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Elm Creek Public Schools Mission Statement:

At Elm Creek Public Schools we will:

Be Kind

Be Respectful

Be Responsible

BeTrustworthy

Be Accountable

Be Honest

and Give Great Effort.

Dear Elm Creek School Families and Community Members,

Please join us on Wednesday, October 19th in the school commons area from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for the opportunity to provide community input into current and future initiatives as our school district looks for innovative and effective ways to meet the growing challenges facing public education in the 21st century.

While this meeting is an opportunity to discuss specific questions, it also reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring that our district programs reflect the values and wisdom of our local community. As we look to prepare our students for college and career, we want to be sure we understand our community’s perspectives in the following areas:

1. Identify the challenges that currently impact or may impact the district and community in the future.

2. What more can the district do to attract students/families to the area to grow enrollment?

3. Identify what you believe are the most important areas the district might focus on to improve and expand learning facilities and grounds. (Functionality of learning space, Safety and security, Building access and parking, Capacity to support student enrollment, Building maintenance, Extracurricular facilities and grounds, Other)

4. How can the Board/District improve communication to inform patrons of the district’s needs and priorities?

The input we receive from the community will influence all future, developing, and existing initiatives and innovations. We believe that when citizens deliberate about an issue and when a community is engaged in decision-making, the directions chosen are often better and more sustainable. We would very much appreciate your input, and hope you are able to attend.

Please let us know by October 17th whether you will be able to attend. Call us at 308-856-4300 or email us at bret.schroder@elmcreekschools.org with your response or any questions.

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Bret Schroder, Superintendent

Elm Creek Public Schools

Alicia Beavers, President

Elm Creek School Board

October 4, 2022

Hello!

Fall is in the air. It is awesome to drive around and see all the colors of fall, and to have the cooler temperatures in the mornings and evenings. October also means the end of our first nine weeks of school. Please remind your students to ensure they have all their make-up work completed, and their missing assignments turned in. You can check their grades and assignments by logging into the Parent PowerSchool portal. If you do not know how to do this please contact Mrs. Shoff in the office and she will get you set up with a username and password.

SECONDARY FAMILIES

Hello Elm Creek Families!

Wow! I can’t believe October is here. This means conference tournaments, playoff football, and districts and state competitions for Fall Sports. This time of year also is the time for us to take some of our important college placement exams. This month our Juniors and several other of our higher achieving students will be taking the ACT and P-SAT. These tests qualify students for so many financial opportunities for college. The ACT test is the main determining factor in money that is earned for college for our students. A score of 25 could earn a student anywhere from $2,000 a year to $20,000 a year depending on the school. The P-SAT is a test that is not looked at by many colleges and universities in our area, but is the main factor in qualifying for National Merit Scholarships. These scholarships put thousands of dollars into the pockets of students across the US every year. We would love to see our kids start earning more of this money that is out there for the taking. Please encourage your students to give their best effort and to be well rested the night before we take these tests. We will take the P-SAT on October 12th and the ACT on October 18th.

Student Success:

In my first month and a half here at Elm Creek I have been observing many things trying to get a grasp on what we can do better to help our students enjoy their time here, and be successful academically. It has become very clear to me that one of our biggest obstacles to academic success is our students failing to complete assignments. This has a direct impact on the grade for that assignment the student does not get credit for then also down the road on quizzes and tests that cover the content that was missed. Put this all together, and it very negatively affects the overall grade for the student.. I worked with the staff to come up with a plan on how we can stay on top of this and ensure kids are getting assignments completed in a timely manner helping their overall academic success. If a student has a missing assignment or a failing grade they are required to come in after school until 4 PM to get the assignment done. This will allow the student an opportunity to get extra one on one help if they need it. We feel this is the best way we can help our kids be successful. Individual students that choose to skip these extended learning time will be given a 30 minute detention for missing. Continued skipping will cause an increase in detention or up to suspension based on the student discipline policy. Our focus here is not for kids to get in trouble. It is to help them be as prepared as they can to be successful all on all major assignments by completing the minor ones. Please help us to help them by encouraging them to get their assignments done and to show up after school if they do not. This information has been communicated to all students so they know.

