September 2025

Dear Families,

Welcome to the start of a brand-new school year! We are so excited to have your children back in our classrooms and hallways, filling them with laughter, energy, and a renewed eagerness to learn. Whether you’re a returning family or joining our school community for the first time, we are thrilled to have you with us and look forward to the journey ahead.

At Brooklyn Park Elementary, we believe that strong partnerships between school and home are key to a child’s success. As we begin this year, our focus remains on creating a safe, inclusive, and engaging environment where every student can thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. Throughout the year, we encourage open communication and collaboration. You will receive regular updates from our educators to keep you informed about academic progress, classroom activities, and upcoming opportunities. We deeply value your partnership and invite you to get involved, whether by volunteering, attending school events and performances, or simply staying connected through conversations with your child’s teachers.

When families and educators work together, students feel more confident, connected, and motivated to learn! Together, we can create a school year filled with meaningful growth, discovery, and lasting memories for your child(ren).

Here’s to a fantastic year ahead!

Dear Families,

We’re excited to offer families an opportunity to join us for Campus Conversations this year. This will be a series of informal gatherings created to keep you informed about key aspects of our school community, including academic initiatives, student attendance trends, school culture, and overall campus progress. These sessions offer a valuable opportunity to hear directly from school leadership, ask questions, and stay closely connected to the heartbeat of our campus.

Our first Campus Conversations session will be held in person on September 19th at 7:40 AM in the cafeteria. We hope you’ll join us for meaningful dialogue and a chance to connect with other parents, staff, and school leaders.

Please note: These gatherings are focused on schoolwide updates and initiatives. While we welcome your participation, this is not a setting for discussing individual students or personal concerns. For any student-specific matters, we encourage you to schedule a meeting directly with your child’s teacher or administrator.

Please use this link to RSVP in advance so we can plan accordingly. We look forward to working together to make this year one of connection, clarity, and shared success!

Pre-K 4

We are so excited to welcome our youngest students to Brooklyn Park Elementary! This month, our theme is "Connecting with School and Friends". We will learn all about what happens at school, how we learn and get along at school, and what makes a good friend. We will be spending significant time learning our classroom and school procedures, rules, and routines. Our students will spend time learning our schedule, building stamina to work independently, and learning our routines for See Me Groups and centers. By the end of the month, we will begin small group instruction to meet your child's individual needs through differentiated instruction. We can't wait to learn all about our Pre-K friends! Please remember to check your child's folder daily, there will be many important notes coming home this month. Thank you for your support!

Pre-K Team

Kindergarten

Welcome to Kindergarten!

We are so excited to welcome our new kindergarteners and their families to our classroom! As we begin the 2025-2026 school year, it is all about getting to know one another, learning or classroom routines or expectations, and making new friends at school! Within our CKLA Skills and Knowledge time, students will learn the pre-requisite skills necessary to read and write, as well as be introduced to rhyming! Students will develop fine-motor skills to draw various writing strokes to create letters and understand the meaning of positional words (left, right, top, bottom). Within CKLA Knowledge, students will learn to sing, read, and rhyme to Nursery Rhymes and Fables! Students will learn vocabulary and build phonemic awareness by listening to and reciting traditional Nursery Rhymes.

Within our Reveal Math time, students will meet Dakota (a kindergartener) and Riley (an automotive engineer) to teach us the basics of Math! Students will learn and practice Math routines and expectations, as they explore Math in the world around them! Students will develop an understanding on using manipulatives and one-to-one correspondence to count, read, and write numerals 0-5!

As a Kindergarten Team, we are excited for your child to learn and grow with us! We look forward to an amazing school year ahead!

1st Grade

Hello families! First Grade has been hard at work practicing routines and building classroom communities. This month in Math we are starting to explore patterns on a 120 chart and on a number line. We will also start learning about place value, specifically the tens and ones place. In Literacy, we are listening to fables and identifying characters, setting, plot, and the moral of the story. We are also reviewing letter sounds, letter formation, and blending sounds to read words. This month will be an exciting one for Science! First Grade is starting our unit on the Monarch Butterfly. Arlington Echo will be dropping off monarch caterpillars very soon. We get to watch them grow, turn into butterflies, and then release them in our community garden. Please remember to check your child’s folder and return any papers to school promptly.

Thanks!

The First Grade Team

2nd Grade

Welcome to second grade!

The second-grade team has really enjoyed getting to know each of our students! We can see that we have a brilliant, kind, and unique group!

In Math we have been working on reviewing what math is and how we can solve problems. We have been working on forming relationships and learning routines for our classroom. We have connected how to be respectful, responsible, safe, and accepting to go along with our school theme and vision. This year we will continue with the CKLA curriculum! Please make sure your child brings their Blue take home folder each day. Once again, we are truly excited to see all the exciting things we will learn and grow from. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child's teacher. We look forward to having an AMAZING year!

