4th and 5th Grade Parents

Please take the time to review this link to learn about Extended Math for 4th and 5th graders.  A description of the program as well as qualifying criteria is included.  

MAP Testing Starts Next Week

Your child's classroom teacher can share specifics about when your child's classroom is assessing.  

Please help your child to do his/her best by getting a great night's rest and eating a healthy breakfast.  

Results will be sent home via backpack mail as soon as all students have been assessed and the score reports are available.  

Check out our PRO Website!

Please check out of PRO Website!  

Click on the Social Emotional Learning link on the main PRO page to find tools that we use at Country Meadows to set expected behaviors!

Does Your Child Have Medical Needs?

The nurse is looking to communicate with you about your child’s medical needs.  Please make sure that she has all authorizations as well as Food Allergy Action Forms.  

Parking Lot

Please, we are pleading, only park in parking spots in our lot.  Parking alongside our sidewalk will cause a problem in the event there is an emergency situation.  Further, parking alongside the curb causes a great deal of frustration for the parents and staff at Parent Pick-Up and Drop-off. 

In the event that a staff member asks you to move your car, please respect the messenger. 

Also, when you are dropping off students in the morning or picking them up in the afternoon, always have the children use the curbside door of your car.  We would hate for any accidents to happen!  

Student Tardiness

Timeliness is extremely important to your child's education.  Please understand that being tardy significantly impacts our building routines for attendance, lunch-counts, etc.  Most importantly, being tardy impacts student learning.  A child coming in late must catch up to the happenings in the classroom, also causing a disruption for other students.  At Country Meadows, learning begins immediately at 8:25.  Please help create respectful habits for your children by establishing morning routines that assure a timely arrival.  Students should be in our building by 8:20 when the first bell rings to signal our time to unpack, get settled, and handle communication from home.  Our tardy bell rings at 8:25.  Thank you for your support.

August 24, 2012

Dear Families of Country Meadows –

This week has flown by!  Thank you for all of your support and organization in helping us have a positive and productive start of the school year.  We see lots of smiling faces at CM and hope that the students are sharing fun stories with you. 

Added to the blog this week (see below), you’ll find information about our “Expected Behaviors” which we would love for you to ask you child about.  They spent time practicing with their Cub Community.  Also, help your child’s class win a contest by sending back a signed bus agreement.  Your student will tell you all about it.  You will also read all about after-school notes for changes in the typical routine and our policy.  Click here to be linked to the Principal’s Message.

The PTO would like to remind you to sign-up for Dessert Day & Special Lunch!  Forms can be found online here.  The Weekly PTO Newsletter can be found here. 

As always, if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask!

My best –

Katie Schneider

After-School Transportation and Change in Plans

Please read carefully and help us to keep all of our boys and girls at Country Meadows safe.  Thank you so much for your support and understanding in helping us to maintain a safe and orderly environment.  Our main objective is to make sure that your children are safe and accounted for at all times. 

Our District 96 Transportation Policy has become more specific in a few ways:

We have always required a daily written note if there are changes to the typical transportation routine.  However, often times, a parent might email changes to either a teacher, Mrs. Kelly, or Mrs. Stanton.  This posed a problem when staff was absent or in meetings, the message was not always relayed.  Therefore, you can image the worry and confusion when a child went home to the wrong, unsupervised place.  If there is a change to the typical routine, please make sure you communicate with your child’s teacher using a daily note that comes to school in your child’s backpack.  You are more than welcome to follow-up with an email to the teacher if you want to be sure he/she knows to look for it. 

Phone calls and emails will not be allowed to change a child’s typical routine.  Of course, we understand that there are emergency situations.  In that case, please communicate with our office staff via a phone conversation and we will do our best to help you.

The policy last year also stated that riding buses for parties and scouts is not allowed.  In the policy you see below, play dates are also considered an unacceptable use of transportation resources.  With a note sent to your child’s teacher via their backpack in the morning, children can be claimed at parent pick-up to go home with another family.  We sincerely appreciate your support in keeping our students safe and accounted for by picking up children at school that have play dates together. 

Please remember to help your child’s classroom teacher know where to send your child at the end of the day if you have a changing routine.  For example, if a student goes to Clubhouse on Tuesday and Thursday but takes a bus the other days and that plan is changing, we need a note about the change.  With more than 20 eager learners in the classroom and a lot of different family routines, you can imagine that it could get hard to manage.  Our little ones love to tell us very convincingly that they should be at parent pick-up when they are to be on the bus based on a conversation they might have heard.  Therefore, we never take the child’s work without a note.  Thank you for helping us get all students where they need to be. 

You can find more information in the Parent/Student Handbook by using this link:  Link to Handbook.

Here is the transportation excerpt from the Handbook:

9.4 Permission for Students to Ride Other Buses

Changes to the typical/assigned routine must be communicated in a daily written note; no email will be accepted. Due to capacity restrictions, the request will be considered by the building principal (at the middle-school level, by the Assistant Principal), who will determine whether there is adequate seating on the bus to accommodate additional riders. Emergency changes to the typical routine must be communicated by phone call to the school. Riding an unassigned bus for birthday parties, scouts, carpools/play dates, etc., is not considered appropriate use of transportation resources. Permission for such reasons is reserved for emergencies only or at the discretion of the principal.  A student attending Willow Grove School is not allowed to ride a bus other than the one to which he or she is assigned, or to get off a bus at a stop other than his or her assigned bus stop under any circumstances.

9.4-a. Removal of a Child from the Bus. Parents may not remove their child from the bus if the bus is at a location other than at the child's assigned bus stop. In the event of a delay or malfunction, bus drivers are not authorized to release students to parents. Only the building administrator may allow students to be released from a bus route, and then only to the child's parent or guardian.  The bus company will send another bus to continue the route.