It is so hard to believe that the weeks are flying by! It’s nearly October, WOW! Even though the weeks are flying, we had another great one at Country Meadows. Speaking of October, mark your calendars for a district-wide presentation at Ivy Hall School on October 20, 2011 at 6:30pm called, “Understanding Your Child’s Report Card.” District administrators and teachers are eager to explain our revised report cards. We cannot wait to see you there!
Important Announcement: It is both exciting and breaks our hearts to report that Art Club is full. We are so excited that over 60 students have signed up and want to participate. We tried to accommodate as many students as we could by creating a rotating schedule, however, even those sections are full. We cannot be more excited that the students are so eager to participate in afterschool activities. We all love art and Mrs. (Sanders) Grossman is amazing at instilling that love in students too as evidenced by this excitement. Thank you for your understanding that we cannot add anymore students to the program!
After-school Notes: Thank you so much for your assistance and patience in helping us to make sure all 400 students get to where they need to be after-school. Teachers are diligent at making sure all of the students in the class get home or to an alternate plan safely. Here are some guidelines and ideas that will help to make sure there is no after-school confusion.
· If your student is signed up for a club, we assume they are going unless we receive a note stating otherwise. We don’t want little ones getting off the bus to an empty home so we will not take the verbal word of a student.
· After-school notes about a change in plans need to be written and given to the teacher the day of that change only. In order to keep track of where everyone is going and to make sure everyone is safe, all notes come through the office by way of the teacher and are recorded. Notes are then returned to the classroom to serve as a reminder for the teacher and student. It is a challenge to clarify the intention of a note that comes a few days early as well as continually make sure each student is heading in the right direction.
· If you email an after-school change in plans, we will always respond. If we do not respond, that means we did not receive it. We are finding that some emails are being blocked which can be a problem for communicating last minute changes. The best thing to do is to call school to be sure we know about the change for your student.
Again, thank you so much for your assistance in making sure all of our students get to the right place after-school, safely!
Extended Math
There will be more information to come on how we extend and enrich our students at Country Meadows. At this time, I would like to explain Extended Math for our 4th and 5th Graders. Extended Math is an opportunity for our 4th and 5th graders to extend their learning of the identified targets from the Curriculum Framework. All students in grades 4 and 5 have an opportunity to qualify for extended math each trimester. Students who qualify for Extended Math will meet in a class taught by the Extended Learning Specialist one day each week during their regularly scheduled Math class. Students who do not qualify for Extended Math will have opportunities for extension during the regular math class.
Trimester 1 – Extended Math begins the week of 10/10/11 and ends the week of 11/21/11.
Trimester 2 – Extended Math begins the week of 11/28/11 and ends the week of 2/27/12.
Trimester 3 – Extended Math begins the week of 3/5/12 and ends the week of 6/1/12.
Extended Math Criteria – Students need to qualify each trimester.
Trimester 1 – the student will need to meet all of the following criteria:
- 95% or greater on Fall MAP
- Trimester 1 Cumulative Math Assessment given during the week of 09/26/11 demonstrating mastery of a minimum of 75% of the targets
- Student Characteristic Form completed by Classroom Teacher
Trimester 2 – the student will need to meet all of the following criteria:
- 95% or greater on Fall MAP
- Trimester 2 Cumulative Math Assessment given during the week of 11/14/11 demonstrating mastery of a minimum of 75% of the targets
- Student Characteristic Form completed by Classroom Teacher
Trimester 3 – the student will need to meet all of the following criteria:
- 95% or greater on Fall or Winter MAP
- Trimester 3 Cumulative Math Assessment given during the week of 02/13/12 demonstrating mastery of a minimum of 75% of the targets
- Student Characteristic Form completed by Classroom Teacher
Principals will contact parents through email indicating that their child met the 95th percentile for MAP and will be taking the Trimester Cumulative Math Assessment. The Principal and/or Extended Learning Specialists will communicate with parents through email or phone calls to indicate that they will be included in Extended Math for the Trimester. Parents and students will also be provided an expectation agreement for their participation. This process will be repeated each trimester.
Feel free to contact me (aka: Katie Schneider) with any additional questions. kschneider@kcsd96.org or 847.353.8600.
