QE Parent/Guardian Weekly Update

Hello QE Families!

What a pleasure it was this week to walk through the halls, classrooms, playground, and cafeteria and see the positivity among our students and staff. Students are navigating their school routines and engaging in school. The excitement of this new school year and the possibilities it brings are evident at QE!

Dr. Bubser

Principal

This year, we are focused on making sure everyone in our school community feels seen and appreciated. Inspired by Jesse Cole’s book about the Savannah Bananas philosophy, Fans First, I am launching a new way to celebrate our amazing QE staff and the positive impact they have on our students every day. I’m calling it QE Fan Mail! This is your chance to share a compliment, a story, or a simple thank you with a teacher or staff member who has made a difference. Your words of appreciation can be a huge source of motivation and joy for our team.

How it Works: You can submit your Fan Mail at any time by simply filling out this short QE Fan Mail Form. I will personally share your messages with our staff at the beginning of each faculty meeting. It's a wonderful way to start our meetings and celebrate the great work happening in our classrooms.

Thank you for being our partners in this journey. We are so excited to see the positive impact of your Fan Mail on our school community!

I'm thrilled to share that our students have had a fantastic start to the new school year! We've spent time focusing on building a positive and supportive school community by teaching and reinforcing our QE Pride expectations: Perseverance, Respect, In Control, Dependability, and Effort.

As you may know, our school uses a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) framework to guide our approach to student behavior. Think of PBIS as our way of creating a safe and engaging learning environment for every child. We believe that by clearly teaching our expectations and celebrating student success, we can help all students reach their full potential, not just academically but also socially and emotionally. Here is our QE PBIS Handbook for your review.

Today, we held our first celebration assembly to review aspects of QE Pride and to recognize students who have been showing QE Pride in the hallways, classrooms, playground, and cafeteria. It was an exciting event and a wonderful way to end the week! We'll continue to reinforce these expectations with acknowledgments using our Pride Tickets and reward students with prizes in our school store, fun events, and public accolades.

Our partnership with you is so important to us. We encourage you to talk with your child about what QE Pride means to them and how they can show it both at home and at school.

I’m excited to invite parents and guardians to our Back to School Night on Tuesday, September 16th from 6:00 - 7:30PM. We will start in the cafeteria with introductions and then have time for you to meet your child’s teacher. The night is for parents to spend time getting to know the big picture learning goals for the year. Here is the schedule for the Back to School Night.

Changing Family Group: This group is offered to students who are dealing with a change in their families such as foster care, separation, divorce, and/or loss. The group will be facilitated by Mrs. Bruchak and/or Mrs. Upton, our Elementary Student Assistance Program Counselor. Please complete this form by Thursday 9/18 if you are interested in your student participating in this group this fall.

The group will first be available to new or first time participants in this type of group. We will do our best to accommodate all requests or make other recommendations if your student is unable to participate at this time. Groups are typically 20-30 minutes, 1x per week for 6-8 weeks during the school day. Please reach out to Mrs. Bruchak if you have any questions or concerns at ebruchak@qcsd.org.

Our students are doing a great job with our Arrival/Dismissal Procedures. Please remember that our doors open at 8:50AM and the school day officially begins at 9:05AM. Please be sure that students arrive at school on time. If you drop your child off after 9:05AM, please walk them into the building. Thank you for your help with this so our students can maximize their learning time!

Here is a link to QCSD’s Attendance Procedures. All absences are required to be reported, and QCSD uses SafeArrival as our absence management system. If you have not set up an account yet, please do so at https://go.schoolmessenger.com. Parents can report their child’s absence 24 hours/7 days a week and future absences can be reported at any time.

Last Spring, at the end of the school year, we held our “Meet the Instrument” night to help students decide if they wanted to join band or orchestra. If students did not sign up back in May and June, it’s not too late! There is still time for families to sign-up their elementary students for band (grades 4 and 5) and orchestra (grades 3, 4, and 5). Registration for elementary band and orchestra is open until Friday September 26, 2025.

Visit qcsd.org/music for more information about elementary instrumental music lessons. Click on the big yellow banner at the top of the page to register your student, or speak with your school’s music teachers.

Thank you!

The Elementary Instrumental Music Team

As we move through the school year, you will hear your children talking about "Career Language" or "RIASEC." This is part of our district goal to help our students make meaningful connections between what they are learning in the classroom and their future interests.

Career Language Integration (CLI) is simply the practice of embedding career-related concepts and vocabulary into our daily conversations with students. For example, a teacher might say, "You're showing great perseverance with that challenging math problem, a skill that engineers use every day!" To help guide these conversations, we're using RIASEC themes, which classify interests into six themes:

• Realistic (The Doers)

• Investigative (The Thinkers)

• Artistic (The Creators)

• Social (The Helpers)

• Enterprising (The Persuaders)

• Conventional (The Organizers)

We're excited to continue building on this work and helping your child explore their personal interests as they discover the many possibilities that lie ahead.

We will follow Policy 246 (Student Wellness) to keep everyone safe and healthy at school. We will find ways to celebrate birthdays and ask that students do not bring in birthday food treats. We are working to find alternative experiences for school celebrations. Thank you for your help with this and we would love to hear your ideas!

We have lots of information on the community bulletin board. Please click here for the QCSD Community Opportunities.

Join the QCSD Team and make a difference in the lives of young people! Check-out the QCSD Employment Opportunities. Let’s build a bright future together.

Below are upcoming events to put on your schedule.

Wednesday, September 10th (6:30 - 8:00PM) - P.I.E Parent Meeting

Tuesday, September 16th (6:30 - 8:00PM) - Back to School Night

Wednesday, September 17th - Constitution Day

Tuesday, September 23rd - No School

Tuesday, September 30th - Picture Day

Thursday, October 2nd - No School

Wednesday, October 8th (6:30 - 8:00PM) - P.I.E Parent Meeting