Mr. Elkins' Weekly Wrap: Week of 10/3

Hey Panda Family,

Fall is my absolute favorite season of the year! People love it for so many reasons: pumpkin spice, leaves changing, cool crisp air, football tailgates, bonfires, hayrides, and the list goes on. The cool thing about fall is you never know exactly when the leaves are going to change colors. Some change earlier than others, but in the end they all show off their amazing colors and beauty. This is just like our students - they all have different beauty inside of them waiting to come out and show itself. Thank you for helping them each day show off all the beautiful colors inside of them, just like our soon to be beautiful fall leaves 🍂 Have a wonderful weekend!

Here are the Weekly Wrap updates for this week:

New Updates

October Drills: See below for specific details about each of our drills for this month.

October Fire Drill: Our Fire drill for the month will be next week.

Earthquake Drill: Our Earthquake drill will be Friday, October 14^th at 10:45. We will walk the staff and students through the procedures over the intercom.

Tornado Drill: Our Tornado drill will be October 20 at 1:45. We will walk the staff and students through the procedures over the intercom.

LETRS 1/2 Day Planning (for all Certified Staff completing LETRS): All Certified Staff that are completing LETRS may sign up with Ms. Pam Mason for a free 1/2 day to work on completing your coursework. You may sign up for one slot between now and the end of December. You may pick either a morning or afternoon session. Please make sure to leave Ms. Mason detailed sub plans. See Ms. Mason's schedule below to look over available dates. You may choose any day that is listed as "LETRS". Please reach out to Ms. Mason to schedule it. I hope this helps!

Pam Mason's Schedule

PBIS Event (10/28): Our first event is October 28 at specials. Students will participate in three stations for 10 minutes each - BINGO with Ms. Staley, a collaborative art project with Mrs. Mason, and Taekwondo with Master Posey. The cost is 50 Paw Bucks, paid to teachers. Teachers will enter how many students are participating here by 10/21. Teachers will stay to supervise and help students rotate between stations. (Rotation schedule will be sent closer to date.) Students not participating will be with other specialists.

PBIS Procedures: Here are a few reminders regarding PBIS procedures. Please review these with your class and help us work together to enforce them. Thank you!

The PBIS team voted to maintain the rule that students should walk in mulched area (playground). Please remind students of this and enforce this rule. (Here are our school's playground procedures - also linked on Piney Grove Canvas page).

When students are standing in cafeteria (in line for food, throwing away trash, in line to leave) they should be at voice volume 0 (not talking) regardless of if music is playing or not. Please remind students of this and enforce this rule. The cafeteria staff especially needs our help supervising students as they go through the line to ensure they're not talking in line so orders can be heard.

Classes should use either the 300 hall or cafeteria restrooms during their assigned times. Students going outside of these times should use the 200 hall restrooms.

Print Shop: Please make sure you are utilizing print shop for your large copy needs. This takes just a little bit of pre-planning, but it saves our school lots of money. The turnaround is normally very quick (couple of days). If you need help navigating print shop, or submitting an order, Ms. Owens can help you!

Staff Flu Shots: Kernersville Pharmacy will be at Piney Grove on Thursday, October 13 from 7:00 - 9:00am to give free flu shots to staff members. This is optional.

October 31 (from district): Monday, October 31, will remain an RS Day for schools. We are monitoring the days of missed instruction and planning to use some remote learning days this school year. I am aware that we shared that remote days would not be allowed this school year. However, I want to let everyone know that the General Assembly adopted to keep the option for schools to use up to 5 remote learning days (or up to 30 hours of instruction) that would count toward our overall instructional hours on missed days. We will continue to monitor inclement weather days to ensure our compliance with North Carolina Calendar law.

EC PreK Vacancies: Our school is growing! We are adding a new EC PreK Classroom and we need to hire two Instructional Assistants. Both of these positions are full-time. If you know of anyone that may be interested, please share the job posting that is linked here:

https://wsfcs.tedk12.com/hire/ViewJob.aspx?JobID=1658

Media Updates (from Ms. Epperley): Here are the updates from Ms. Epperley in the Media Center.

Book Fair: Oct 10-15; Open M-F at 7:50 and during the Fall Festival 10-2pm. Come out to vote for Pumpkin Paloosa book character pumpkins. Please send your class pumpkin to the media center before Friday, Oct 14. (Need ideas? See Pintrest 🙂)

Chromebooks and Chargers: All chromebooks and chargers should have been delivered. Please let me know if you still need anything!

Book Order: There is a green suggestion box in the media for you or your students to request titles, topics or series for the library! Watch for a more detailed survey for staff coming soon.

Shout-Outs: Shout-out to our Code Team for a productive and efficient training on the Early Release Day! Thanks for all your hard work!

Important Items from Last Week

Book Fair Pumpkins (from Ms. Lloyd): We are having our Fall Book Fair Oct. 10 - Oct. 14. The Book Fair will be during their Media Class that week. On October 15, we will be having a family event the same time the PTA is having their Fall Festival, 10am - 2pm. We are going to do the same thing that we did last year with Pumpkins. Each homeroom class will bring one Pumpkin decorated as a BOOK CHARACTER to the library during the week of the book fair. On Saturday, Oct. 15th, friends can come to the library and vote for their favorite character. PTA has donated tons of pumpkins and decorated the front entrance. Homeroom teachers may pick any of these pumpkins for FREE to use for their book character. Just pick the one you like the best. There are plenty to choose from!

Thank you and we very much look forward to seeing all your fun creative pumpkins!

I Can Statements: Please make sure to decorate the hallways with your student's work. You can also put your student's work in the main hallways on the corkboard strips. When posting student work, please make sure to include the I Can statement so we know what your student's have been working on! Thanks!

October Drills: We will have fire, earthquake, and tornado drills in October. The tornado and earthquake drills will be announced.

Custodial Issues: Please email Elkins and Gardner if there are custodial issues so we can address them. Thanks for being our extra set of eyes to help keep our building clean!

Sub List: Here is the most up-to-date substitute list, Pam Mason's availability, and the direct link to Frontline. Please use these resources to find a sub in case you have to be out. Please reach out to Ms. Owens if you have any questions.

Substitutes

Pam Mason's Schedule

Frontline