Activities:

We have a lot going on here in the next few weeks as we wind down the Fall Sports/Activities season. Today or tomorrow you will see a link for playoff football apparel. The deadline to order the apparel will be Tuesday, October 11th. They have told us we would get the order completed and delivered to our school on Wednesday, October 19th ahead of the first round playoff game on Thursday, October 20th. Please be looking out for this.

The FKC Volleyball tournament is next week at multiple sites. We open up Monday, October 10th at 5 PM in Amherst. We hope you can get out to support the girls as they continue to work hard to improve. It is also a great opportunity next week to watch some very good volleyball. We have several great teams in the FKC Conference that have an opportunity to make a push in the postseason. Here is the link for the bracket for next week https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MRG0i6gVXaiseXzYJ4tsCG873vtvNJNY/view?usp=sharing

Cross Country is getting close to ending their season. This group has competed so well for Coach Micki Fries. This has been highlighted by multiple wins from Freshman Cicely Gugelman who won the FKC Conference Championship this past week, and Ayva Sullivan who has placed in the top ten at almost every meet and an 8th place finish at FKC. Then you add the supporting cast of Ashley Carlton and Trinity Cowett and you have a great opportunity to bring home some hardware like they did at FKC with their runner-up finish. On the boys side Quinn Oberg is our only boy runner, but we have watched him improve his time and finish every week. We look forward to seeing what this freshman does down the stretch. The JH has also been very good as Teagan McDaniel has won almost every JH meet of the season including her FKC Junior High Girls Championship. We have also had multiple great runs by Kendall Cavenee, Amber Hodges and Bret Hall who all won some hardware by placing in the Junior High FKC Championships. We want to wish this group luck as they compete in Districts on Friday, October 13th.

We want to give a huge shoutout to our Elm Creek Marching Band as they have almost completed their Marching Band season. They have played in several parades and competitions with only Minden Bandfest left on October 15th. This past weekend they competed in the biggest band parade in Nebraska at the Harvest of Harmony Parade. The band finished 14th in Class D and 56th overall. This is amazing considering this band is not very big, YET, and has so many junior high kids performing on it. Ms. Kitterman and this group have worked very hard and we are super proud of them and the way they represent Elm Creek in these competitions and at our home events.

ELEMENTARY FAMILIES

Hello Elm Creek Elementary Families,

We had our first PBIS monthly assembly last week! We are so proud of the students for all of the tickets they earned throughout the month of September. Some students who earned tickets were selected to participate in games throughout the assembly. Towards the end of the assembly, we choose five winners for the “Monthly Winners”. The winners included…Kahlan, Kaleb, Emmett, Tyger, and Savanna. Congrats to our monthly winners! We can’t wait to continue to earn more tickets during the month of October.

This month we are focusing on earning tickets in the area of kindness. During the assembly we reviewed what kindness means and what it looks like. Students are encouraged to earn 50 more kindness tickets than last month.

Lunch at School-Friday, October 7th:

We look forward to seeing you on Friday, October 7th. We welcome you to come eat lunch with your child during their normal lunchtime! Dr. Schroder will be grilling hamburgers and there will be a free will donation for the weightroom! There is more information on the handout that was sent home with your child earlier this week! Tours of the new elementary school will also be given from 11am-1pm.

Playground Resurface:

We appreciate your patience and flexibility during the playground project. We are excited for the small makeover our playground is receiving! Please help us keep the surface nice by staying off of it Thursday, October 6th and Friday, October 7th. We also ask that you encourage your child to take care of the new surface if they use the playground outside of school hours!

New Science Curriculum:

We have enjoyed implementing our new science curriculum this year (PhD Science). We are seeing students build deep knowledge and understanding of science. This resource has allowed students to “experience” science! As a staff we continue to receive professional development on specific areas within the science curriculum. Please click here to learn more about the curriculum.

MAP Reading Fluency:

We utilize MAP Reading Fluency to help monitor the progress of our students in between the MAP Growth assessments to help meet the students' academic goals . Check out this short video to learn more about this tool.

https://www.nwea.org/map-reading-fluency/

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• A reminder for all parents that now that we are back to our regular priced meals this means your children are able to charge to their accounts. Please make sure you have a conversation with them about whether or not you would like them to charge extras and/or a’la carte items to their lunch account. We realize this can add up very quickly. We try to have items for all price ranges, .25, .50, and .75 and extras are still $1. If you wish to not have your child(ren) charge please call the school (308-856-4300). We cannot keep track of what they are allowed to spend.

