Mustang Minute

October

16- Parent Teacher Conference Sign-Ups

29- Theme Day- Jersey Day

30- Halloween Celebrations

November

4- Early Release @ 1:00

4- Be Seen and Heard Presentations

5- Half Day, Dismissal @ 11:00

5- Puberty Talks- 5th Grade

5- Parent Teacher Conferences 12-7

6- No School

6- Parent Teacher Conferences 8-3

9-13- Book Fair

11- Veteran's Day Assembly @ 1:15

12- EPIC Donuts with Grown-Ups

13- EPIC Donuts with Grown-Ups

19- Theme Day- Inside Out Day

20- Report Cards Sent via Email

• Girl Scout Recruitment

• Millburn Rd Update
• Parent/ Teacher Conference Sign-Ups
• Veteran's Day Invite

• Field of Flags

• Attendance & Tardy Reminder
• Book Character Pumpkins
• Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) for 2nd and 5th Grade
• 2026-2027 Yearbooks
• Halloween Celebrations
• Be Seen and Heard (Erin's Law)
• Puberty Talk (5th Grade)
• Lost and Found
• Plant-Based Lunch Option
• Hiring Bus Drivers

As many of you are aware, road work has begun just east of our school, and a temporary traffic signal has been installed. Today, traffic backed up on Millburn Road, causing delays for both our buses and parents dropping off students.

We are hopeful that traffic will ease as drivers who use Millburn Road as a shortcut to either Highway 41 or Grand Avenue realize that it may not be the best route during this construction.

As we work through this, we are going to make a few adjustments to our arrival procedures.

Parent Drop-Off

• We will begin bringing students into the building at 7:45 a.m., five minutes earlier than usual.

• We are extending our arrival window until 8:10 a.m. Teachers should begin taking attendance at 8:10.

• We strongly encourage parents to leave home 15-20 minutes earlier than usual to account for potential delays.

• Parent drop-off should continue as usual once cars turn onto Crawford Road. The main issue is the traffic backup on Millburn Road before reaching Crawford, so please plan accordingly.

• After 8:10 a.m., parents who arrive must park and sign their child in at the office.

• As mentioned earlier this week, we encourage students to ride the bus during this time as this will help alleviate traffic.

Bus Riders
Our buses typically arrive around 7:45 a.m., allowing us to have all buses parked and begin unloading students at 7:50. Today, traffic caused staggered arrivals, with the last bus arriving shortly after 8:00.

Moving forward, we plan to begin unloading students as buses arrive, just before 7:50 when possible. We need to get our buses back on the road as quickly as possible so drivers can begin their routes to pick up middle school students.

We will continue to monitor arrival and make adjustments as needed throughout the construction. Thank you for your flexibility and patience as we work to keep arrival running as smoothly and safely as possible.

We look forward to connecting with families during our upcoming conferences:

• Thursday, November 5 from 12:00–7:00 PM

• Friday, November 6 from 8:00 AM–3:00 PM

Teachers will send families a sign-up on Friday, October 16.

Each conference is 20 minutes.

Parent/Teacher Conferences are an important opportunity to celebrate your child’s growth, discuss academic and social progress, and collaborate on goals for the months ahead. These conversations help strengthen the home-school partnership and ensure every student continues to thrive.

Please note that each student will have one conference time. For families with two households, we ask that you coordinate a common time so that both parents or guardians can attend together if possible. Having both parents hear the same information helps ensure consistency in communication and support for your child at home and at school.

If you need assistance with scheduling or require an interpreter, please contact the school office.

Millburn Elementary School would like to invite all military personnel and veterans with a connection to our school (family members, relatives, friends) to be honored at our annual Veterans Day assembly on Wednesday, November 11.

Ways to Participate:

• Veterans Luncheon: Join us for a special luncheon before the assembly at 12:00 PM in the STEM Lab.

• All-School Assembly: Be recognized at our assembly, beginning at 1:00 PM.

• Guest Speaker: Be an honored guest to visit one of our classrooms after the assembly to talk to our students about military life. We'd love to have enough volunteers so that every classroom can host a veteran.

