November 13- 17 - Carpenter Food Drive

November 20-24 - Thanksgiving Break

Week of 12/4 or Week of 12/11 - MAP TESTING (2nd-5th) - Schedule will be released next week

December 11- December 22 - Coat Drive

December 21st - Holiday Sing: 9:30 (4th/5th), 10:45 (K/1st), 1:30 (2nd/3rd)

December 25 - January 5 - Winter Break

We are having difficulties with street crossing on Cherry Street. I am unhappy that there is not a three-way stop on Cherry and Broadway and have made my recommendations to the city. But, until/unless that changes, we really need our students crossing at Hamlin and Cherry at the four-way stop. Please model appropriately to help keep our kids safe. There are a lot of unusual traffic patterns there with pick-ups/drop-offs and the one stop sign at Broadway. When it snows, it gets worse.

While I'm talking about that area, please refrain from dropping off your child on Hamlin at the ramp. It creates traffic back-ups. It best to drop-off curbside on Cherry.

We are offering an exciting opportunity for all K-8 parents/guardians that pertains to our new mathematics curricula. On November 28th, at 7pm, at Emerson Middle School, we invite parents/guardians to engage in a lesson simulation with a D64 grade-level teacher.

You will sit in the seats as a student and fully understand what it means to be part of a math class with our new curriculum resources (Eureka Squared: K-5, and Carnegie Math (6-8))!

A teacher will offer a brief introduction to the program and then teach an actual lesson your child would experience this year. Space is limited, so please RSVP using this form. Be sure to click the appropriate math placement for your child.

If you are not sure of your child’s placement, please call your school’s main office. We look forward to seeing you there!

*Note: Students in 7th or 8th Grade Channels of Challenge or 8th Grade Accelerated Math are not utilizing the Carnegie resources. Therefore, this opportunity is not available right now for those parents/guardians.

Best,

Samantha Alaimo

Assistant Superintendent of Student Learning

All trimester 1 report cards will now be made available to view digitally this school year through the District’s parent portal! Instead of receiving a paper copy, parents will access their child’s report card at their own leisure and convenience. The trimester 1 report card will be available to view on December 1st at 8 am. After viewing online, you will be asked to digitally sign off that you have viewed your child’s report card. To be sure you can access this report card, please follow these directions for how to login. We hope this will allow parents better access to their child’s educational achievement.

If you would still like to request a paper copy or are unsure of how to login, please contact the main office secretary or building principal for assistance prior to December 1st.

A few years back, when our students weren't in school because of CoVid, in order to keep our community together, I started what has now continued to be our daily video announcements. We also started a Google Photo Album called Connected Carpenter Community Album. Feel free to check it out. I still look back at that album and see it as a wonderful time capsule, one in which the strength of our community was evident as well as our need and desire to stay connected, find positives, and celebrate together despite being apart. To align with our theme of Magic in the Journey, we want to offer our families the opportunity to share their celebrations with us. You can do this in different ways. You can drop a photo or video in our MAGIC IN THE JOURNEY photo album or email us a picture/video or just a verbal. Mr. Degman and I would like to add different things to our video announcements or newsletters for our whole school so the kids can see that we celebrate all skills, talents, and achievements, both in and outside of school. We imagine utilizing Understanding October as a way to celebrate differences in our community as well. We're not sure how this will go, but we thought, let's capture the magic of this year, both in and out of school. We're a great community, let's continue to highlight that!

Along with the PDF below, here is some additional information. The ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza is heart-wrenching. In a recent administrator newsletter from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), state superintendent Dr. Tony Sanders shared the following items, which could be helpful in navigating these conversations at home.

The National Association of School Psychologists has a downloadable flyer called Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Families and Educators, strategies for each grade level, and suggested talking points.

From Common Sense Media, an article called How do I talk to my kids about violence in the news? reminds us to get a sense of what children know before launching into an explanation, by using open-ended questions, like “What did you hear?” or “What do you know?” and “What do you think about it?”

I hope these resources are helpful to you, if your children have questions at home.