June 1, 2023 #19

We are here! Just one week of school remains and so many celebrations continue to take place as we find ways to embrace all the learning, relationships and growth we have seen over this school year. It is also filled with a mix of emotions as we part ways for the summer. It may be a little uneasy for some of us as we want to know all the details of ‘changes’ with educators, schedules, schools, and everything else that comes with a new school year! Breathe…in and out…and enjoy the moment!

Transitions are an opportunity to reflect and embrace what we have learned about ourselves, whether as one of our learners or a parent/guardian, and use those strengths to charge into the summer and a new school year. One opportunity for our fifth grade learners, across all five elementary schools, to charge into next school year was by participating in the Future Wildcat Fifth Grade Field Days at the Wehr Nature Center last week.

I had an opportunity to visit with the students and was instantly brought back to the smells of summer, the smiles of learning through nature, and the collaboration that coming together offers us! Learners from each school were given a shirt that has the Forest Park Middle School logo on it while also embracing the roots the learners have built through their elementary school experience. They stood tall among the trees as they met new friends, new educators and new leaders and saw the potential within them for this new journey to middle school. I believe this exemplifies FPS being a Better Place to Learn. The 5th grade me would have talked for weeks about an adventure like this!

Thank you, also, to all the parents and guardians that were present to volunteer your time for this wonderful transition event! It was a showcase of what it means to be a Part of a Better Community! In addition, our partners from local churches jumped at the opportunity to provide lunch for all of our staff and volunteers during the two days of camp. Thank you!

Thank you also to our elementary school principals, middle school principals, and all the educators that made this event a milestone memory for our learners in Franklin Public Schools. Our educators exemplified their craft in different outdoor skills and shared that joy with our learners. It is through events like these that we continually strive to be a Better Place to Work.

My wish to you and your family is to find opportunities to transition from the celebrations of this school year to the exciting ones ahead of us next school year. Most importantly, embrace the time to create family memories this summer. Time flies and we do not get these moments back…embrace them and make the most of them!

With gratitude and thankfulness for a wonderful and rewarding first year in FPS,

Annalee Bennin

FPS District Administrator

P.S. If you'd like to see even MORE photos shared by our wonderful volunteers and staff, check out this Google Photos album!

As a reminder, the 2023-24 District Calendar can be found in PDF format here and linked into our district calendars on our website here. All of our calendars are able to be subscribed to! Follow the steps at the top of the District Calendar webpage for how to subscribe.

The annual FPS Family Engagement Survey was emailed to all parents and guardians on Wednesday of this week and is due before 11:59 pm next Friday, June 9th. This survey from Franklin Public Schools is being used to collect data from our parents and guardians around two main themes: Satisfaction and Family Partnership.

This survey may be completed by each parent/guardian once per FPS student. We appreciate the time you will spend responding to the survey; we will use your responses to shape our work on being a better place to learn, a better place to work and part of a better community.

Thank you for taking the time to offer your valuable feedback! Click here or on the image below to begin taking the survey.

As we head into the end of the school year, we want to make all parents/guardians/students aware of what needs to occur with the student Chromebooks. This information will also be shared in your building bulletins next Monday, June 5th. Please review this information so you know how to best guide your child with what to do with their district issued Chromebook.

• Click here for Elementary (grades K-5)
• Click here for Middle School (grades 6-8)
• Click here for High School (grades 9-11)
• Click here for Graduating Seniors (grade 12)

As shared with all FPS two weeks ago, our Back-To-School Online Check-in (BTSOC) for the 2023-24 school year will be opening up for all families today, Thursday, June 1st around noon. Since opening, we have had about 400 families complete BTSOC! BTSOC asks parents and guardians to complete check-in activities such as updating your child(ren)’s emergency contacts, medical information, and transportation needs so we can verify they will be attending school with us for the fall and get everything ready for their return. Click here or on the associated image to view the details and to access the PARENT CHECKLIST that can help you plan for completing this process. Back-to-School Online Check-in needs to be completed between Thursday, June 1st and Monday, July 31st.

With Back-To-School Online Check-in opening up, we have also updated our SCHOOL SUPPLY LISTS for next year! They are online here (with the exception of 6-8th grade which will be updated soon!).

As you are aware, CultureFest took place a few weeks ago and was a very popular and widely attended event by our families and community members. The Multicultural club that put the event on has put together a short survey to gather feedback from those that attended this year’s CultureFest. Please CLICK HERE to offer your feedback on the event to help them understand what went well and what they can do to improve the event in the future.

