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 

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