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How long have you been at LPMS? I’ve been here since it opened 10 years ago. Where did you teach before you joined LPMS? Before I came to LPMS, I was a Spe-cial Ed teacher at Central for 6 years. I also taught in Tus-caloosa at Eastwood Middle School and at Glenwood Mental Health before coming to Vestavia.

Do you have children or pets? I have a daughter who is in first grade at VHELP. We adopted Amelia from Chi-na after being married for 13 years. We don’t have any pets right now :( Amelia is an adorable name. How did you chose it? Our daughter’s name is Amelia Mae. Amelia is a family name on my side of the family, and Mae came from two of my great grandmothers and David’s grandmother. What do you like best about your job? I like that every-day is different. I don’t know if I’ll be dealing with a child in crisis, helping a teacher or receiving a new stu-dent. It changes daily and I enjoy that. What do you like to do in your spare time? I like to read, travel, cook, and spend time with my people. What is your favorite thing to cook? I have a great cut- CONTINUED PG 4

Liberty Park Issue 5 Middle School Mid-January PTO Newsletter 2018

SPOTLIGHT: Mrs. Keri Howard, Counselor

Dates to Remember • January 18th

PTO Board Meet-ing 11am LPMS

• January 19th All School Basketball Party

• January 24th Parent Awareness 2018-2019 VHHS Curriculum, 12pm Council Chamber

• February 3rd This is How We Roll fundraiser

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Liberty Park Issue 5 Page 2

Come join us for the 2nd Annual This is How We Roll Bowling Night.

We are excited to bring back this fun-filled night out for our LPMS parents. Saturday, February 3rd

7:00 – 10:00pm Adults Only

Spare Time Bowling Alley 3600 Roosevelt Boulevard

Trussville, AL 35235 http://sparetimeentertainment.com/trussville

All tickets will be purchased online at www.lpmspto.org Bowling Team – 6 people $300 ($50 per person) Talk to your friends and form a team of six! Come up with a team name - be fun and cre-ative! Your package includes admission for 6 bowlers and 6 drink tickets. Individual Bowler Ticket - $50 per person Don’t have time to form a team? We’ll do the work for you! You’re guaranteed to bowl on a lane with other awesome parents - they’re the only kind we have! Your ticket in-cludes admission for one bowler and one drink ticket. Spectator Tickets - $30 per person Don't want to bowl... we need spectators to cheer our teams! Your ticket includes admis-sion for one spectator and one drink ticket. Drink Tickets - $7.50 Each Drink tickets (well liquor and domestic beers) can be purchased in advance for $7.50 or at the event. Raffle - 1 Ticket for $1, 25 Tickets for $20 We will be hosting a raffle at the event with great prizes for the entire family. You do not have to be present to win.

Schedule of Events Bowler check-in: 6:45 - 7:00

Bowling Tournament: 7:15 – 9:45 Raffle Winner Announced 9:45

After bowler check-in and warm up, each team will bowl one round. The top five highest scoring will move on to play in the Division Championship.

Additional awards will be given to the highest and lowest individual scorers of the night. Funds raised through this event will be used at LPMS to fund special project grants like, Annual math subscriptions, fine arts equipment, science lab equipment, virtual reality viewers and

much more!

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Thank you to our fabulous PTO Hospitality Chairs, Misty Searcy & Diana Horsley (pictured top left) for organizing a wonderful Holiday breakfast for our LPMS staff . Thank you to the Piggy Wiggly for their very generous pricing too! A delicious breakfast and a wonder-ful time was had by all!

