As I wrap up my first year in this role, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to each of you for the support, collaboration, and encouragement you’ve provided along the way. Your openness, insight, and partnership have made this year both impactful and meaningful.

In the spirit of continuous improvement, I’d appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to complete a short feedback form regarding my role and the procedures we’ve implemented this year. Your input will help us align more closely with our district’s strategic priorities—ensuring that every student feels a strong sense of belonging, develops the perseverance to face challenges, and ultimately achieves their full potential.

Warmly,

Atlee

I will be working over the summer about once a week, and I will be returning back the buildings full time the week prior to certified staff. Over the summer I plan to:

1. Engage in re-qualification conversations for all existing McKinney-Vento eligible D303 families with a small team of social workers

2. Welcome any new to district families to D303 that are McKinney-Vento eligible and complete their initial common form

3. Complete any cost share agreements for applicable families with external school districts (so transportation can be ready for the first day of school)

4. Secure school supplies for all MV-eligible students and have backpacks delivered to all schools during the month of July

5. Collaborate with Big Hearts of Fox Valley's backpack program to support any non-MV-eligible students with securing needed school supplies

6. Provide all school teams with a centralized "landing page" for student support for the 25-26 SY. The goal of this is so teams are not juggling multiple spreadsheets, but rather have multiple tabs on one central document

7. Support families & students with connections to community resources as needed

8. Support school teams with problem solving as needed

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me over the summer if you need something. I will do my best to respond in a timely fashion, but at the most you will wait for a response is 6 days. Please indicate in the email subject line if the matter is time sensitive.

I met with the owner/manager of the Tropical Smoothie Cafe on Main St. (Sam Patel, father of a Richmond Student), and he stated that he wanted to do his store's first-ever fundraiser for District 303. After Sam and I met, it became very clear that he has a heart for supporting the D303 community.

For the entire month of May, 10% of sales (with the accompanying image/flyer/coupon) will go back to the D303 student support fund, which ultimately provides support to all 18 of our educational entities. This runs from May 1st-31st, and the coupon gives a free 12 oz smoothie with the purchase of an entree or 24 oz smoothie. Sam thought it would benefit parents and also our high school crowd/staff (a free drink with a meal).

If you can please share with your individual schools, virtual backpacks, newsletters, parent links, PTO pages, etc. closer to May 1st, that would be incredibly helpful in ensuring the event's success.

Thank you ALL for your help spreading the word about this event and opportunity. I have appreciated all of your support over this year as we explore ways to ensure our students all have what they need.

These are both flyers that have been updated with current information. Feel free to make these available to all families at your school.

Families needing school supplies for the upcoming year are able to utilize the BHFV Backpack program again for the second summer in a row! If you have a family that is interested please have them email me at atlee.smith@d303.org anytime between NOW and August 2nd, 2025, and I will register them for the program.

Backpacks will be delivered to each student's individual school by NOON on Monday, August 11th, 2025.

Questions can be directed to info@bigheartsfv.org

If your team has been working with a family over the course of the school year, and would like support creating or following a plan over the summer, please connect with the Family & Community Liaison before the end of the school year. This will give Atlee the opportunity to follow up with families needing tier 3 support over the summer on behalf of school teams to (hopefully) start the 25-26 school year strong.

If you have a family that indicates they need assistance with rent, I had initially provided the directive to send them to Lazarus House for help. Lazarus is currently tapped out with resources, and has asked that we send families the following resource guide.

DPTO is planning a Fun Run in partnership with the St. Charles Scarecrow Weekend! More details are to come, however here is a brief overview so you know what is coming in the fall.

1. Start/Finish line at TMS

2. Contest at the elementary level for t-shirt designs (each elementary will have part of a grid on the shirt back, focusing on their school mascot)

3. Mascots present on race day from all schools (that have mascots)

4. 3K family-friendly "fun run" with exciting pre-race events

5. Volunteer sign up will begin in September

6. Race registration will begin in September

7. Fees will be $25/family, to make the cost inclusive regardless of family size

8. There will be a participation percentage incentive and an annual traveling trophy for the school with the highest participation percentage. Outside participants registered under your school name count toward your percentage, so in theory, you can have over 100% of your school participating if lots of other family and friends register

9. Race day shirts will be available for pre-order and for sale at the DPTO scarecrow weekend booth

More information to come!