How to Be Recognized:

• "Wall of Heroes": We are creating a "Wall of Heroes" display to recognize service members. Please complete the "Wall of Heroes" sheet to have an individual included - Wall Of Heroes

• RSVP: If you, a family member, neighbor, or friend would like to attend the assembly and/or luncheon, please fill out the Veterans Day invite link - Veterans Day Invitation

Please Note: We will NOT be sending a RSVP paper home this year. All RSVPs to this event will need to be submitted through the Google form above. RSVPs are due no later than Friday, November 6th.

Millburn Elementary is so excited to honor you on this special day.

We have less than a month to collect for our Field of Flags. For the 2nd Year in a row, we would like to create a 'Field of Flags' in front of the MES building the week of Veterans Day.

Students will set up a field of American flags in partnership with DAV (Disabled American Veterans) to honor local veterans and raise critical funds to support our nation’s ill and injured heroes. Each donated flag represents a special veteran in someone’s life, with proceeds benefiting DAV and the charity’s free, professional services for veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.

The flags will be displayed at Millburn Elementary School from Nov. 9 – Nov. 19.

Please visit our Millburn Flag Page to donate and leave a personal message of dedication if you would like:

https://support.dav.org/participants/-mes

We wanted to send a quick reminder about our morning attendance procedures.

Our school day begins at 8:00 a.m. Students who arrive after the 8:00 a.m. bell but before 8:30 a.m. are considered tardy and will be marked accordingly in our attendance system.

If a student arrives after 8:30 a.m., our school attendance guidelines require that the student be recorded as a half-day absence.

We understand that mornings don't always go as planned, and we appreciate families making every effort to have students at school and ready to learn by 8:00 a.m. Being on time helps students start their day with their classmates and avoid missing important instruction and morning routines.

Thank you for your partnership in helping our students have a successful start to each school day!

Students in 2nd and 5th grades will be taking the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) the week of November 2nd. Information from the Otis-Lennon is part of the district’s universal screening tools to help identify gifted learners. This test focuses on analytic thinking and problem solving strategies. The four main categories are: verbal, nonverbal, figural reasoning, and quantitative reasoning.

If students are absent, they may take this test the following week. For second graders this requires two sessions (one of 25 minutes and one of about 30 minutes). Fifth graders take the test in one session of about 45 minutes.

Homeroom teachers will be proctoring these tests with students in the classroom. If you wish your child to opt-out from testing, please contact your child’s teacher.

DON’T LET THE MEMORIES BE JUST A BLUR!

The school year is already full of laughs, learning, friendships, adventures, and moments we’ll want to remember forever!

Make sure your child has a copy of the 2026–2027 Yearbook to look back on all the fun, friendships, silly moments, and memories that made this year special.

Order your yearbook today! Click on the following link to place your order: 26-27 Yearbook

Because someday they’ll say, “Remember when…?” And you’ll be glad you have the pictures to prove it!

We are excited to announce our Halloween celebrations on Friday, October 30, from 1:00 PM until the end of the day. EPIC will be providing all the fun activities for the event.

Important Notes:

• No Goodie Bags or Food Items: Due to the many allergies in our building and to prevent the spread of germs, students should not bring in goodie bags or food items. EPIC will provide all materials for our celebrations, so there’s no need for additional items. Thank you for understanding and helping keep everyone safe!

Costume Guidelines:

• Do not wear costumes to school: Students should bring their costumes to school and change before the celebration.
• Costume Independence: Students must be able to put on their costumes by themselves, over their regular clothes.
• Classroom Costume Change: Costumes will be put on in the classrooms.
• School-Appropriate Costumes: Costumes should be appropriate for school—no blood, weapons, or anything that may be deemed inappropriate for a school setting.

Thank you for your cooperation, and we look forward to a fun and festive Halloween!

A snack will be provided at the celebration, which will be a small bag of fruit snack. Nutritional information is below.

Erin’s Law, House Bill 6193, was signed by Governor Pat Quinn on January 24, 2013. This law requires schools to implement an age-appropriate sexual assault and abuse awareness and prevention curriculum for grades pre-K through 12.

