Allen Elementary News

May has arrived, and with it comes a wonderful sense of celebration! It is a season where we get to see a full year of hard work culminate in incredible student success. Looking around our classrooms, the growth we see—not just in test scores, but in confidence and character—is truly worth cheering for.

While our days are currently filled with the happy 'busy-ness' of end-of-year activities, we are also looking forward with great anticipation. This year is particularly special as we prepare for our transition to neighborhood schools. We see this change as a fantastic opportunity for our students to bring the spirit of excellence they’ve cultivated here into new settings, strengthening our entire community.

There is such a bright future ahead for our kids, and while we will certainly miss seeing some of them in the Allen hallways, we are so excited to watch them shine in their new 'neighborhood' homes. We are finishing this year with a high-energy as we enter a summer of excitement and new beginnings!

May 13th our kids will get their chance to Dunk the Principals! Each student who attended every day of testing and put forth maximum effort on their ATLAS end of year testing using all the strategies they practiced will get a chance to throw at the dunk tank. Mrs. Hutto and Mr. Yocham will be in the tank all day as promised for all the hard work!

May 19th our kids will enjoy a fun filled rotations of activities and games for a portion of thier day. Field day for our first and second graders is a class event in which classes rotate to various events they can participate together and enjoy the last few days with their classmates. It is not a whole day event, as our students don't yet have the endurance for that type of day. Water bottles and tennis shoes are encouraged as many of the stations will be outside.

Friday, May 15th the SSHS Senior Class will walk the halls of Allen in our traditional senior walk. This is a sweet moment of connection as our littles get to see where all thier hard work is headed one day when they are the ones wearing caps and gowns. Our staff loves it too as they get to see familiar faces all grown up and headed on to their next phase of life.

May 22nd will be the last day of the 2025-2026 school year! We can't believe it's already here. Happy Summer Break to all our kids and thier families!

Our first graders did an amazing job at their April Spring Music Program! It was so fun to see thier big smiles and well practiced hand motions to all the songs.

Our kids took thier ATLAS End of Year exam a few weeks ago. Math scores are already coming in and they are exciting! More than 150 Allen kids earned a gold medal for increasing thier Summative Score a whole level in Math! Reading scores are delayed as many of those have to be hand scored by the state since our students record themselves reading. We know we will be proud of those scores too.

Keep up the progress your student has made by continuing to practice reading all summer long. Check out the Siloam Springs Public Library Summer Program for stories, crafts and prizes! Set aside a reading time every day or set goals for how many books your child can read this summer. The power of keeping those reading skills sharp cannot be understated. Research shows that reading just six books over the summer can prevent a struggling reader from regressing. Furthermore, children who read as few as 20 minutes a day are exposed to roughly 1.8 million words per year, significantly boosting their vocabulary and comprehension levels compared to peers who do not read outside of school.