^th 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 11^th. 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 17^th.  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 13^th: 6/7 girls, both teams practice @ lunch 

Boys team home game, 3:45-5:45 

Tuesday, Feb 14^th: 7/8 girls, both teams practice: 2:45-4:00 

6/7 Girls, Ms. Bilous’s team @ Cedarhill, 3:45-5:45. 

Wednesday, Feb 15^th: 6/7 Girls, Ms. Pelletier’s team practice @ lunch 

7/8 Girls comp team home game, 3:45-5:45 

Thursday, Feb 16^th: Boys and 6/7 girls (Ms. Bilous’s team) practice: 2:45-3:45