Tree Frog News

On Your Marks… Get Set… HOP! 🐸

💚 Shout-Outs of the Week!

A big shout-out to our teachers for the long hours and thoughtful conversations during conferences last week! We are so close to 100% family participation—a milestone we have never reached before!

Thank you to every family who made time to connect with your child’s teacher. We hope you left feeling informed, encouraged, and confident about how we can work together to support your child’s growth. If you still have questions or haven’t had your conference yet, please reach out. Your partnership matters!

This Week’s Happenings

We hope everyone enjoyed fall break and had a chance to relax and recharge! Fall certainly seems to have arrived, bringing more jackets, sweatshirts, and hats to school. Please take a moment to write your child’s name on each item so misplaced belongings can find their way home.

We have a busy week ahead:

• Tuesday: Fall Picture Day! Bring those Tree Frog smiles!

• Tuesday: Third grade heads to the Georgia Aquarium. Families, please remember that students will return to school around 4:30 p.m.

• Thursday: Our Lilly Pad Luncheon celebrates September’s Leaders of the Month!

• Thursday: Join us for Spooky STEM Night and some frightfully fun learning and PIZZA!! (See flyer below)

• Friday: After walking your student to class, join us for our monthly PTO meeting in the Media Center form 7:45 - 8:45 AM.

We look forward to welcoming everyone back tomorrow!

Every school day brings opportunities to learn, connect, and grow. Let’s make the most of them by being at school!!

Keep hopping forward, Tree Frogs!! 🐸

• NO SCHOOL

Tuesday, October 20th

• Fall Picture Day
• 3rd Grade Field Trip - Georgia Aquarium - returning at 4:30 PM
• Girls Basketball Practice until 4:00 PM

• Unity Day - Wear Orange
• Boys Basketball Practice until 4:00 PM
• Mr. Diaz's Birthday!!

Thursday, October 22nd:

• Lily Pad luncheon for September Tree Frog Leaders

• Volleyball Pictures and Celebration 2:40-4:00 PM

• Cheer Practice 2:40-4:00

• Girls Basketball Practice 2:40-4:00

• STEP Team Practice 3:00-4:00

• Spooky Stem Night - 6:00 - 7:30 (See flyer below)

• Second grade field trip to UGA
• PTO meeting 7:45 - 8:45 AM - Walk your student to class
• Ms. Reita's birthday!

We are excited to announce that we will have a Spooky STEM night on October 22nd from 6:00 - 7:30 PM. This event is being put on by UGA student. Please join us for fun exploring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics....and eating PIZZA! This is event is free for all families!

For more information pertaining to E-SPLOST, please click here.

Let's keep the good attendance rolling! Our goal is to see if we can make 10 consecutive weeks with our total number of weekly absences under 100. Twomore to go!

Our school’s average daily attendance rate continues to hover above 95%! This means that we are averaging about 21 absences a day. In relation to last year, we are averaging 2 less absences a day.

If you have a student in Kindergarten, please do your best to get them to school! Kindergarten is a pivotal year. Data indicate that students missing more than 10 days for the whole year are at greater risk of a multitude of learning challenges including reading and math achievement, social emotional development, and executive functioning skills such as working working memory and cognitive flexibility. Please read the following articles for more information on the importance of attendance in Kindergarten.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10104485/

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/why-kindergarten-attendance-matters-for-the-whole-school/2023/05

Thanks to everyone who supported our book fair by volunteering, shopping for new books, purchasing items for teachers' classroom libraries, and contributing to our Share the Fair funds to get more books to more kids! Because of your generous support...

⭐ ALL of our students got the opportunity to choose a book!

⭐ We were able to grant 200 teacher wishes for classroom libraries

⭐ We added 74 new books to our school library

⭐ We raised funds for even more new library books!