~Second Grade team

3rd Grade

Welcome to third grade!

READING and WRITING

Reading and writing is the foundation for everything we do. This year, your student will be using the reading program called Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA). It is an innovative set of instructional materials developed by the Core Knowledge Foundation. During the early weeks of the school year, students will rereview previously taught literacy skills. This review period will help us get to know your student better so we can identify their areas of strength and weakness in reading and writing and support them accordingly. Please look for copies of chapters that we have read together in class and encourage your student to reread the stories and discuss them with you at home. This at-home practice will help reinforce the skills they are learning during their daily lessons.

MATHEMATICS

We are excited to start the school year and have students get their hands on math tools as they begin to make real world connections to solve math problems. This year we are excited about continuing to use Reveal Math. We will engage in activities to support a positive math culture. In the month of September, we will focus on rituals and routines as we learn the structure of our math block. We will use place value to fluently add and subtract within 1,000. We are excited to see our mathematicians in action!

SCIENCE

This month third grade scientists will observe, collect, and evaluate data to share conclusions and take informed action about how force works. Students will conduct hands-on experiments to observe how objects react to pushes and pulls.

SOCIAL STUDIES

During the month of September, students will identify the four domains in the social studies content Civics, Economics, Geography and History. Students will explore what rules are necessary for a safe classroom/school community. As a class, we will establish a mission statement to reflect the civic virtues of a STARR Patriot.

~Third Grade Team

4th Grade

In our first Grade 4 CKLA™ unit, students will dive into 15 daily 90 minute lessons that integrate reading, writing, language, and speaking and listening. During these first weeks, they’ll build strong literacy routines through whole-class, small-group, partner, and independent activities. The unit also includes “Pausing Point” days, which allow us to tailor instruction to meet students’ individual needs.

Along the way, students will engage in collaborative and hands-on learning, helping them take ownership of their work and support one another’s success. The texts in this unit are thoughtfully chosen for both challenge and meaning, offering rich perspectives from a wide range of American voices and experiences.

Math: Students are exploring what it means to do math by building a habit of the mind and a learning environment to foster great mindsets. Students have had the opportunity to interview their teacher to learn about their math biography as the teachers are learning about their students learning abilities.

Science: In science, students have begun with science safety and will move into structures of plants and animals. Students will research and learn the importance of adaptations and how they play a key part in plants and animals' survival.

Social Studies: In the first week of school, students focused on how we can create a classroom community. Students are moving into how the places we live in can influence the way we view the world.

5th Grade

In our first Grade 5 CKLA™ unit, students will jump right into reading, writing, language, and speaking and listening through 15 engaging daily lessons. They’ll practice routines in whole-class, small-group, partner, and independent activities while also enjoying hands-on and collaborative learning. The unit includes special “Pausing Point” days that give us a chance to adjust and support students’ individual needs.

Students will also build strong close-reading habits using a “Think as You Read” strategy, which helps them dig deeper into the texts. The stories we’ll read are thoughtfully chosen to be both challenging and meaningful, representing a variety of voices and experiences from across the American story. This unit sets the stage for all the important reading and writing growth students will achieve this year!

Math: Students are building their capacity and habits of the mind in math. We are working on building a community by establishing norms by building a math learning environment. In order to prepare your student, our next unit of math will be the study of volume. Students will use cubes to support and building on an understanding of how to find the volume of a 3-dimensional object.

Science: In science, students are learning about the food web, energy flow through the ecosystems, and how plants do NOT need soil to grow. Students will build all their learning into an end of quarter project focusing on 1 ecosystem of plants and animals with their flow of energy. Please be on the lookout for more information in regards to this.

Social Studies: The first week of school, students focused on "What is a democratic classroom?" Students established norms and are working on building a solid foundation of a classroom. We are preparing to focus on how power is distributed in the United States constitution.

ELD

Welcome back, Families!

It has been wonderful to see many bright, shining faces! We are excited to work with your students again this year and support them with their English Language Development. Please be on the lookout for the Parent Notification link that will be sent to your email to confirm your child will be receiving language support service. You can also access the form by clicking this link: https://secure.aacps.org/webapps/SEFP/en-US/ESOL/Placement This form only needs to be completed once a year!

Happy Hispanic Heritage month!

