Gold Rush Elementary

Principal's Message - February 16, 2024

“Foster Growth by Challenging Critical Thinkers to Take Risks,

Honor Differences & Care for Others”

CELEBRATING VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine's Day is a festive holiday enjoyed by all. It is an opportunity for students to spread kindness and celebrate with each other. It is also a chance for students' creativity to shine! We were blown away by students’ Valentine’s boxes and cards. Classes enjoyed special treats, activities and of course their parties. We thank our parent volunteers for their donations and for making the day so memorable.

We hope you too enjoyed the day!

STUDENT COUNCIL ORGANIZES KINDNESS WEEK

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Gold Rush's Student Council organized a kindness week for the school. Members of the Student Council created daily kindness challenges that they shared on the announcements. They encouraged their peers to say positive affirms that they posted throughout the school. They celebrated students walking into school and shared positive affirmation bracelets. They also displayed several kindness acts that they drafted themselves on a kindness tree. Challenges included setting the dinner table, complimenting others, high fiving a new friend and picking up trash. It was fun to see so many students accept these challenges.

We could not be more proud of the students' leadership and commitment to spreading kindness at school, at home and in the community.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING FRIDAY

Teachers came together during the Professional Learning Day Friday to analyze data across grade levels and plan for students’ different needs. Teachers reviewed students’ analytical writing, or their written responses to one or more texts. Teachers used grade level rubrics to identify strong examples. Teachers will use these common rubrics and examples with students as a learning tool. Teachers also analyzed current math assessments and tasks. They identified grade level trends and planned activities to address students’ ongoing needs and next steps.

In the afternoon grade level teams planned upcoming writing units. As you recall, all grade levels are implementing the Benchmark Writing Workshop for the first time this year. Teachers explored the resources and objectives of upcoming units.

It was a great day of reflection and learning.

UNPACKING & RESHELVING

The work in the new library continues! With most of the furniture and shelving installed, Gold Rush staff started re-shelving over 8,000 books this week. As you can imagine this is quite the undertaking! Librarian Mrs. Golish also displayed several new titles, which she is excited to share when the library reopens. These books were purchased with proceeds from the fall book fair.

The majority of the remodel should be complete by the end of next week. We are going to reveal the new space to students next Friday. We invite the parent community to visit the space before and after school on Thursday, February 29th and before school on Friday, March 1st. Please see the flier in the blog next week. The library will be rearranged for the spring book fair and we want parents to have the opportunity to see the space set as it was designed.