On Wednesday, my daughter had a XC meet. Her calf had been hurting her all week and she had been resting and recovering. When she showed up to the meet on Wednesday, she wasn't even sure she was going to run. She warmed up with her team and decided she'd give it a try. Well, to everyone's surprise, she ended up running a new PR.

Why do I tell this story? October is here and we know that behaviors are going to ramp up. Teachers are tired and sicknesses are bound to arrive. Your health comes first and I want all of you to be 100%. I would never say to not take a day if you are physically or mentally unwell. However, sometimes it's hard to get out of bed but then you do and it's a PR kind of day. Sometimes, a good sleep can turn a previous bad mood into a good enough or even great mood. I appreciate all of your hard work. This is just a little reminder that a PR can happen even on the most perfectly unperfect of days!

Our energy educators are tentatively scheduled to visit as follows:

Thursday, October 5th at 1:45 pm in the Gym

New to Think! Energy? Watch the 8-minute Tips and Tricks Presentation. Register with your school email to earn a $25 eGift Card if you have not watched it before.

Our Town Hall time has changed from 2:00 to 10:45 due to the presentation.

Town Hall will be at 10:45 in the gym on Thursday, October 5. Please complete the slide for your Student of the Month. For this first Student of the Month, we are looking for someone who has been following all of our expectations. As each month goes on, we will look for the student who is following the habit.

Our 5th graders have an exciting opportunity this year! The Downriver Career Technical Consortium is coming to visit!

DATE: Thursday, October 12, 2023

Beginning at 8:45 and ending before 12:45.

3 - 5th Grade classes

This will take place in the gym. They were unable to come in the afternoon. I apologize to Ms. Kozicki and the 4th grade teams as it will impact your gym schedule. Fingers crossed it's nice weather outside!

Here’s an example of a visit:

The tentative plan is to have 5 or 6 CTE programs represented on the scheduled date(s). DCTC staff should arrive early to prepare for the day. Then high school students arrive to set up their activity.

The students in a 5th grade class are divided into 5 or 6 groups. Each group will begin at a different table and will spend approximately 8 - 9 minutes participating in a hands on activity with 2 - 3 high school students. Each group will rotate through all programs. They will give the teacher a DCTC item for each student and ask them to hand them out after completing the students complete the survey. This is repeated for each 5th grade class.

Prior to the visit. Please discuss careers with your students and have them take the career interest survey.

Thank you to Colleen for organizing this book study. We have copies of the books for those who signed up. Our first meeting will be October 10th at 8:00 am in lounge.

Here is the link for the Fountas and PInnell Benchmark Assessment Calendar and guidelines.

By September 30th you should have your Performance Goal, IDP (If applicable), Student Growth Data, and Self Assessment Done. If you still have questions, reach out!

For Student Growth Data, under Assessment 3 put School MSTEP data and under Assessment 4 put District MSTEP data..

Fourth and 5th Grades: For Reading, you may choose to continue to use F & P data but it is recommended to try the pre and post assessment in Amplify.

Thank you to all of you for putting Kara's link in your newsletters. Here is the link if you need it. Thanks to Kara and Dane for heading this up this fall!

Run Club will begin on October 4, 2023 April and will last for 7 weeks this fall and continue back up on April 16, 2024 for another 7 weeks. We invite students in grades 2nd through 5th to run/walk every Wednesday morning before school. Each Run Club morning is weather dependent, of course. If it is raining, or the weather is unsafe for runners to participate, that day's Run Club will be cancelled. Proper cold weather attire is recommended on days it is chilly. The course is the track located behind our school. Start time is 8:00 AM sharp. We will be on the route until the school doors open. Students will track their mileage each day they participate.

The Crisis Team met last Monday. We are creating a new emergency folder for you to use. It will contain the following:

• Student List

• New Maps

• Directions for Fire

• Directions for Tornado

• Directions for Lock Down

• Sub Check In for Emergency Protocol with Extension

Blue Backpack

Please take your Blue Backpack with you to recess.

Please make sure you have copies of your emergency forms in your backpack.

We understand that the Blue Backpacks have not been updated with new supplies recently. Julie Raymond sent me this checklist of what should be in the blue backpack. Please print this checklist and inventory your backpack if you have not yet this year. Please check expiration dates of glucose tabs.

Tornado Drill

Students did a great job following expectations. The hallways were so quiet and students were in formation. You all moved quickly and quietly. We will review the feedback as I know we still have some areas we are trying to improve.

Upcoming Drills

Our first Lock Down Drill will be Tuesday, October 3 at 10:45.

