Week of 10/21 - 10/25

Hey Panda Family,

Week 9 & Quarter 1 is Complete! We did it! 🙌 I know we have all been exhausted these last few weeks. I am so proud of your efforts. I hope these workdays provide you the time to get caught up and catch your breath. Keep smiling and keep being amazing! 😊 

Report Cards: Please make sure your Report Cards are complete and turned in to Ms. True by Friday, November 1. According to central office, the gradebook program will not allow you to enter grades five days after the quarter ends. To be safe, I would encourage you to complete them by this Wednesday. 

Punctual Pandas: Our Punctual Panda initiative to help decrease the number of tardies will begin this week. Mrs. Ceglowski will be sending out a reminder email to staff on Monday to review how the program will operate. 

Halloween: Please remind your students to not come to school dressed up in their costumes for Halloween. 

"No Charge" Time: I believe I failed to communicate this earlier in the year, so I wanted to clarify. Anytime a staff member needs to leave for 1.5 hours or less I do not charge them time. However, if your "No Charge" time exceeds 8 hours in a 12-month cycle, the staff member will be charged 1 sick leave day. I want to be able to give each staff member the ability to go to appointments or take care of family matters for short stints of time without docking them, but I also want to make sure the "No Charge" time does not get abused. Mrs. Willis keeps up with your "No Charge" time, so if you would like to know where you stand please check with her. 

Fire Marshall: Please continue moving furniture and other items away from the exit doors in your classroom.  Mrs. Gardner will be checking classrooms Tuesday. 

Family Night: We are planning a family night for our Hispanic families on Thursday, November 7 from 6:00-7:30.  We will be offering dinner, childcare, and programming as well as help sessions for the parents.  We would love for you to plan to be there! 

Picture Makeups: Picture Makeups will be on Tuesday, November 5. Mrs. Willis sent out the schedule this past week. Any staff that was absent on the original date, please make time to get your picture taken. 

PBIS Slime Event (11/8/19): Below are some schedule adjustments that need to be made for this event. 

5^th- please eat in your classrooms.  We will make sure you have a large garbage bag for trash.  Lunch time stays the same.  

Kindergarten- We are going to move up your lunch time (see below) and also have you eat in your classrooms.

Sloan- go to cafeteria straight from PE

Miller- 12:05

Cox- 12:10

Pizzino-  12:15

Rinfrette- 12:20

Mrs. Panico and Ms. Seely will be in the cafeteria to help move things along.

Dr. Hairston Listening Session: Our new Superintendent, Dr. Angela Hairston, will be having a listening session for all WS/FCS employees at Piney Grove on Wednesday, November 6 from 4:30-6:00 in the gym. I really hope you will find time in your schedule to come for a portion of it and show a warm Piney Grove welcome to our new Superintendent.   

Tutoring for Pay: We will have an information meeting for all staff interested in tutoring for pay after the staff meeting on Tuesday, November 19. Below is the link to an interest survey to determine how many staff members would like to have the opportunity to tutor students in grades 3-5 beginning in January through the end of the year (Reading and/or Math). Please complete only if you are interested. The pay is $26 per hour before taxes for certified staff, and $18 per hour before taxes for classified staff. This links with some of our SIT initiatives/goals. https://forms.gle/XDUEXnTuNS5kmhpZ6

Staff Spotlight: Thank you to everyone for a smooth first round of quarter testing, and a big shout out to Mrs. Owens for being so organized and prepared! Great job! 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: Our school Facebook page is highlighting a teacher each week (thanks for organizing this Ms. Jones)! Our spotlight this past week was Ms. Rinfrette. Check it out! 

Field Trip Calendar: Our Master Field Trip calendar is filling up fast! Remember, each grade level is allowed 4 trips per year or 1 per quarter.  Try to avoid Fridays.  All trips requests for the year should be in to Gardner before Winter break.  See the FT calendar across from Gardner’s office for open dates.