Last week, we hosted our Franklin Public Schools Business Partner Breakfast at the Polish Center of Wisconsin. Local business partners were able to sit and meet with students to hear about their experiences working in youth apprenticeships, internships and other job exploration within the community. The video below was fully created by students to highlight a few of our students working with community partners in the Franklin Business Park and this was shown at the breakfast.

Our numbers of students placed in opportunities like this only continues to grow! If you are interested in joining our Saber Business Alliance to offer experiences like this for students in the community, you can read up on the opportunities and fill out an interest form at this page here.

As we look ahead to the 2023-24 school year, we want to share some attendance planning we have been working on and will continue to work on into next school year. This year, we worked across the district to better streamline our attendance codes. Next year, our goal is to increase our communication with families around attendance. Recently, we created a district level task force to explore our current practices for communication and partnered with our office staff to make reporting of absences more consistent across all of our buildings while still following Board policy and state law.

One area that is important for parents/guardians to recognize is that it is the district’s responsibility (per state law) to notify parents when their child exceeds 10 days of excused absence. Commonly, these letters/notices from the district are perceived negatively or that a child or family may be “in trouble”, but please know that is not the case! We recognize that health needs, travel, emergencies, and other obligations will contribute to a family’s need to excuse their child from school on occasion. The notice from school that your child has exceeded 10 days of excused absence is a measure we follow to make sure families are informed of these absences. In most cases, this is a start of an ongoing partnership and conversation around making sure children are in school, every day, whenever possible. We know that regular attendance is a predictor of success for children during their school career.

Next year, after 10 days of excused absence for any reason, parents/guardians can expect to receive a notification that your child has been out of school for 10 days. This notice will contain details about what will happen if excessive absences continue. We will share more details about what this looks like as we approach the start of the school year and what the family’s responsibility is in terms of a child’s attendance in school. We will continue to also notify families when a student has been unexcused for all or part of 5 days, as this is considered “Habitually Truancy.” Look for more information as we return to school.

Throughout the summer, these services continue to be available for students and families:

• The Student and Family Assistance Program (SFAP) through Advocate Aurora Health Care will continue to operate and be available to all students and members of their households within our district AT NO COST. Counseling options for students and families are available on a variety of topics. This service offers up to (4) free one-hour sessions with a licensed counselor per issue on a variety of topics related to mental health. Please click here to read more information about these services, along with a flier with more information and an informational video.

• Clinical Psychology Associates - our partnership with CPA, which you can read more about here, continues through the summer. The purpose of these onsite clinics is to provide our students and families access to therapeutic mental health support services that extend beyond what our district is able to offer on its own. To ask questions or begin the process of accessing the clinics throughout the summer, please contact Clinical Psychology Associates by calling or texting 262-975-0012.

We are so thankful to be able to offer these services to our families and students and encourage you to utilize them when needed.

• SUMMER MEALS AND 2023-24 LUNCH MENUS: If you are looking for summer meal options for your children, please check the “Summer Food Service Program Outreach” section of our Lunch webpage here and (2) flyers of information are displayed below. Our lunch webpage also contains our online lunch menus for all school buildings for the next school year.
• FREE & REDUCED PRICE MEALS FOR 2023-24: We encourage families to complete the free and reduced lunch application. The application can be completed online after August 1st, 2023. To find the application, we will have a link on our website here.

Summer Break is right around the corner! Don't forget about all the great programs and camps the Rec Department has to offer. There are still spots available for Abby Martin's baking classes, Mad Science Camps, and others. Check out our website for more information and to register. Make your summer plans now! Click on the image to head to the Recreation website.

Do you have an incoming 6th grade or 9th grader for the 2023-24 school year? Check out our Summer Learning Programs page for the 2-day 6th GRADE TRANSITION COURSE (8/14 & 8/15) and the 2-day 9th GRADE TRANSITION COURSE (8/16 & 8/17).

Both are offered in August for students entering those grade levels and is a great opportunity for students to become familiar with the new building, meet and work with staff, participate in some team-building activities, get to know other students, try out the dreaded new locker and just learn the ropes. Sign up your current 5th grader or 8th grader now!

Please note that beginning the week of June 19th, the ECC District Office will shift to summer hours and will be open 7am to 3:30pm Monday through Thursday. The ECC District Office will not be open on Fridays. This will be in place until the week of August 14th where we will resume office hours of Monday through Friday from 7am to 3:30pm.