Check out the awesome I-Ready For Donuts chart in Erika's room! What a great engagement strategy for lesson passed!

We had our first ODRs this week. These ODRs did meet the major infraction criteria however please make sure you review the PBIS flowchart to ensure you understand majors and minors. Ask questions if you are unsure!

ODRS are entered into the MiStar system with a few exceptions. All of them are kept and housed in the office.

Remember Expectations, Relationships, Communication!

Thank you to Erika for sharing her classroom incentives for i-Ready.

Thank you to our Special Ed team for a very thorough evaluation of a new Gibraltar student!

Thank you to Joel for amazing organization of the PBIS party!

Parent Shout Outs:

Brittany Smithson for going above and beyond to make sure my child is feeling loved and taken care of while at school.

Mrs. Pendergast! My son, Gio, wanted me to call her last Saturday to tell her he missed her! I was so worried Gio wouldn’t like school or want to make his teacher proud like he does, so that was so sweet to hear he missed her on a Saturday!

Today, my husband and I came in for our son's annual IEP meeting and met with Mrs Przepiora & Mrs Rose. We really appreciated them taking time out of their day to go over the IEP and explain to us what he will be working on this year in speech class. We left the meeting talking about how we could feel that they both genuinely care very much about our son and the goals he has for this year. So, to the both of these ladies— we say thank you!!!

Staff Shout Outs:

Who would you like to Shout Out? Fill out the form here.

https://forms.gle/GQ4FtXAbx55YZUdN6

Spark Staff Member of the Week: Erika Izbicki

Here were just a few moments of joy-spotting Dane saw in Erika.

• She is a true leader and always will go to the extra lengths for her students. Never negative about students and always looking at how she can do more!
• Always positive and a Wikipedia of ideas for the classroom
• A book about classroom culture could be written about her room!

I asked Erika the following questions.

• What brings you joy? Watching my boys play hockey and seeing their passion and dedication to the sport.
• How do you bring joy to others? I love baking and making surprise deliveries to my friends & family, and also I try to be intentional with complimenting others.
• Who is someone that brings joy to you? My 4 children always, but especially my daughter Eva as of lately; as she's growing older the things she says and does brings the whole family laughter, love, and joy. We all can't get enough of her cute personality.

Spark will hang out with Erika for a week. She is going to try to spot joy in others and will pass on Spark next week. Stay tuned!

Spark Student of the Week: Nellie

Nellie always comes to school with a smile on her face and ready to learn. Nellie gives great hugs!

I asked Nellie the following questions.

• What brings you joy? My family
• How do you bring joy to others? I give smiles and hugs
• Who is someone that brings joy to you? My brother Beckham

Thank you to 4th grade for signing up! Please talk with your colleagues and chose a month! Team work makes the dream work! News articles should be short articles with one picture. Please sign up for one month as a grade, special, or committee. Even better, have a student group write an article! Here is the sign up.

We have a staff meeting this week at 7:45 am. Our main focus will be PBIS. We will review September Data, prepare for Clubs, and answer questions. We will also discuss AI in education and the Halloween Parade.

Wahoo!! We have raised $12,000 towards our school goal of $20,000.. We will be raising funds from 9/18-10/27. The Fun Run Event will take place on October 19, 2023. Check out the flyers below for more information!

Check out this low prep engagement strategy! It's on the CBD website under Relatedness but is a strategy developed by a national teacher of the year.

CONVER-STATIONS >

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers’ ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn’t happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group’s conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Thanks to Tammy for letting me know about this cool contest! Enter at this link if you are interested in a truck load of books!

Last chance to register!!

September 8, 2023

September 18, 2023

September 25, 2023

October 3rd: Lock Down Drill 10:45

October 4th: Picture Day and Count Day

October 5th: Staff Meeting 7:45, Town Hall 10:45

October 19th: Fun Run

October 23rd-24th: No School Autumn Break

October 26th: Trunk or Treat

October 31st: Halloween Parade

November 3rd: Half Day-Dismissal 11:55 Parent Teacher Conferences

November 7th: No School-Professional Development Day

November 9th: Half Day-Dismissal 11:55 Parent Teacher Conferences

November 10th: Veteran's Day, Half Day-Dismissal 11:55 Parent Teacher Conferences

November 20th or 21st: Turkey Trot TBD

November 22nd-24th: Thanksgiving Break

December 2nd: Gibraltar Christmas Parade

December 18th-19th: Santas's Shop

December 19th: Cookies with Santa PM

December 22nd: Last Day before Winter Break