Lesson Plans: Friendly reminder that Lesson Plans should be posted to the PowerSchool Wiki the first day of each week by 8:00am.

IF Updates

I-Ready update: Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to complete I-Ready by the deadline on Friday.  I thrilled to report that our completion rate is 100% for reading AND math!  That is a result of a TEAM effort.  Thank you (and your students) for making this happen!

October 29^th RC Day-Content area updates: I will be sending out updates to everyone to know final locations, etc for Tuesday.  Please check your emails.  If you do not get an email, that means I do not know where you are going.

Upcoming Dates:
October 28 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Schools)

October 29 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Central Office)
November 1 - Duke Energy Program @ 1:15 (3rd-5th grades) & 2:00 (PreK-2nd grades)
November 1 - Report Cards due
November 4 - Testing team meeting @ 3:30
November 5 - Picture Make-up day
November 5 - PBIS & Wellness Committees meet @ 3:30
November 6 - Dr. Hairston Listening Session @ PGE - 4:30
November 7 - WS Symphony program @ 10:15 (4th & 5th grade)
November 7 - I-Ready PD from 3:30 - 5:00 (3rd-5th grades only)
November 7 - Hispanic Family Night @ 6:00
November 8 - PBIS event - Slime Creation
November 8 - Report cards go home
November 11 - No school (Veterans Day)
November 12 - SIT @ 3:30
November 14 - FCAE Meeting @ 3:30 in Mrs. Ball's room
November 15 - 5th Grade Dancing Classrooms program @ 1:30
November 16 - Go Far 5K
November 18 - 22 - PTA Holiday Market
November 19 - Staff Meeting @ 3:30 (Tutoring information meeting afterwards)
November 22 - Square 1 Art Order Deadline

See if you can solve this Halloween Riddle! Put your answer in the comments section below (don't cheat and scroll down before answering :) Here you go:

A zombie, a mummy, and a ghost bought a house. It has all of the usual rooms except for one. What room won’t you find?

Week of 10/14 - 10/18

Hey Panda Family,

Week 8 was great! Almost done with 1st Quarter! You may be feeling like this sweet Panda in the picture 😂, but Don't Worry - a break is coming soon! You got this!!! 

Drills: The Tornado & Earthquake drills will take place right after announcements on Monday, October 21.   

EOQ Testing: On Tuesday & Wednesday of this week we will be having EOQ testing throughout the upper grades classrooms and in other areas of the building for our modification groups. Please help us by reminding your students to be extra quiet in the halls on these days. Thanks! 

Chromebook update: At my district meeting this past week they gave us a tentative schedule for replenishing our Chromebooks. They have picked up our Chromebooks that need repairs and those should be returned to us shortly. The district has purchased close to 8,000 new Chromebooks that they are working to deliver to schools in the coming weeks. Their goal is to give each elementary school a new Chromebook for each one they lost. Fingers crossed this will happen. 

Dr. Hairston Listening Session: Our new Superintendent, Dr. Angela Hairston, will be having a listening session for all WS/FCS employees at Piney Grove on Wednesday, November 6 from 4:30-6:00 in the gym. I really hope you will find time in your schedule to come for a portion of it and show a warm Piney Grove welcome to our new Superintendent.   

PBIS Communication Presentation: Thank you to the PBIS committee for putting together such a wonderful presentation on Parent Communication at our last staff meeting. If you would like access to the information in their presentation the link is below.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1p6uHmsZUZ2QN8VCOWsw_Z03xehlcbllUneHVguPnaWc/edit?usp=sharing

Tutoring for Pay: Below is the link to an interest survey to determine how many staff members would like to have the opportunity to tutor students in grades 3-5 beginning in January through the end of the year (Reading and/or Math). Please complete only if you are interested. The pay is $26 per hour before taxes for certified staff, and $18 per hour before taxes for classified staff. This links with some of our SIT initiatives/goals. We will have a meeting this fall for all interested individuals. https://forms.gle/XDUEXnTuNS5kmhpZ6

Positive Contact: Please make sure you are making those positive parent contacts. It could be a phone call, text, Panda gram, Dojo message, or in-person contact. Fill that bucket :) Each teacher should make a positive contact for each student and complete their log sheet by the end of the quarter, this Friday, October 25. When you have completed your positive log sheet please turn it in to my box. Thank you to those teachers who have already turned it in!

