The Maple Glen Gazette

Happy Weekend, Maple Glen Families—

Friday was the BEST DAY! Global School Play first began in 2015, and over the last eleven years, more than 80 countries and over a million children have participated in this annual event.

Our students spent the day playing around the school, visiting former teachers (we loved seeing our 4th graders back in their old kindergarten classrooms!), building, coloring, creating, and problem-solving together. Please be sure to ask your children about this wonderful day!

A special thank you to our amazing school counselor, Mrs. Newman, for all the planning and preparation that made this day such a success.

New Student Registration will open on February 13th. This registration window is for NEW students only, including kindergarten. Registration for current students will be shared at a later time.

With the opening of two new elementary schools next school year and some students transitioning to different schools, it is very important that all students are confirmed in PowerSchool. We will send multiple reminders as each registration window opens.

Valentine’s Day parties are right around the corner! Any adult attending a classroom party must have a SafeVisitor background check on file. Please call the office if you are unsure whether you have a background check completed.

The end of second trimester is February 19th. Second trimester report cards will be emailed on Wednesday, February 26th.

This week wraps up School Counselor Appreciation Week. We are so fortunate to have Mrs. Newman as our school counselor and Mrs. Miceli Garcia as our student mentor. These two go above and beyond each day to support our students.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Tiffany Buzan

Dear families,

Our school is partnering with the Indiana Center for Prevention of Youth Abuse and Suicide to provide ChildHelp Speak Up Be Safe™ presentations. This program teaches students how to recognize unsafe situations, resist harm, and report to a safe adult.

To help families learn more, please visit the Parent Resource Website: Parent and Caregiver Resources

The site includes:

• A brief overview of the program

• Age-appropriate safety concepts

• Tips for talking to your child about personal safety

Our students will participate in a presentation by a trained facilitator will present research-based, age-appropriate lessons to help children learn the skills to prevent or interrupt cycles of neglect and child abuse – physical, emotional and sexual - as mandated by Indiana state law.

Please see the PARENT OPT OUT LETTER here for more information as well as the form to sign and send in if you do not want your child to participate. Please return the letters to me by Feb. 19th.

Thank you,

Nicole Newman

Counselor

Dear Parents,

Valentine’s Day is approaching so I just wanted to give you a friendly reminder about our Food and Wellness Program. All of our parties at Maple Glen are Food Free due to the amount of students with severe food allergies. Please do not send any candy attached to your student’s Valentine’s Day cards. Also, do not send any food or treats to school to be passed out for Valentine’s Day with your student.

Remember there are a lot of fun non edible items that can be brought in with your child’s Valentine’s Day cards. (Pencils, stickers, erasers etc.) Many of these items can be purchased at Target, Walmart, Meijer’s, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. Thanks for all of your help and cooperation. Our main objective is to keep our students healthy and safe; and still have fun!

Jeannie Langenkamp RN

School Nurse Maple Glen

Click here to Sponsor the Carnival!

If your child will be absent or late - Please call the attendance line and leave a message (317) 896-4700 ext 17001, or email mgesattendance@wws.k12.in.us

Please do this even if you let your child's classroom teacher know about the absence. This will ensure that our attendance secretary receives the information.

If you have a dismissal change, please let the front office know by 1:00pm. This gives the office enough time to notify your child is where they’re supposed to be at the end of the day! Please DO NOT leave dismissal changes on the attendance line.

To notify the front office of a dismissal change, call (317) 896-4700 ext 17011, or email:

mgesattendance@wws.k12.in.us

We are opening up the opportunity for family members to join their child/children for lunch! For student safety and to accommodate our limited cafeteria seating, we are allowing our families to visit once a trimester. To be prepared for our guests and to check the Safe Visitor Registration of incoming visitors (this is required for every visitor) please make sure you register 24 hours in advance.

We do have a few procedures in place to make sure everyone is safe and lunch flows smoothly.

Tables will be set up on the NORTH side of the cafeteria for you and your child.

1. Please only bring food for your child and your child only.

2. Please refrain from posting picture of other children on social media.

3. To ensure space, lunch tables are reserved for you and your child only.

A new application must be completed each school year. The Application for Free or Reduced Meals and Other Benefits is now available on-line by clicking the button below. You can also come to the Administration Building between the hours of 7 am - 4 pm to complete an application on-line. Please feel free to contact Stacy Luedke, at (317) 867-8000 or email at luedkes@wws.k12.in.us.

In an effort to constantly improve and enhance school safety, we use a visitor management system at all nine WWS schools. This comprehensive system will enhance our school entrance security and better ensure that every visitor to our schools is permitted and authorized to be in our school buildings.

Background checks are good for four years at any school in the district. These background checks will cost $12.95 and can be acquired via the link below.

Westfield Washington Schools usesTalkingPoints to communicate with families! TalkingPoints allows for seamless multilingual two-way communication between teachers and families. Families can choose to receive messages via SMS text messaging or through the free FAMILIES | TalkingPoints mobile app for Apple or Android.

This platform has enhanced translation capabilities, so families can receive and send messages in their preferred language. Additional tools like speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and closed captioned videos make this program accessible to all of our Westfield families.

The most important thing you can do to ensure you are receiving messages from your child’s teacher is to make sure your contact information for the “Father” and “Mother” fields in PowerSchool is correct. When a teacher sends out a message, TalkingPoints will automatically use those two phone numbers. If you’d like to add additional contacts, please reach out to your child’s teachers.

Website: mge.wws.k12.in.us
Location: 17171 Ditch Road, Westfield, IN, USA
Phone: 317-896-4700
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Maple-Glen-Elementary-153896671714866/
Twitter: @shakeleaves