End of Year Testing & Events this week: May 12 - May 16

This week students in third through fifth grade will continue their end of grade state assessments with their NC Math EOG on Tuesday, May 13th and students in grade 5 will take their NC Science EOG on Thursday, May 15th. Thanks to your excellent effort surrounding attendance, we only have a small number of students that will have to take their NC Reading EOG makeup on Monday, May 12th. Additionally on Thursday, May 15th, select 3rd grade students will be taking their NC Read to Achieve assessment. As always, please ensure students get a good night’s rest and eat a healthy breakfast in order to do their best on the test.

There are 8 and a half days left for the 24-25 school year. While the end of year is full of celebrations, it continues to be filled with lots of targeted instruction also. Please continue to strive to have students on time and at school each day. Please note the end of year celebration events planned for each grade level:

We are in need of proctors to ensure successful EOG testing environments. Test proctors help to monitor students during our test sessions. Test sessions will run from 7:30-11:30 on May 9th, May 13th and May 15th, with other dates for make-up assessments. If you, a family member or friend are interested in volunteering, please complete the included link, EOG Volunteer Proctor Interest. Thank you for supporting RPES.

As we prepare for Summer Learning based on end of year mClass assessments for 2nd & 3rd grade students, we will be sending home information on purple sheets tomorrow indicating if they are or are not below benchmark and have or have not yet qualified for Good Cause Exemption based on the NC Read to Achieve law. If your 2nd grade student is below benchmark or if your 3rd grade child has not yet qualified for Good Cause Exemption, they will be bringing home an additional form that needs to be returned to school completed by Thursday, May 1st in order for your child to attend Summer Learning.

We are continuing to work diligently to prepare our students in 3rd through 5th grades for North Carolina End of Grade assessments, which begin on Friday, May 9th. If a student does not demonstrate proficiency in either math or reading on their EOG, we will begin remediation and they will be given the opportunity to have the assessment readministered to them. The highest of their two scores will be their final EOG score. Our remediation and readministration structure has been adjusted this year and will take place prior to students’ last day on Thursday, May 22nd. Please review the green letter coming home with students on Monday explaining this process. While we hope all of our students will take advantage of this opportunity, if you do not want your student to participate, please return the letter to your child’s homeroom teacher by May 2, 2025. If you would like your child to have this opportunity of readministration if proficiency is not achieved, there is no further action required.

Pender County Schools has partnered with RTI International to create its next strategic plan and we need your feedback on what we have developed thus far. Please review the questions below and share your thoughts on how well these elements reflect what is most important for Pender County Schools over the next five years.

In an effort to continuously move our students forward academically, we have recently implemented a program called Freckle across all grade levels. Students will be coming home with Chromebooks two days of the week to allow them to work on the adaptive pathway for the skills needed. You are able to access it through Classlink

We are excited to share that 14 of our 19 homeroom classes have reached 80% of families connected in Rooms. If you have not been able to do so, please let us know how we can support removing any barriers to improve stakeholder communication.