We are very pleased to share that Childhood Victories will be assisting our schools with the curriculum entitled Be Seen and Heard©, a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program. This curriculum is developmentally appropriate, interactive, and aligned with the learning standards associated with the law.

The focus of the presentation is to teach students basic skills to keep them safe from dangerous or abusive situations. The concepts that will be discussed are:

• Distinguishing safe from unsafe touches
• Safety rules at home and school
• Saying "NO"
• Safe/Unsafe Secrets
• It’s not the child’s fault if someone touches him or her.
• Telling a trusted adult

To learn more about this curriculum, go to www.PeaceofMindVideos.com.

Childhood Victories will be presenting at Millburn Elementary on Wednesday, November 4.

Requests to Opt-Out: If you prefer that your child opt-out of this prevention education session, please email your child’s classroom teacher.

Our 5th grade is about to study an important lesson on the early stages of puberty, which many fifth graders may already be entering. We will be introducing the term “puberty” to students, and we will be discussing the changes surrounding this significant life change for students. These lessons will take place on November 5, lasting about 40 minutes. Mrs. Dekorsi and Mr. Walshire will be teaching this amazing topic to our 5th grade students.

Mrs. Dekorsi will be providing instruction for the girls, and Mr. Walshire will be providing instruction for the boys. Mrs. Dekorsi and Mr. Walshire have a tremendous amount of experience in teaching adolescents and have taught this topic previously. This can be a very awkward and confusing developmental stage, and our hope is to provide students with some accurate and encouraging information to help them navigate the upcoming years.

The objectives of the lessons for both groups are:

• Understand the definition of puberty

• Identify the physical, social, mental, and emotional changes associated with puberty

• Introduce basic changes to female (to girls group) and male (to boys group) anatomy

• Identify the benefits of having a trusted adult when discussing and understanding puberty

We will be covering some general changes that children face during puberty, and we anticipate that students will have more questions than we will be able to cover during our lesson. The goal is to give students some basic knowledge about their changing bodies, and hopefully this will spur some follow-up conversations with some trusted adults for those deeper conversations when they are ready.

We realize that this can be a sensitive topic for students and parents alike. Please feel free to contact us with any questions about the content of our lessons. Our intent is to support parents with these difficult conversations, and not to replace the conversations you have with your children. If you prefer to have your child opt out of this discussion, please contact your child’s teacher. Below is a link to some of the information for families to use as a reference for any follow-up discussions or deeper conversations that may come up. Please contact me with any questions by email bwalshire@millburn24.net, or phone at 847-245-2800.

Always Changing- Boy’s Guide

Always Changing- Girls Guide

After just seven weeks of school, our Lost and Found has already collected a LOT of items! 🧥🧢💧

We have jackets, sweatshirts, water bottles, lunch containers, and other items that are looking for their owners.

If your child is missing something, please take a moment to check the Lost and Found the next time you are at school. You may just find that missing sweatshirt or water bottle hiding in there!

We will continue to add items throughout the fall, but at winter break, all remaining Lost and Found items will be collected and donated. Please encourage your child to check for any missing items before then.

Thanks for helping us get these items back to their owners!

Did you know the Millburn cafeteria offers plant based meals? To ensure accurate ordering of these food items, parents are required to sign-up for the program. Please complete the form by clicking here, to register your child(ren). If you signed up for the plant based menu last year, you do not need to sign up again; last year's enrollment in the plant based menu will carry forward while your student is enrolled at Millburn.

We Need You — Now Hiring Bus Drivers!

Join our team at Millburn School District 24! We are currently hiring bus drivers and offering paid training throughout the summer.

• Paid Training
• Great Opportunity for Parents and Retirees
• Make a Difference in Your Community

Apply today or contact Kathy Gardner at kgardner@millburn24.net for more information.

Email: bwalshire@millburn24.net
Phone: 847-245-2800

Director of Teaching and Learning

Email: kgedville@millburn24.net

Assistant Principal

Email: sdekorsi@millburn24.net