SMO: Thank you for your patience as we work through some staffing issues with SMO. I know the cleaning service has been less than ideal in some parts of the building recently. We have been without a lead supervisor for a couple of weeks now which is why some things are being overlooked. Mrs. Gardner and I are working to correct these issues as quickly as possible with the company. 

Staff Spotlight: What a wonderful job Mrs. Epperley, Mrs. Secrest, and all our volunteers did with our Bookfair this past week! Thank you to Mrs. Rempe for putting red PBIS Paw Prints around the school to remind our students where to stop & to Mrs. Gardner for her hard work to make up for some missed custodial items by the nightly crew. 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: Our school Facebook page is highlighting a teacher each week (thanks for organizing this Ms. Jones)! Our spotlight this past week was Ms. Epperley. Check it out! 

Field Trip Calendar: Our Master Field Trip calendar is filling up fast! Remember, each grade level is allowed 4 trips per year or 1 per quarter.  Try to avoid Fridays.  All trips requests for the year should be in to Gardner before Winter break.  See the FT calendar across from Gardner’s office for open dates.

Lesson Plans: Friendly reminder that Lesson Plans should be posted to the PowerSchool Wiki the first day of each week by 8:00am.

IF Updates

ORF update: Just a reminder, we will hold off on completing ORF at this point.  Please stay tuned for further updates.

October 29: Don’t forget that this is an RC day.  You will have PD in your designated content area.  I have all of the dates and times and the information is being checked one last time before it is sent out to you.  I can answer specific questions if you have them!

IReady deadlines reminder: Given the Chromebook recall, the deadline for IReady has been changed.  IReady diagnostics should be completed by 10/25/19. 

Upcoming Dates:
October 21 - Tornado & Earthquake drill @ 8:30

October 22 - Math NC Check-In
October 22 - SCC & Media Committees meet @ 3:30

October 23 - ELA NC Check-In (4th & 5th only)
October 25 - IReady diagnostics due

October 25 - Positive Parent Log Sheet due to Elkins

October 25 - End of the 1st Quarter
October 28 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Schools)
October 29 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Central Office)
November 1 - Duke Energy Program @ 1:15 & 2:00
November 1 - Report Cards due
November 4 - Testing team meeting @ 3:30
November 5 - Picture Make-up day
November 5 - PBIS & Wellness Committees meet @ 3:30
November 6 - Dr. Hairston Listening Session @ PGE - 4:30
November 7 - WS Symphony program @ 10:15 (4th & 5th grade)
November 7 - I-Ready PD from 3:30 - 5:00 (3rd-5th grades only)
November 8 - PBIS event - Slime Creation
November 8 - Report cards go home
November 11 - No school (Veterans Day)
November 12 - SIT @ 3:30
November 14 - FCAE Meeting @ 3:30 in Mrs. Ball's room
November 15 - 5th Grade Dancing Classrooms program @ 1:30
November 16 - Go Far 5K

Check out this fun activity (thanks for sharing Mrs. Laws)! What is your Halloween Teacher Name? Make sure to tell us who you are in the comments! Have a wonderful weekend :)

Week of 10/7 - 10/11

Hey Panda Family,

Week 7 was wild! But we keep at it with a smile! 

Chromebooks: I guess Old McDonald had a Chromebook on his farm 😂 But seriously - I am going to get sappy for a second, but I couldn't have been more proud of how everyone has handled the crazy Chromebook news and shuffling this week. This was not ideal by any means, but everyone has been so understanding and cooperative. I hope to have some answers soon on when our replacement computers will be coming in, but until then continue to work as a family to share and make lemonade with these lemons. 