Karyli Cedillos

Bilingual Teacher Assistant K-5th

Email: kcedillos@AACPS.org

Brynita Lacey

Kindergarten & 1st Grade English Language Development Teacher

Phone: 601.272.8611

Email: bllacey@aacps.org

Laura Dembeck

2nd & 3rd Grade English Language Development Teacher

Email: ldembeck@aacps.org

Vanessa Gonzalez

4th & 5th Grade English Language Development Teacher

Email: vlgonzalez@aacps.org

Title I

"Please be sure if you have not done so already to fill out our lunch forms for the 25-26 school year! Even if your child does not buy lunch, or you do not plan on having your child buy lunch, this is extremely important and helpful for our school. When the lunch forms are filled out, we are able to keep our Title 1 funding and get amazing resources and host events for our school such as Math and Literacy night, extra staff members to support students learning, and materials to help students learn hands on. Please reach out with any questions to Laura Roussey, our Title 1 Math Resource Teacher! Please use this link to fill out your form today: https://www.aacps.org/page/apply-for-free-or-reduced-price-meals"

CSI

Our school has been designated as a Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) School by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), based on schoolwide performance and other criteria. In partnership with MSDE, Anne Arundel County Public Schools has provided a dedicated team to address the unique needs of CSI schools. This team works to support students and teachers through targeted interventions, data-driven individualized plans, professional development for teachers, and family and community engagement initiatives.

These efforts aim to create a supportive and effective learning environment that accelerates student achievement and enhances overall school performance. If you have questions about the resources and supports available at our school, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Together, we can ensure the success of every student.

Counselor

What does a School Counselor DO?

I work alongside teachers and parents to help students develop

socially and emotionally, and to help remove any barriers to learning!

I Provide:

•Classroom lessons teaching social skills, how to take care of strong feelings, study skills, etc.

•Small group counseling

•Short-term individual counseling

•Consultation with parents and teachers

•Parent workshops

•Community resource referrals (including longer term therapy services)

•Schoolwide programming (Kindness Week, Harvest for the Hungry etc.)

Hello Families!

Be sure to sign-up your child for Band, Strings, or Chorus before September 15th!

-3rd Grade may choose to play: Violin, Viola, Cello, or Bass

-4th/5th Grades may choose to play: Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, Flute, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Saxophone, Bassoon, Trumpet, Trombone, Baritone, Tuba, or Percussion

-4th/5th Grades may also sign-up for Chorus this year!

Please visit Mrs. Israel's website for more information: www.mrsisraelmusic.com

Please email Mr. Henning for more information on Chorus: mhenning@aacps.org

This year in Triple E is new and exciting. S.T.E.M. curriculum is replacing Arts & Humanities. Our projects will focus on using the engineering and design process. Students will be researching real world problems, designing solutions to the problems, and creating their design. Stay tuned for specific project information next month.

We are so excited to start another school year with our BPES community, and we are looking forward to a great year of supporting our students and teachers! If you are interested in joining the PTA... you can use the link below to sign-up. Family membership is $10, payments can be made via Venmo @bpespta or send cash or check (payable to BPES PTA) in an envelope marked with your name, student name(s) and teacher; please put Attn: PTA. For updates and reminders please follow us on Facebook Bpes Pta - look for the star mascot!

Membership Link: https://forms.gle/QzjX1jLdjLHy8Aa89

Appreciation Station Snack Cart

We love to show the BPES staff just how much we appreciate them! One thing we do is the PTA Aprreciation Station Snack Cart. Every Wednesday, a cart is left for the staff full and snacks, drinks and treats for them to grab during the day. If you are interested in donating, please click the link below.

Snack Cart Donation Sign-up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080D4BABAA2CA0FB6-appreciation

Spirit Wear Sale now until 9/15/25: Orders should arive roughly 2-3 weeks after our sale closes. Get you BPES gear to start the year fresh!

Online sales at https://chesapeakedistribution.com/collections/brooklyn-park-elementary-school

Change of Clothes!

We kindly ask that all students in PreK through 5th grade keep an extra change of clothes at school. Spills, playground accidents, and unexpected mishaps can happen at any age, and having a clean set of clothing on hand helps your child feel comfortable and ready to continue learning without interruption. Please include a shirt, pants, underwear, and socks in a labeled bag, and be sure to update the clothing as the seasons change and your child grows. Thank you for your support in helping us keep students comfortable throughout the school day!

Leading by Feeding

We are excited to announce that this month’s Leading by Feeding Food Giveaway will take place on Wednesday, September 11th, beginning at 4:00 PM in the back parking lot. Families are invited to come and receive free food items to help support their household needs. This monthly event is part of our commitment to serving and caring for our community, and we welcome everyone to join us. Supplies are limited, so we encourage you to arrive early.

Background Checks for Volunteers at Brooklyn Park Elementary School

Anne Arundel County Public Schools is committed to providing safe and secure learning environments for all students and employees. Successful completion of a background check is required before any person has access to students, either on or off school property. The Office of Investigations has continued to work closely with the Office of School Security to review AACPS protocols for conducting background checks.