Registration for the 2023-24 school year is open on our website here. Registration is for any new families to Franklin or new students looking to register for next year in 4K, 5K or up through 12th grade. If you have any friends or family in Franklin that plan to have children attend Franklin Public Schools next year, please pass this information along to them! Registering early helps to get all information in our system for planned communications. Any family who knows a student will not be returning for the next school year should notify your school’s main office staff.

Franklin Public Schools has a variety of positions available that you can view at the links below:

• Certified Staff (teaching positions, administration roles, substitutes, nurses)

• Support Staff (coaches, aides, custodial, food service, bus drivers, Rec Dept, Kids Club)

This is the final District Newsletter for the 2022-23 school year! As we head into summer, we will communicate with families on an as needed basis. You can expect to hear from us mid to late July as we approach our Back-To-School Online Check-in deadline of July 31st. Have a great summer!

We are SOLD OUT for our June 16th golf outing, BUT that doesn't mean you can't still share in the fun with our amazing online auction that opens online next Friday, June 9th! Scroll through the site HERE to preview all the exciting items we have to offer and stay tuned in as we add more items leading up to the event on June 16th. Concert tickets, deluxe hotel stays and getaways, a signed Jrue Holiday Bucks jersey, festival passes and so much more! Thank you our sponsors (listed in the accompanying picture) for helping this event to be successful!

Congratulations to our 2023 FEF Scholarship recipients! We had a record number of applicants this year, and it was exciting to see all of the wonderful things this talented group of individuals have accomplished and we look forward to seeing where their bright futures lead. Click on the associated picture to see the winners!

As the school year draws to an end, we wish to recognize Franklin teachers and staff for their outstanding efforts to keep our students engaged, connected and learning. Now is the time to nominate that special teacher who you believe has gone above and beyond this year! We encourage parents, students and colleagues to take a moment to recognize a teacher who has excelled this year. Everything that you need to nominate a Franklin teacher or professional staff member is included in this form.

You do not need to answer every question, but it helps to support your nominee if you can attempt to do so. One teacher from each school will be selected from the applications to receive a $500 educational grant to use for items in their classrooms or continuing education. The deadline to apply is Saturday, July 1st.

WINNERS WILL BE SHARED AT THE MILWAUKEE MILKMEN BACK TO SCHOOL GAME on Thursday, August 31, 2023.

Tickets are now available for this great community event! For tickets, go to: https://fevo.me/3nuTLsA

Please visit the summer athletic camps page on the high school website to see the summer athletic camp offerings from our high school sports teams. On this page, you can find dates, times along with a link to formally register. The following youth camps are currently scheduled: boys basketball, girls basketball, wrestling, boys volleyball, girls volleyball, football.

Our Community Education & Recreation Department has information out for both 2023 Summer Kids Camp and 2023-24 Before & After School Kids Club.

• 2023 Summer Kids Camp is for students that have completed 5K up through those entering 6th grade. You can view all 2023 Summer Kids Camp information here.
• 2023-24 Before & After School Kids Club Information is online here and registration is now open! Please contact Shana Gagliardo, Recreation Coordinator at shana.gagliardo@franklin.k12.wi.us if you have any questions.

FHS Baseball is holding a “Dough-nation Night” at the Franklin Toppers on Rawson on Monday, June 5th from 4pm-9pm. 20% of sales donated will go to the FHS Boys Baseball program. Click here or on the picture associated to see the flyer so you know what to do for FHS Boys Baseball to receive credit.

Join the Franklin Independence Celebration June 30th through July 2nd, at Lions Legend Park to celebrate our independence and quality of life. Entertainment for all ages including carnival rides, food vendors, music, fireworks, and a parade! For all details and events, please click here to visit the city’s webpage of information.

The Franklin Public Library has put out a summer guide that offers teen activities and volunteer opportunities. Click here or on the associated image to view all of the offerings!

Fall 2023 Registration Now Open for athletes entering grades 1-4 in September 2023. Register before June 15th. Visit franklinjuniorfootball.com for more information and to sign up!

Parents, Guardians, and Staff are set to automatically receive our District and Building Newsletters. If you are a community member that would like to receive any of our newsletters, please complete our SUBSCRIBE FORM.

(Note: Any imagery containing students, staff, events, or FPS logos shared by FPS are the property of Franklin Public Schools and are solely for district use. Reproduction or reuse of these images without written permission is not allowed.)