PowerSchool Learning Page: Thank you to everyone who has shared their PSL page with Ms. Gardner and me. Also, please make sure you message your parents to let them know how to access your page. If you haven't shared your page with us or your parents, please make sure you do so as soon as possible. To add us as a co-teacher click on Manage Class, Edit Roster, Teachers tab, then add us as a Teacher. If you need help sharing your page with your parents or us, please don't hesitate to reach out to Ms. Medley or one of your grade level teammates for help. 

Staff Meeting: Our next staff meeting is this Tuesday, October 15 at 3:30. We will meet in the gym due to the book fair. 

Kay Pridgen Memorial: Anyone that would like to donate money towards the memorial bookshelf for Mrs. Pridgen please pay Mrs. Brookshire by this upcoming Friday, October 18. 

Tutoring for Pay: Below is the link to an interest survey to determine how many staff members would like to have the opportunity to tutor students in grades 3-5 beginning in January through the end of the year (Reading and/or Math). Please complete only if you are interested. The pay is $26 per hour before taxes for certified staff, and $18 per hour before taxes for classified staff. This links with some of our SIT initiatives/goals. We will have a meeting this fall for all interested individuals. https://forms.gle/XDUEXnTuNS5kmhpZ6

Personal Social Media Pages (message from the district to all schools): Was asked to relay this from Brent Campbell - The Communications Team is still seeing pictures of students on individual/private pages. Remember, unless you have individual permission from a student's parent, you should not be putting student images on any personal pages or pages that are set up using private email accounts. Student images are only cleared for use on school pages or school associated pages that are managed by a school employee, using the employee's professional email as the account manager.

DLC Coaching (from Jerry Yale): I need you to do a few things for me...

1. Please update your goals/ action steps on your DLC PDP Goal Sheet. You should find this if you search for DLC in your Google Drive. Please be sure you are using the 2019-20 document. 
2. Schedule a time to meet with me on this calendar. I will be back out Oct. 16 but not again until January.
3. If you don't get a chance to meet with me please follow the steps on this page to document work for tech actions or tech credits.

Breast Cancer Awareness: In honor of breast cancer awareness month, a representative from Mary Kay will be in the staff workroom this Wednesday, October 16 to hand out free pink goodies and treats. This is to raise awareness and as a thank you for all you do each and every day. 

Positive Contact: Please make sure you are making those positive parent contacts. It could be a phone call, text, Dojo message, or in-person contact. Fill that bucket :) Each teacher should make a positive contact for each student and complete their log sheet by the end of the quarter, October 25. When you have completed your positive log sheet please turn it in to my box. 

Drills: This month, we will have both Tornado and Earthquake drills along with our monthly fire drill.  Please practice both new drills with your students next week. The Tornado & Earthquake drill will take place right after announcements on Monday, October 21.   

Staff Spotlight: Congratulations again to Ms. Vaden & Ms. Gant for winning the Innovative Teaching Grant. Also, Ms. Rinfrette got her "Learning Through Creating!" project funded through Donor's Choose. Awesome job! And a big Thank You to Ms. Grubbs for presenting a wonderful PD session for us on Differentiation this past Wednesday. 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: Our school Facebook page is highlighting a teacher each week (thanks for organizing this Ms. Jones)! Our spotlight this past week was Ms. Harman. Check it out! 

Field Trip Calendar: Our Master Field Trip calendar is filling up fast! Remember, each grade level is allowed 4 trips per year or 1 per quarter.  Try to avoid Fridays.  All trips requests for the year should be in to Gardner before Winter break.  See the FT calendar across from Gardner’s office for open dates.

Field Trips for Gardner & Elkins: Thank you to those grade levels that have already let us know which field trip you would like for us to attend with you this year. Remember, we both want to attend at least one field trip with each grade level this year. If you haven't already, please have a grade level representative reach out to schedule this. 

Lesson Plans: Friendly reminder that Lesson Plans should be posted to the PowerSchool Wiki the first day of each week by 8:00am.