Background investigations are divided into two categories: fingerprint-supported background checks and commercial background checks. Once a fingerprint-supported background check is performed, applicants no longer need to submit an electronic background check. Anyone applying to be a chaperone or volunteer must be at least 18 years of age.

Fingerprint-supported background checks must be scheduled through the Fingerprinting Office at 410-222-5045. The Fingerprinting Office is located at the AACPS Central Office on Riva Road and is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, during the school year. The cost of fingerprinting is $63.00 and it includes the commercial background check. Fingerprint-supported background checks for chaperones should be completed at least 3 weeks prior to the scheduled field trip.

Each applicant requiring a fingerprint-supported background check is provided with a pink Fingerprint Verification Card. This card should be kept with the applicant while on school grounds and should be displayed to an administrator upon request. Each school should keep a running list of chaperones and volunteers that have been fingerprinted.

All questions regarding this process, or to confirm the results of a fingerprint-supported background check should be directed to the Office of Investigations at 410-222-5287.

Commercial Background Check

All chaperones and volunteers without one-on-one unsupervised or unrestricted access to students must complete the online request for a commercial background check. This group is inclusive of PTA and PTO officers, CAC officers, Booster Club officers, and chaperones or volunteers who work with children in the presence of an approved AACPS representative (e.g. daytime field trip to the zoo). These background checks are at no cost to the applicant and are valid for 2 years. All applications should be submitted electronically at least 3 weeks prior to the intended school event.

*Persons without personal computer access may access this process on a school computer or use computers in a public library.

https://onboard.screenid.net/gen/inquiries/

Last year we introduced our Appreciation Station Snack Cart to our staff! The cart will be filled every Wednesday full of sweet and salty snacks and drinks to show our BPES staff just how much we appreciate them. This school year we are looking for families to sponsor a week by either purchasing snacks or making a $40 donation so the snacks can be purchased. We ask that donations are dropped off to the school by Monday of the sponsored week. Please consider signing up below! Thank you for helping our staff know how much we appreciate them!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080D4BABAA2CA0FB6-appreciation

Five Star Parent

1. Builds a positive relationship with all staff members.

2. Dedicated to the BPES community.

3. Builds a partnership with their child's teacher. This partnership is based on trust, communication, and student growth.

4. Dedicated to preventing chronic absenteeism and chronic tardiness.

5. Respects and honors our community of diverse learners.

Emergency card verification emails have been sent. Please make sure you check and update your emergency contact information. The links are only active for 10 days. If you need assistance, please contact the main office at 410 222 6590.

Doors open at 7:40.

Students are dismissed at 2:25.

Late arrival/Early Dismissal

If your child arrives at school after 8:00, they are considered late. Please make sure they are at school prior to this time. Students need to be in their classrooms by 8:00 in order to be marked on time. If your child is late to school, or is getting picked up early, an adult MUST come into the building to sign them in or out.

Early dismissals must take place before 2:00 pm. The office is busy after 2:00, preparing for dismissal procedures, and will not be able to call any kids for dismissal after that time.

Below is the link for Before/After Care for families who need childcare.

School start times:

The doors will open at 7:40am for breakfast and community building. Instruction will begin at 8:00am. It is EXTREMELY important that all kids arrive on time ready to learn!

Walkers

Walkers will be dismissed at 2:25

Bus-Riders

To access BPES bus schedules, please click HERE

Car-Riders

We will dismiss car riders car by car. Please have your child's name on the hang tag so we can quickly call them to your car. Please do not park on 13th Ave during dismissal or arrival. It can make it challenging for people to enter and leave the lot.

Arrival

When students arrive they will pick up their breakfast and report to their homeroom. Teachers will greet students as they arrive.

Dismissal

At dismissal, walkers will be released. Following the release of walkers, car riders will be escorted to the cafeteria. Bus riders will be called as buses arrive.

Visitors

We will be planning several events this year where we will be inviting parents into the building. Unfortunately, we will not be able to allow parents to have lunch with their children in the cafeteria.

Student Birthday Celebrations

• Each student will receive a Birthday pencil and be acknowledged by the whole school on the morning announcements.
• We will celebrate all students' birthdays each month.
• It is very important to understand that food cannot be shared to celebrate. Please do not bring food to share with the class for your child's birthday. We have students with allergies and food sensitive health conditions.

Families can pay for their student’s meals online by going to www.mypaymentsplus.com.

At schools this year, breakfast will be free, and lunches will cost $2.75 for full price students.

Students will need to log in with their student ID in order to get their lunch. Please work with your student at home to help them memorize their ID.

Apply for Free or Reduced-Price Meals: Online Meal Benefit Application (MBA) (English and Spanish) - Link to online MBA – www.aacps.org/mealapplication. Applications must be filled out each school year, even if you qualified the previous year.