Tree Frogs, be on the lookout for tons of shiny new books that will be available to check out in the next couple of weeks, thanks for an amazing book fair, and--of course--happy reading! ❤️

Families, save the date for this year's storybook parade on Friday, October 30th! You are all invited to join us on the soccer turf as we march around the field in costumes inspired by our favorite books!

Homeroom teachers will all be planning a class costume based on a book their students love, and your Tree Frog can join in on the class costume for a no-stress participation option.

Students may also choose to wear their own costumes, but they must have a book to go with it! For example: if they wear a Batman costume, they have to carry a Batman book! No weapons and nothing bloody or gory please - this is an all-ages event!

Stay tuned for flyers coming home this week!

You can use any internet-connected device to navigate your Tree Frog to a wealth of digital learning resources! Some of our favorite and most-used resources can be found on our school's Clever dashboard. To access Clever, your child can either:

• Scan their Clever badge QR code with the camera on a device (perfect for K/1st) or
• Visit Clever.com and sign in with their CCSD username and password (message Mrs. Hudson or your child's teacher if you need this information!)

Once you're on Clever, choose an app! Here are some of the ones we use the most:

• iReady: Provides practice in reading and math. This logs in automatically with Clever!
• Starfall: Has tons of learning games for all ages. Log in with this info:
• username: jlb@go.starfall.com
• password: treefrogs
• Epic: Read ebooks and audiobooks! Log in with a class code from your teacher.
• Sora: Read ebooks and audiobooks! Log in with your CCSD Google Account and add Georgia Download Destination to your libraries.
• PebbleGo: Learn about people, places, animals, events, and more! This logs in automatically with Clever!

Lunch menu for October

CCSD Academic Calendar 2026-2027 (English)

CCSD Academic Calendar 2026-2027 (Spanish)

The Johnnie Lay Burks Elementary School PTO:

• Provides volunteer assistance for school-wide events
• Beautifies our school inside and out
• Raises funds for teacher and school-wide projects
• Helps connect the school and the community!

All are welcome to attend our monthly PTO meetings, which are generally held on the third Friday of each month at 7:45am in our school library. There is no cost or obligation to join! Our meetings for the 2026-27 school year will be on the following dates:

• October 23rd
• November 20th
• January 15th
• February 19th
• March 19th
• April 16th
• May 7th - voting meeting for next year's officers!

Want to learn more? Check out our PTO Welcome Video in English or Spanish:

• JLB PTO Welcome Video - English
• JLB PTO Welcome Video - Spanish

School-based health centers make accessing medical and dental care as easy as walking down the hall. Students and families throughout the district are encouraged to take advantage of one of our four school-based health centers for many of their basic healthcare needs. Click the links for additional information.

• Hilsman Middle Health Center
• Clarke Middle Health Center
• Classic City Health Center
• Coile Health Center.

CCSD offers bus transportation to students from their home school (if needed) to attend an appointment at a CCSD school-based health center. Please click this link to give permission for your student to use CCSD transportation to their appointment.

Visit this link for information about setting up and accessing the Infinite Campus Parent Portal, where you can update view student information, update contact preferences, and more.

One of the features of Infinite Campus is having access to your student's assessments. Please use this link to learn how to access the data in English and this link for Spanish.

October

October 20th: Fall Picture Day

October 20th: 3rd Grade Field Trip to Georgia Aquarium

October 22nd: Lilly Pad Luncheon for September Leaders of the Month

October 22nd: Spooky STEM Night 6:00 - 7:30 PM

October 23rd: PTO meeting 7:45 - 8:45 AM

October 30th: Story Book Parade (Turf field) 1:45 - 2:30 (Parents are invited!

November 4th: 1st Grade Field Trip - Experience UGA

November 4th: 5th Grade Jekyll Island Informational Meeting 5:30 - 6:30 PM

November 6th: Family Literacy Night 5:30-6:45 PM & Movie on the Lawn 7:00-9:00 PM

November 6th: Kindergarten Field Trip - Experience UGA