IF Updates

Hierarchy of skills in Istation: Several of you asked about the order of skills as related to Istation.  Here is hierarchy:

• Listening comprehension 
• Phonemic awareness
• Letter knowledge
• Alphabetic decoding 
• Spelling/phonics
• Reading comprehension 
• Text fluency 

Collecting data: As you are collecting data for progress monitoring a Supplemental Support Plan (formerly PEP) or IST, please use this form.  This will help as we collect data succinctly, and will help make things easier to analyze.  Thank you!

IReady and Istation deadlines updates: Given the Chromebook recall, the deadline for IReady has been changed.  IReady diagnostics should be completed by 10/25/19.  Istation ORF (for 2^nd and 3^rd grades only) should still be completed by 10/31/19.  I have a plan for how we will work on ORF.  I will be communicating that with you in the days to come. 

Upcoming Dates:
October 14-18 - Book Fair
October 14 - PTA Meeting @ 6:30
October 15 - Elkins @ Principal's Meeting all day
October 15 - Staff Meeting @ 3:30 in gym
October 16 - Jerry Yale @ PGE
October 18 - Science NC Check-In
October 18 - Read to Achieve Test
October 21 - Tornado & Earthquake drill @ 8:30

October 22 - Math NC Check-In
October 22 - SCC & Media Committees meet @ 3:30

October 23 - ELA NC Check-In (4th & 5th only)

October 25 - Positive Parent Log Sheet due to Elkins

October 25 - End of the 1st Quarter
October 28 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Schools)
October 29 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Central Office)
November 1 - Duke Energy Program @ 1:15 & 2:00
November 1 - Report Cards due
November 4 - Testing team meeting @ 3:30
November 5 - Picture Make-up day
November 5 - PBIS & Wellness Committees meet @ 3:30
November 7 - I-Ready PD from 3:30 - 5:00 (3rd-5th grades only)
November 8 - Report cards go home

The fair is in town! In the comments section below, tell us your favorite fair food :) Have a great weekend! 

Week of 9/30 - 10/4

Hey Panda Family,

Over halfway done with 1st quarter! Week 6 is complete! 😊

PowerSchool Learning Page: Thank you to all for working so hard at Thursday's training on your PSL Teacher page. I am currently working on creating a main school page to share with all our parents. Please make sure you have completed at least a "Welcome Page" and shared it with your parents by this Friday, October 11. If you would also please share it with myself and Ms. Gardner as well. To add us as a co-teacher click on Manage Class, Edit Roster, Teachers tab, then add us as a Teacher. If you need help sharing your page with your parents or us, please don't hesitate to reach out to Ms. Medley or one of your grade level teammates for help. 

Discretionary Funds: Please look for an email from me soon with the specific total of discretionary funds for your grade level to use on instructional materials this school year. 

PTA Spirit Night: Monday, October 7 is PTA Spirit Night at Ledo's Pizza. Hope you will join us! 

Panorama Survey: Make sure you take the staff Panorama survey. The access code is 494staff. Click on this link: https://surveys.panoramaed.com/winstonsalem/login

Field Trip Calendar: Our Master Field Trip calendar is filling up fast! Remember, each grade level is allowed 4 trips per year or 1 per quarter.  Try to avoid Fridays.  All trips requests for the year should be in to Gardner before Winter break.  See the FT calendar across from Gardner’s office for open dates.

Field Trips for Gardner & Elkins: Thank you to those grade levels that have already let us know which field trip you would like for us to attend with you this year. Remember, we both want to attend at least one field trip with each grade level this year. If you haven't already, please have a grade level representative reach out to schedule this. 

Positive Contact: Please make sure you are making those positive parent contacts. It could be a phone call, text, Dojo message, or in-person contact. Fill that bucket :) Each teacher should make a positive contact for each student and complete their log sheet by the end of the quarter, October 25. When you have completed your positive log sheet please turn it in to my box. 

