Happy Halloween!

We just had the nicest Halloween Parade at school!! We had timidly been anticipating the day filled with LOTS of activity, but I am more than pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the day went. We started with the Citizenship Awards ceremony, moved on to "Eat Lunch with Your Child," and then finished with the big parade and parties. By all rights, it had all the ingredients necessary to be one super CRAZY day!! Instead, the weather was gorgeous (no winter winds that had been around all week), the children were absolutely fantastic, even though they came dressed in their costumes, and there was a pleasant calm in the atmosphere all day!! Wow. I attribute this to all the hard work our staff has done to "Capture Kids Hearts" and treat everyone with respect and dignity.

The Halloween Parade is a Highland tradition (the school opened on Halloween in 1958) and the kids are always so excited to particpate. But I have to say, this is the first year that it felt like a real old-fashioned, gentle and fun parade. The costumes were cute and creative, and there were none that were overly violent or grotesque. It just made my heart feel so good to see children being children, and having a great time cheering each other on!! Thank you to parents, too, for raising such thoughtful children.

Well, here we are already moving into November, the time when we hold official parent conferences. Soon you will be receiving an invitation from your child's teacher asking you to come to school to discuss his or her progress. You must attend the conference in order to receive your child's first report card, too. Please arrange to accept the invitation at the time the teacher schedules for you as they have made time for each parent. If you change the time, the teacher has to re-adjust all the other conferences. Please do not ask teachers to meet later in the evening--they have families too, and many are trying to attend the conferences at their childrens' schools, too. (Employers are required to allow you time off to attend school meetings.)

Check the list of dates in the right column of this page for all the special events this month. There is a lot going on and you don't want to miss out!! Remember, there is no school at all during the week of Thanksgiving. This allows all families to spend quality time together as we begin the holiday season.

Enjoy your longer weekend!!

Lia Boucher, Principal

Parent Volunteers

October 12, 2009

This month we are recruiting parent volunteers to support the activities in our classrooms. Just as sports teams have a "Team Parent" to coordinate the snacks and practice schedules, we are asking for "Room Parents" to perform similar duties. Many parents have already responded, but a few classrooms are still lacking a parent to help the teacher out in this way. The room parent duties include planning class parties, calling other parents to bring in items for the parties, and in primary rooms, helping to total the minutes on the Treasure Reading logs. We only have a few parties each year, so the time commitment is minimal, but having this parent available to the teacher is a great help. Please consider volunteering if you have not already done so.

Parent involvement in school activities is one element successful students have in common. When parents volunteer at the school, or communicate with the teacher regularly, the children of those parents have higher achievement scores. This just makes sense--if the parent is interested in what his or her child is doing in school, they tend to support the learning at home. We have many, many opportunities for parents to become involved, and none of them are scary!! We will work with you to make your experiences here comfortable and give you tasks that you will feel successful doing. What you do is less important than just being here and being involved, because the message you are sending to your child is critical--I care about you and about you doing well in school.

We are entering the flu season, and are definitely seeing many more sick children at school. Please help control the spread of germs by teaching your child good health habits.

1. Always cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing. Many teachers have children cough or sneeze into their elbows so they don't carry the germs on their hands.

2. Reinforce the rule at school that students not share food. Again, those hands are carrying lots of germs, so sharing food is sharing germs!

3. Expect your child to wash hands before every meal.

If your child has a fever or is vomiting s/he must stay home. A child needs to be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school. That is why we tell parents, if we send a student home with a fever they must stay home the next day, too. School attendance is very important, but we certainly understand that sick children must be at home, or else everyone just keeps spreading germs around.

We have tried many ways to discourage parents from picking children up from school early, but some continue to do so, even when they know this is taking children away from critical instruction. In order to control this problem we are going to need to start keeping track of students being picked up early and refer these parents to the School Attendance Review Board when the problem becomes excessive (more than three times each trimester). I cannot stress enough how disruptive it is to the entire class when we have to interrupt the room to call a single child out to go home. It is not fair to all students to have their learning affected by parents who continually pick students up early.

Background knowledge and varied experiences are a critical component of helping children learn, so be sure to take advantage of the teachable moments around you. Take walks together and talk about the changing season--leaves falling, cooler weather, fall decorations in front of houses. Read chapter books together each night and discuss the story elements--character, setting, problem and solution. Rake fallen leaves into a big pile and let children jump into them!! Everything you do together with your child has learning opportunities so be sure to capitalize on them!

Enjoy this lovely season!

Ms. Boucher