Eagle News

U.S. News & World Report recognized Cypress Woods Elementary among the 2025 Best Elementary Schools!!

Cypress Woods has been ranked as the the No. 4 Elementary School in Pinellas County, and the top traditional school in the district. This places CWE among the 2025 Best Elementary School rankings by U.S. News & World Report, including a top 100 ranking in the state of Florida. The rankings include more than 79,000 public elementary and middle schools across the country. Schools are ranked at the state and district level, with Best Charter Schools and Best Magnet Schools ranked as stand-alone categories.

The methodology focuses on state assessments of students who were proficient or above proficient in mathematics and reading/language arts while accounting for student backgrounds, achievement in core subjects, and how well schools are educating their students. Student-teacher ratios are applied to break ties in the overall score. The 2025 Best Elementary and Best Middle Schools rankings are based on publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Education. For district-level rankings, at least two of the top performing schools must rank in the top 75% of the overall elementary or middle school rankings to qualify for district-level recognition.

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Thank you families!! This continued amazing news certainly makes all of the staff at CWE extremely proud of our hard work and your students' hard work. These recognitions do not happen without our amazing community supporting the work on campus. Thank you to all of our families for your support and help with your students' academics. Most importantly, thank you for believing in our work here at CWE. We are so thankful for our partnership as a true community school! Cypress Woods is a place where our Eagles truly SOAR!!

Cypress Woods U.S. News & World Reports Ranking

Cypress Woods has been recognized every year the US News and World Report has completed a ranking for Best Elementary Schools!

ATTENDANCE MATTERS

When a student is absent from school for any reason, parents are to send in a written note to the teacher explaining the absence or email the school at cypresswoodses.absence@pcsb.org and copy the teacher on the email. Absences will remain unexcused until such documentation is received by the school. Children with poor attendance patterns may be referred to the Pinellas County Truancy Intervention Program. Class work is required to be made up during or after an excused absence. Upon returning to school following an excused absence, a student has as many days to make up the work as days absent. A doctor’s note is required to excuse a student from PE for more than 3 days and documentation is required for absences exceeding 5 days.

We are working to complete our second round of progress monitoring assessments in Reading and Math. Thank you for all your support in preparing your child for making sure they were present during testing. Teachers will use the information gathered during testing to inform instructional planning.

Parents of students in grades 3 through 5 can access their child’s scores in the Focus parent portal. For students in grades VPK – grade 2, score reports will be sent home.

As you review these scores, please remember that these assessments encompass an entire year’s curriculum, and we expect students will grow throughout the year.

If you have any questions regarding your child’s score, please reach out to your child’s teacher.

12/9-12/13: Holiday Shoppe

12/9-12/13: 5th Grade Candy Grams

12/13: Family Lunch

12/13: PTA Movie Night w/ Food Trucks gates open 5:45 (first movie 6:30)

12/18: Winter Holiday Concert 6:30-7:30

12/23-1/03: WINTER BREAK: NO SCHOOL

1/6: School Resumes (Full Day - Previous Hurricane Day)

STEM Clubs are up and running. Please pick up your child in the back car line (bus circle) Mon-Thurs if your child attends STEM Club during one of those days. Pick up is at 4pm.

Thank You 🙂

Season’s Greetings Volunteers!

It’s hard to believe that the holiday season is upon us! We have so many things to be thankful for, our volunteers being high on our list. CWE has recently been recognized as a 2025 US News & World Report’s Best Elementary School for the 3rd year in a row! This distinction is possible, in part, due to the support we receive from our CWE families and community partners. Thanks for all you do!

The first semester is ending soon, please take a few minutes to log into the volunteer system and record all your volunteer hours! Every hour counts (PTA, SAC, Classroom, Lunch Pals, Filed Trips, helping form home, etc.) and shows the community involvement at our school when this data is shared with the Florida Department of Education each semester. The date of the volunteering is not as important as the hours themselves, you can log them all under the current date in one chunk if the activity is the same, otherwise make multiple entries based on the activity. I have attached instructions to the volunteer system that include the web page address and the login format. Please contact me if you need assistance logging your hours.

CWE needs more Lunch Pal mentors, especially male volunteers! Lunch pals meet with a student who may be struggling at school or home, or they simply need extra attention from another caring adult in their life. They meet once a week during the student’s 30-minute lunch period. Please follow this link to learn about this program and sign up for the free district training to become a Lunch Pal mentor: www.pcsb.org/mentor

Give the gift of a classroom/program partnership! We have a few teachers and programs that have not yet been fully sponsored for this school year. A full partnership is $100, but any amount will be accepted and go directly into enhancing the classroom/program for our students. Please see the list below and use the attached form to send in your tax-deductible donation.

• Kindergarten – Jakubowski ($50 short of $100)
• First Grade – Robinson ($50 short of $100)
• Third Grade – Pocrnich ($55 short of $100); Roseney ($75 short of $100)
• Fourth Grade – Hodges ($75 short of $100)
• Fifth Grade – Hardgrove ($50 short of $100); Karlesky ($60 short of $100); Leto ($60 short of $100)
• Art – Sikorski ($30 short of $100)
• Music – Richter ($30 short of $100)
• Gifted – Paulson ($50 short of $100)
• Media Center – Reyes ($80 short of $100)
• PT – Esker ($50 short of $100)

Important Dates and Opportunities:

• The PTA Giving Tree – 11/19 – 12/13 – Level 2 Volunteers, we need YOU! Please help us make this a season to remember by signing up to help to help children pick an ornament off our Giving Tree. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0E4BACAB2DAAF94-53274828-giving
• Three Brothers Pizza Spirit Day, Thu. Dec. 5th – 11 AM – 9 PM (see flyer attached) Dine- in, Delivery or Take-out and be sure to tell them you are with CYPRESS WOODS ELEMENTARY. They will donate a portion of the sales back to our school.
• The Volunteer Café, Friday, December 6th - Join us between 9:30 AM and Noon to work on various projects for our classroom teachers. Breakfast snacks and coffee will be provided, meet other volunteers, and support our teachers. Please RSVP to shipleyk@pcsb.org Mark your calendars: 1/10. 2/7 & 3/7 for other upcoming Volunteer Cafés.
• Friday, December 13th – Friday Family Lunch – This event needs a minimum of 3 Level 2 volunteers per lunch period in order to happen. Please sign up here so everyone can enjoy this special event: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0F48ABA62BA31-51529096-friday#/ Simply plan to stay an extra 30 minutes before or after your child’s lunch and it would be a huge help!

If you are participating, please remember:

• Don’t arrive earlier than 5 minutes prior to your child’s lunchtime
• Bring your driver’s license to check in (as well as some patience)
• You may only have lunch with YOUR student, no friends can join unless their parent is present
• Students must remain seated with their parent/relatives, no running or playing in the amphitheater or turf areas
• Please return your student to the cafeteria before you leave
• The Level 2 volunteers wear a yellow vest and are the only ones permitted into our cafeteria to retrieve a student and are there to assist you.

• Friday, Dec. 13th is PTA Holiday Movie Night – 5:30 PM watch for more information about this event from our PTA or email them at cweptaboard@gmail.com if you have questions or want to volunteer to assist them.
• Winter Break Dec. 23rd -Jan. 3rd – No School
• Monday, Jan. 6th - School Resumes (hurricane make-up day)

Wishing you and your family a healthy and happy holiday season and we hope 2025 will be filled with happiness and blessings!

Thanks again for all you do for our school!!

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