Sidewalk Chalk: Please remind students that chalk should only be used on the sidewalk, not the building.

Fire Marshal Inspection: Our Fire Inspector visited us on Wednesday.  We do have a few things that need to be fixed.  More information to come.

Drills: This month, we will have both Tornado and Earthquake drills along with our monthly fire drill.  Please practice both new drills with your students next week. The Tornado & Earthquake drill will take place right after announcements on Monday, October 21.   

Peek of the Week: Don't forget to send Deana pictures throughout each week for our Facebook Peek of the Week post. Her cell number is 336-407-2197.  

PTA Membership: We encourage you to join PTA. It is only $5 and they do so much for our school. Including the funds for each classroom. Membership forms are in the front office. 

Staff Spotlight: Congratulations to Ms. Finley & Ms. Medley for winning the Scholastic Patterson Partnership grant. Check out the pic that shows some of the books Ms. Medley was able to purchase! 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: Our school Facebook page is highlighting a teacher each week (thanks for organizing this Ms. Jones)! Our spotlight this past week was Ms. Fischer. Check it out! 

Field Trip Calendar: There’s a master field trip calendar list on the closet door across from Gardner’s office. This is for your information when planning trips. Please do not write on the calendar. This will allow grade levels to see what days already have trips so you avoid those dates. 

Lesson Plans: Friendly reminder that Lesson Plans should be posted to the PowerSchool Wiki the first day of each week by 8:00am.

IF Updates

Early Release Day: Early Release day is this Wednesday, October 9. We plan to start promptly at 1:30 in the Media Center for all staff. Our training will last two hours. Please plan to bring a charged device and a pair of earbuds/headphones with you!  

Panda Partner: Here is a note from Sara French: PGE staff, I am Sara French and I am your Panda Partner Coordinator at Piney Grove.  I know that some of you are familiar with me and the program, but in case you aren't aware I wanted to let you know about this wonderful program offered at Piney Grove.  Panda Partners was a program that was put in place several years ago to provide children who might need a little more help in certain areas with that one on one support.  Our program is volunteer based and can assist with help in reading, math, and/or mentoring.  Volunteers will come in 1-4 times a month and assist children in areas that the teacher identifies and then I can match them with up with a volunteer.  A green referral form has been placed in your box. Please complete and return to Jayne Grubbs. The next step will be to send a permission slip to the parents, and then final step is matching them up.  Also, please know that we can get referrals all year.  Please feel free to add any child throughout the year or contact me if a volunteer does not work out for any reason.  Please feel free to contact me about anything.  I look forward to helping the you all and most importantly the children.  Sincerely,  Sara French

Upcoming Dates:

October 7 - PTA Spirit Night at Ledo's Pizza
October 8 - Vision Screening (1st, 3rd, & 5th grades only)
October 8 - SIT @ 3:30
October 9 - Early Release Day - PD from 1:30 - 3:30
October 10 - FCAE Meeting in Ms. Ball's room @ 3:30
October 11 - PTA Breakfast cart
October 11 - PowerSchool Learning Pages due
October 14-18 - Book Fair
October 14 - PTA Meeting @ 6:30
October 15 - Elkins @ Principal's Meeting from 8-12
October 15 - Staff Meeting @ 3:30
October 18 - Science NC Check-In
October 18 - Read to Achieve Test
October 21 - Tornado & Earthquake drill @ 8:30

October 22 - Math NC Check-In
October 22 - SCC & Media Committees meet @ 3:30

October 23 - ELA NC Check-In (4th & 5th only)

October 25 - Positive Parent Log Sheet due to Elkins

October 25 - End of the 1st Quarter
October 28 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Schools)
October 29 - Teacher Workday (Reserved for Central Office)
November 1 - Duke Energy Program @ 1:15 & 2:00

In our top picture, Olivia is welcoming Cleo (our new bearded dragon) to the Panda family! In the comments section below, share with us what is the wildest or neatest animal that you have ever seen or held :) Have a great weekend!