Hey Panda Family,
Report Cards: Report Cards will go home this upcoming week. Please send them home in Friday Folders on April 16.
Teacher Choice Form (K-5 Teachers Only): Please complete the following form to let me know your desired grade level for the 2021-2022 school year: Teacher Choice Form 2021-2022. The form should be completed by Friday, April 23.
April Staff Meeting: In an effort not to interrupt our afterschool tutoring we are going to move our April staff meeting to 3:30 on Wednesday, April 21. Please adjust your calendars accordingly.
National Assistant Principal Week: Last week was National Assistant Principal Week. We are going to celebrate one week later since we weren't in school last week. Please join me in celebrating Ms. Gardner this upcoming week! Ms. Gardner does so many unsung things around our school to keep us going whether it is helping with discipline issues, IEP meetings, building maintenance, transportation, and so much more! I encourage you and your class to find a way to celebrate her this upcoming week :)
- Remember to reteach PAWS Laws and procedures this week (all teachers)
- Pass out PAW bucks!
- Don't forget about Panda Grams & PAW Forms
- Please tell your students about the upcoming incentives
April Incentive - April 29 and 30th
- Kickball with Elkins/Gardner (3-5) - Cost $40
- K-2 paw store (schedule coming soon)
- All students will participate
- Paw bucks will be spent on extra activities and snacks
- More details to come soon
Ms. Murray: We have been given the clearance to have select volunteers begin coming back in the building. Ms. Murray will be back helping out in the front office this upcoming week! Please come say hey and welcome her back 😊
Newsela (from district) - this is a great nonfiction resource: Great News!!!! Teachers will now have access to Newsela! This is a great resource that will provide teachers with leveled text in Social Studies, ELA, and Science. Teachers will have access to the entire Newsela platform through Canvas and will be able to assign text and assessments to students the same way.
Newsela takes authentic content from the world’s most trusted providers and turns it into learning materials that are classroom-ready to support any district’s curriculum. You can learn more about Newsela by watching this short video.
Starting today, you have full access to Newsela’s complete product suite including:
- Newsela ELA
- Newsela Science
- and Newsela Social Studies
Our district will also have access to Newsela SEL, a Social and Emotional Learning that is designed to help address key competencies that are more important than ever.
For teachers to get started, they can review this set-up guide that will walk them, step-by-step, through the process to get started.
As teachers get started, please direct them towards the Newsela Support page to find answers to many common questions.
Pathway to K and Pathway to 1 Employment (from district): Applications for positions in the Pathways programs have been made public through the Keeping You Informed email sent on March 26, 2021. Those links can also be found here. We appreciate you forwarding them to your rock star early childhood Teachers and Instructional Assistants. This year we will have Site Coordinators as well as Bilingual Family Liaison's at each site. These are classified positions.
Remote Students Returning to In-Person: We have decided not to wait until 4th quarter to communicate to all remote parents that their child can return to in-person learning. Please send the following message to your fully-remote students via Dojo (you can let them know it is from Mr. Elkins):
Hey Pandas! Effective immediately, your child may return to full in-person learning if you so choose. Any remote students that want to immediately return to in-person learning will need to be a car rider, use a morning/afternoon daycare van, or go to Imprints. If your child needs bus transportation, please contact the front office to get it arranged before your child plans to return to in-person learning (bus transportation is only available for residential students). If your child will be a car rider, please ask your teacher for a pink car rider sign. Students returning to in-person learning are committing to all 4 days of in-person learning each week. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact the front office at 336-703-4122.
- Mr. Elkins
If parents decide to send their child back for in-person learning please let Ms. True know who the student is and when they will begin in-person learning.
Student Attendance: For students to be counted present on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays they must attend in-person if they are an in-person student or they must attend remotely if they are a remote student. Students should not be counted present for work completion only on M/T/Th/F if they did not attend class. They may be counted present for work completion on Flex Wednesdays.
Morning Arrival: This is just a friendly reminder that all staff need to enter through the front entrance of the building first & complete the temperature check and screening before reporting to your room. Thank you for your help with this.
MTSS help documents are now all in one place! Here is a link to all the items you will need for MTSS planning. Hopefully this will help make your planning more streamlined.
Get out your calendar! Here are important testing dates!
April 26 - May 14: iReady 4-5 Reading and K-5 Math testing window
May 3-14: iReady K-3 Reading testing window
May 17: iReady “Pop to the Top” incentive
May 21: EOG testing window opens; all computers will be borrowed from K-2 classrooms for testing and will not be returned until testing is close to completion (I’m hoping you will have them back on June 2)
May 24 - June 8: K-2 Math EOY assessment window
June 8: Last day of school!
June 9: RS day and Remediation for 3rd-5th Reading and Math, 5th Science
June 10: RS day and EOG retest
June 11: Last RS day and EOG retest
May PD session: May 6 will be our last after school PD session. We will begin cross-grade level meetings in preparation for the 21-22 school year. Mark your calendar!
