RED & BLUE REVIEW Weekly Newsletter of Tipton Rosemark Academy VOL. 2, NO. 4 IMPORTANT DATES PTO Meeting AUGUST 25 Class Ring & Letter Jacket Order Placement AUGUST 26 Senior Pictures AUGUST 30 Middle & Upper School Meet the Teacher Night AUGUST 30 8/25/22 Head of School Review BY DR ANDY GRAHAM What a busy and productive week we have had on campus. Thanks to all of you who have been coming out to our fall sports! The teams are working hard and thanks to the players and coaches for their efforts. Please help us as we work to fill our volunteer positions on campus. If you haven’t volunteered in the concession stand or for one of our other positions of need, please consider helping us. It is a wonderful way for new families to meet others and become part of the TRA community If you would like to volunteer please contact Rebecca Downing at rdowning@rebelmail net Check the School Calendar for all Sporting Events 2K, 3K & 4K Little Rebels During MS Football Game September 1
Head of School Review CONTINUED Thanks also for your patience as we adjust to our Wednesday Late Start. We utilized our first Wednesday meetings for additional Promethean Board Training for Lower School teachers, and Department meetings were held to discuss curriculum and how to more effectively utilize our new block schedule in Middle and Upper Schools. Lastly, we are loving having our returning students back on campus, and the new students have already endeared themselves to us. They are going to be wonderful members of our school community. Thanks to all of us for supporting our school and for sending us these wonderful students! RED & BLUE REVIEW | PAGE 2 August 25, 2022
BY STEPHANIE WEHRER
We are almost finished with our second week back on campus, and there have been so many exciting things happening around campus Classes are meeting, students are learning, and athletics are in full swing! Our football program has hosted season opening home games for both the varsity and middle school teams While neither of those teams were victorious at the end of their games, we are proud of our athletes and coaches who worked and played hard for every minute of the game. We are especially grateful for The Lord’s hand of protection over our players, that our young men competed and remain healthy to continue competing this week. Our golf team played this week as well, and also made our school extremely proud in how they represented our school. Girls volleyball,both the middle and high school teams, have been busy in action this week as well and our varsity team is preparing for an away tournament this weekend. We pray for traveling mercies for our team and their families this weekend. Girls soccer has already played a couple of games this week, and I can’t wait to catch a game in person soon. From the sound of it, these young ladies are going to be exciting to watch. want to give a little recognition to Payton Biggs, one of our 8th grade varsity soccer players who was named as a finalist in this week’s Commercial Appeal girls athlete of the week Voting is set to end at noon on Thursday, but at the time of this article being submitted, Payton was in second place and not far behind the vote leader We are so proud of Payton! Our cross country team will compete this Saturday in the Nashville area, and we also covet your prayers for this group of athletes and families for traveling mercies We wish all of our teams and athletes the best of luck as they finish out this week of athletic play.
Please remember the middle and high school “Back-To-School” night on Tuesday, August 30th at 6:30. Teachers will be in their rooms to welcome parents. We will provide parents and families with a copy of their child’s schedule, and follow a mini bell schedule to provide you with a glimpse of your child’s days at school, as well as an opportunity to meet their teachers. We hope you will join us that evening! As always, thank you for the humble privilege of teaching and working with your children each day. I also want to be sure and inform parents of a change to the grade scale at Tipton Rosemark Academy this year, and at schools across the state of Tennessee. We are transitioning from a 7 point grading system to a 10 point grading system. With so many schools implementing the same system, as well as so many surrounding states already using a 10 point system we feel this is necessary for our students to remain successful at competing with students across the state and outside the state, for scholarship opportunities and other academic recognition The new system is as follows:
Upper School Review
90 100 = A 80 89 = B 70 79 = C 60 - 69 = D 0 - 59 = F RED & BLUE REVIEW | PAGE 3 August 25, 2022 New Grading Scale!!
This week I was able to visit a few classrooms to see what creative instructional methods our teachers might be using, or what valuable academic lessons our students might be learning Just between us, getting to interact with students and spend time in the classrooms with them, is one of my absolute favorite parts of my job. This week, Coach Stevenson was illustrating to the young men in his Uncommon Bible class the domino effect that can occur when critical building blocks are omitted or removed, but continue piling up in our lives, through a game of Jenga. I thought this was a very inventive way to depict a very important and applicable life lesson. I also had the opportunity to drop in and visit Coach Dean’s 8th grade physical science class, as they were learning about units of measurement and conversion equations This was especially exciting for me, because I got to spend a few moments with students in my old classroom during a lesson I used to love teaching Coach Dean, you did a great job demonstrating temperature conversions!
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Upper School Review
Lower School Review
Our students are off to a FANTASTIC start! Our first week was a huge success, and our students are having so much fun as they are learning the routines for new classes and reuniting with old friends while making new ones, too. Elementary teachers have been busy doing lots of “all about me” projects, reading back to school books about friendship and easing their students back into academic work, too. Late start Wednesday was a great time of PD for our teachers. We did additional training on using our promethean boards I appreciate our parents being flexible and making this adjustment to allow us to have this time together to learn and grow professionally As with anything new, we learn as we go, and there are adjustments to be made. There will be some tweaking of the car line procedure for next week now that we have a better feel of numbers at drop off times. Please help us by keeping your student at home and bringing him/her later on Wednesday morning (drop off at 8:15), if that is at all possible. We will have a second car line crew out at this time to make this a safer option for you. We understand many of you work and do not have an option.
BY SUSAN CRANFORD
We are excited to have “Little Rebels” again this year. This is a long standing tradition at TRA and we all LOVE it. An alert is being sent with the dates included. It will also be posted in this edition of our newsletter. I can’t wait to see our little Rebels playing flag footballcheering!and
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If you are able to come later, please do. I realize this is new, and it takes time to adjust. I really appreciate you working with us to make this time available for our teachers and staff to work together to make our academic program even stronger. Our elementary flag football team (4th and 5th graders) will begin practice next week, and we are so excited to have this addition to our elementary program! Coach Hood is super happy to be coaching this team for us, and we are looking forward to adding more sports to our elementary program in the future GO REBELS!! You might notice a change in grading as you review your child’s powerschool entries Our grading scale has changed to follow the new grading scale set for the state of Tennessee. We are following that scale now, due to the fact that it will affect GPA totals for students competing for scholarships. Do not worry, we will maintain the rigor of our academic program while making the playing field equal with our students’ GPA. (A 90 100, B 80 90, C 70 80, D 60 70, F Below 60)
Lower
School Review
One of my very favorite first week activities each year is when our first grade students read Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell. In this book, Molly Lou’s grandma teaches her when life seems unfair and things are hard, for her to do three things To be the best you can be, to believe in yourself, and be proud of who you are She also tells her to “smile big and the world will smile right alongside you” I think we can all benefit from following Molly Lou’s grandma’s advice Our first graders drew some excellent self portraits after reading this book to show that we are all created differently. However, we are all special and just as important as anyone else!
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