Prairie City Elementary News

March 2021

Welcome to March!

Dear families,

I can't believe Spring Break is upon us. What a great year it has been at PCM! Thanks to everyone working together, respectfully using mitigation strategies and keeping our learning environment and communities safe and healthy. The Mustang family is a great thing to be a part of. There are so many great things happening across the district.

Thanks to all that have supported our focused work on making human connections and nurturing healthy peer to peer and adult to child relationships as inspired by Joe and Curt from till360. We know what a difference that makes! Being connected and feeling like a part of something is so foundational to being mentally healthy and willing to take risks while learning with a growth mindset. We look forward to our continued learning with Joe and Curt. Thank you to our 4 amazing school counselors that are taking the lead on this very important work!

Meanwhile, back at the PCE ranch, we just received a state level award from the Iowa State Department of Education for successfully implementing our Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) framework!! We received the Banner Level Award, which recognizes our instructional and reinforcement systems provided to students at both the Tier 1 and Tier 2 levels of our multi-tiered system of supports for prevention, support and correction of social behavior. We are excited about this recognition but in light of a growth mindset, we also recognize that PBIS is but one aspect of a program supporting SEBMH (Social-Emotional Behavior and Mental Health). Our building and district are researching more ways to have a comprehensive approach to meet the SEBMH needs of our students. We appreciate your continued support as we partner to meet our district vision.

I hope that all families enjoy some time together over Spring Break and that our students and staff come back refreshed and relaxed, ready to finish the year strong!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Ver Helst

Concerts

K-2 Music Concert Tuesday March 9

5th-12th grade Pops Concert Thursday March 11

*Remember to bring your allocated vouchers for entry, mask up, spread out where possible and follow the staggered start times.

Thank you!

Preschool Survey-Fall 2021

If you, or someone you know, has a child that will be 4 years old by September 15, 2021 and plans to attend PCM's preschool at Monroe Elementary or Prairie City Elementary in the fall, have them complete this survey to help us prepare our morning and afternoon classes.

Thank you.

NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS MONDAY March 22, 2021 (Teacher PD day)

PTO Fundraiser

Thanks to all that have already donated! Thank you if you sent out emails or texts, wrote a check or sent cash to donate to our building fundraiser. We are so excited!! This is going to be used for classroom science, math, engineering materials or books and the rest will be stashed away for our future new PCE playground! Thank you for being a part of making history at PCE in a very real way. So far, this fundraiser has been successful. All final general donations can be made by either check or cash to the PCE office by Tuesday March 9. All student links are active until Tuesday March 9 also. Thanks again for all of your dedication to excellence for all, excellence from all!!

One School, One Book is Coming!

Remember The Lemonade War? Ok, so that's not a real thing...it's the name of an awesome book we all read together as a school community in each household. Thanks to the generosity of our PTO buying a book for every household, we enjoyed a shared reading pace on The Lemonade War with fun activities and a parent-child night at school as a culminating activity. It's time for a new book kick-off, so stay tuned for information from the PTO and join in the fun of reading!

Numeracy Project

One of the action steps the PCE teacher leadership team has been working on is to research and implement quality Tier 1 math core instructional routines. Doing so will support our continuous improvement plan by establishing a multi-tiered system of supports in math. The special education department has already been trained on and has been implementing the use of the Numeracy Project. Those identified students are showing measurable growth, meeting goals and being exited from special education services in the area of math. Recently, Sarah Miller, the Heartland AEA math consultant, trained all K-2 PCE teachers on the use of the Numeracy Project. We will broaden the use of the instructional activities as an intervention to teach foundational number sense and also implement some of the activities in math centers for all students as applicable.

I-Smile for Preschool Students

I-Smile will be at Prairie City Elementary on March 31 to provide a spring dental screening and fluoride treatment to preschool students. ALL consent forms are already on file with Marion County Public Health from the fall!

If you did not participate in the fall program and would like a consent form OR if your child participated in the fall and you would NOT like them to receive spring services, please contact the school at 515-994-8222 Thank you! Nurse Julie Van Dyke