Our communications department is hard at work preparing a final design for refrigerator magnets for each of our D303 families for the 25-26 SY (the photo attached is a mock-up/draft example of what the magnets could look like). These magnets will contain the following information and will be printed in the 3-5 most spoken languages in our district;

1. School calendar, color coded to match our calendar on the district website

2. Grid-style attendance tracker so parents can keep track of how many days their student has missed (with guidelines of attendance thresholds of "exemplary," "on track," "at risk for chronic absenteeism," and "chronically absent.")

3. D303 Attendance slogan that focuses both on missing school 9 days or less, and our core values and strategic priorities.

The goal is for these to be available at schools for backpack/school supply drop off night--when the first week of school begins.

FindHelp.org is a search engine that uses a zip code to narrow down a region for ALL available services in an area. The services included in a FindHelp search include:

Food, Housing, Goods, Transit, Health, Money, Care, Education, Work & Legal

This can be shared with families so they can search for resources over the summer (and beyond), and it can also be a great resource for service providers to find new agencies and community supports that we might not know of around the STC area.

This is a great resource if you have families who want to engage in park district activities but would also benefit from financial aid, scholarships or a sliding scale.

Below is the contact information for our registration supervisor who handles all Financial Aid registrations.

Cori Hedlund, Registration Supervisor

chedlund@stcparks.org

630-513-4332

https://www.stcparkfoundation.org/financial-aid-program

Part of my job involves serving as the D303 Liaison with the St. Charles Youth Commission, and they recently had an increase in their funding, and therefore have doubled their ability to award grants to youth organizations and initiatives that impact the youths in our community. I know that you all have access to driven clubs, students, staff, and organizations that might benefit from a grant from the YC--so if you don't mind PLEASE send them this information and the link included. The commission is really looking for people to award this funding to, and I'd love to see it spread throughout the levels of D303.

You may want to apply for a grant yourself, you may have the capacity to share the grant information with people you know, or you may supervise an organization that impacts students you work with.

Below is the body of an email from one of the commissioners, detailing more information. Thank you for sharing it with those you work with.

"Hello,

My name is Allison Hinton and I am a commissioner on the St. Charles Youth Commission. I am also a mom to 3 kids at Munhall (Go Mustangs!). I am hoping that you can put the word out in your weekly updates, newsletters, announcements, etc. so we can get more people aware of the St. Charles Youth Commission and the opportunities we provide. If you are able, I would love for you to share the following information poster as well as the link to the youth commission page on the St. Charles website so we have the ability to help more youth in our community! Any youth with an idea are invited to apply for funds as well as any adult/club/organization that would like to give back to the youth of St. Charles (that can even be you!). Thank you so much for passing the information along. For more information, please visit our website at:

https://www.stcharlesil.gov/Government/Boards-Commissions/Youth-Commission/Youth-Commission-Opportunities "

This folder now houses all attendance letter master copies, liaison fact sheets, etc. It is divided into an attendance folder and a McKinney-Vento folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18UA458clgtNJX6LGFWP9Ny82j5ufTgzQ?usp=drive_link

Table of contents for the F&C Liaison Resources Folder with Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_d7XeQ2JVHrQz7wELIRV4F7e4iyELwiTxOeUtFyax4A/edit?usp=sharing

Please share these community resource documents when you are sharing resources with families. These have been updated with special education resources and other resources surrounding mental health, rehabilitation facilities and substance use.

These have also been updated on the District 303 website.

See the graphic below for a reference guide to qualifying families. Please use all attempts possible to register every family at the building that they walk into rather than bouncing them around the district to enroll at various places (ex: Spanish speaking family walks into Munhall--please do not send them to Davis to complete an enrollment packet, simply complete their enrollment at Munhall and then language testing will proceed from there).

Atlee Smith

Family & Community Liaison

Enlace Familiar Y Comunitario

Office at Richmond Elementary School: Room 149

atlee.smith@d303.org

Direct Office Line: 1-331-228-2879

Google Voice for Families to Text: 1-779-220-0308