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Howard continued from page 1 out gingerbread cookie recipe that I enjoy making. How has LPMS changed in 10 years? My very first classroom was the laundry room. The school was open but the building wasn’t ready. We had to make due with what parts of the facility we could use. I’ve moved from the laundry room, to a classroom, to a coun-seling office. I was a 6th grade Special Ed teacher before becoming the school counselor. Where did you go to college? I have an undergraduate degree in Communication Science Disorders from the University of Monte-vallo and a Masters in School Counseling from the University of West Alabama. Do you like to travel? Oh Yes! My husband & I don’t do gifts. We save our money for great vacations. Some of our trips include sev-eral countries in Europe, Australia, the Bahamas and this past summer we went to Alaska. At 4 years old, Amelia had been on 4 continents. She travels with us! We hope to hike the Inca Trail in Peru for an upcoming adventure! Mr. Howard is an Assistant Principal at VHHS. What’s it like to have a spouse in the same industry? We love working in the same system. We try very hard not to discuss “business” at home, but it’s nice to have someone understand how your day actually went. It’s also great to have the same breaks so that we can travel together.

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Teacher SOUPer Bowl It’s gonna be M’m M’m Good!

PTO will host a Teacher SOUPer Bowl Monday, February 5th and we need your help to make it awesome! If you have a particularly delicious soup, stew, chili, crackers, dessert, etc. that you would like to make and provide to the luncheon, we would love and appreciate it! Our teach-ers mean so much to us and a luncheon like this means the world to them. Please sign up via our web site at lpmspto.org We are asking for you to bring your dish in a crock pot so we can keep it warm throughout the teacher’s lunch period. Please also mark the outside of your crock pot with your name and what the dish is. Please drop off any food items to school Monday, February 5th by 10 am. We will have all dishes available for pick up at the end of the day on the lobby desk. Thank you for considering a luncheon contribution and for helping us make this great!

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December 13, 2017 Your Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt the following structure for Vestavia Hills City Schools: • Vestavia Hills High School: 10th - 12th grades • Pizitz campus: 9th grade center • Former Berry High School campus: 6th - 8th grades • Liberty Park Middle School: 6th - 8th grades • Gresham Elementary School campus: Kindergarten - 5th grades • Vestavia Hills Elementary East: Kindergarten - 5th grades • Vestavia Hills Elementary West: Kindergarten - 5th grades • Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights: Kindergarten - 5th grades • Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park: Kindergarten - 5th grades This plan will take effect in the 2019-2020 academic year and is contingent upon the federal court’s final approval of our purchase of Gresham Elementary School from the Jefferson County Board of Education. It will take a great deal of planning to implement this school restructuring plan successfully. Thankfully, the school system will have 18 months prior to the opening of school in August 2019 to execute the transition to this new structure. As soon as we return from the holidays, I will be working with our staff to develop an initial management plan that will address the many tasks and issues inherent in this effort. One group will focus on the 9th grade experience, ensuring that our new 9th grade center provides an exem-plary transition for our students from middle school to high school. A second group will focus on converting our elementary schools west of Highway 280 to the K-5 model that Cahaba Heights and Liberty Park have operated successfully for years. Thank you for your engagement in this process. I’m convinced this is a plan that can and will be implemented successfully to meet the academic, developmental and extracurricular needs of all our students throughout the school system. Sincerely, Charles Mason, Ed.D. Interim Superintendent Vestavia Hills City Schools

VESTAVIA HILLS CITY SCHOOLS NEWS

School Restructuring Plan

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January 10, 2018 -- In the past week, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education inter-viewed four candidates it is considering for the school system's next superintendent. The formal interviews are one element of a broader process in which the Board is considering the following factors: • Each candidate's formal written application • Professional credentials • Current and prior experience • Reference and background checks • Informal conversations between Board members and candidates • Written feedback from teachers, principals, students, and administrators who

had conversations with the candidates • In a called Board meeting on Tuesday, January 16, at 8:00 a.m. in the Board Room, the Board will discuss and determine next steps in its selection process. Videos of each of the four public interviews may be viewed on the web site. Any member of the public who would like to provide feedback to the Board on the superintendent search or candidates may do so via the web site. The feedback will be anonymous unless you choose to identify yourself.

Superintendent Search Update