We have had our ups and downs this season. The girls are starting to meld together and we hope they do it just as the season starts getting closer to conference and districts.

We were invited by the UNK-Loper Volleyball to attend their game on Tuesday October 4 vs. Washburn. It was a really good team bonding event. It is great that the girls will see some really competitive volleyball.

October 6th is Senior Night. We will honor all of our team and parents and have a special last hurrah for our seniors Denise Hunt and Rylee Gutzwiller. We hope to see you there!

Thanks,

Coach Killion

Hello all,

Our season continues to roll as we have now moved to 6-0. The boys have done a great job at working to improve every week and not resting on their laurels. It is great to see every single one of them stay hungry for more.

The boys were really tested in the middle of the month by a tough Central Valley team. We won 52-48 and that was a game I do not think any of us will forget. I was proud of the boys' mental toughness to fight through that game. If you want to make a deep run in the playoffs, you are going to have to win games like that. Of course, if I am going to talk about this game, I have to mention the hail mary. All eight guys had to execute their assignment to make that play possible. I will admit, I probably re-watched that 20 times that night. Unbelievable.

Next, we had to refocus after a crazy win to take on a traditional power in Burwell. Even though they lost a lot from last year, Burwell is always going to be a tough win. We had a slow start in the first 3 quarters, but the boys did a good job of rallying and finishing the game with a 36-14.

In the JV’s last game of the season, we defeated Pleasanton 36-20. In what seemed to be the theme for a few days, we had a slow start to this one as well. We were down 14-0 and playing very sloppy. But, they outscored them 36-6 to finish the game. I was happy to see the development of all of those guys throughout the game and this season in general. A couple of guys had great performances and definitely proved that they had earned some varsity minutes.

On my first high school Saturday night game, we visited the Overton Eagles. It is hard to find something to complain about when you outscore an opponent 36-0 in the first quarter. But, the team knows that I will find a way ;). It was great to get our JV’s some valuable varsity experience in this one. Especially since we did not get as many JV games as we would have liked. Great overall team effort.

This week, we host Twin Loup on Parents Night. This will be our toughest test in the last few weeks. But, we are looking forward to the challenge as we always do. Hope to see a great crowd for the last regular season home game.

Lastly, I typically do not mention individual players in my newsletter as I believe football is the ultimate team game and we are all in this together. But, I wanted to mention Lucas Hodges. Lucas got another concussion in our JV game against Ansley-Litchfield and it more than likely ended his football career. It is heart-breaking when that happens to any of your players, but when it happens to a kid with a work ethic like his, it hits a little harder. It is hard to find someone with a motor like him. Coaching kids like him makes this one of the best jobs to have and I know he will be successful in whatever he does in the future.

Go Buffs!

Coach Rohde

Elm Creek School District's mission is to... Educate all students based on high educational standards. Support a safe environment that welcomes diversity and mutual respect among adults and students. Prepare all students, in cooperation with staff, family and community, to be well-rounded contributing members of society.

Notice of Non-Discrimination

The Elm Creek Public School District hereby gives this statement of compliance and intends to comply with all state and federal laws prohibiting discrimination. This school district intends to take any necessary measures to assure compliance with such laws against any prohibited form of discrimination.

Elementary Students: Terah Williams, Principal, 230 East Calkins Ave., Elm Creek, NE 68836, (308) 856-4953, terah.williams@elmcreekschools.org

Secondary Students: Brandon Marquez, Principal, 230 East Calkins Ave., Elm Creek, NE 68836, (308) 856-4300, brandon.marquez@elmcreekschools.org

Employees and Others: Dr. Bret Schroder, Superintendent 230 East Calkins Ave., Elm Creek, NE 68836, (308) 856-4300, bret.schroder@elmcreekschools.org

Administration:

Dr. Bret Schroder, Superintendent.

Brandon Marquez, Secondary Principal

Terah Williams, Elementary Principal

Newsletter Publisher

Chris Shoff

Questions, Comments or ideas for future newsletter articles...

email: chris.shoff@elmcreekschools.org

Email: chris.shoff@elmcreekschools.org
Website: https://www.elmcreekschools.org/
Location: Elm Creek Public School, 230 E Calkins Ave, Elm Creek, NE 68836, USA
Phone: 308-856-4300
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElmCreekBuffs
Twitter: @ElmCreekBuffs