This week’s Paw Prints from Principal Katie Grassa:

• Happy New Year: We hope you all had an enjoyable break and Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing all the students return to school on Tuesday, January 5, 2016.
• Technology Appeal: We want to thank everyone in the Curley K-8 community for your generous donations to help us increase technology at our school! We have met our goal in just one month! Thank you to the SPC for their leadership in taking on this project and helping us to give technology access to more students each and every day! More details will follow about when the materials will be purchased and next steps for usage. We feel very lucky to be a part of such a caring community! Thanks!
• ELT Planning Meeting: At the end of last year, Curley staff volunteered to attend the ELT Planning Meeting. We met at the BTU from 8:30am-3:30pm with 7 other schools that will be adding 40 extra minutes to their day in SY 2016-2017. We want to be sure to communicate with staff/families after each meeting to assure that this process is transparent.

  Here are some key messages we would like to share from the session:

  • Our Extended Learning Time initiative is about building a better school day for our students, teachers and families.
  • With more time, our school will have more opportunities to provide targeted learning time for students, increase small group instruction, provide enrichment opportunities in order to increase student engagement and academic outcomes. At our first session we identified these urgent needs:
  • African American and Hispanic males do not perform on standardized tests at the same level as their White and Asian peers.
  • ELL and SPED students do not perform on standardized tests at the same level as their general education peers.
  • Overall as a school we struggle with reading and writing skills according to standardized tests.
  • We are just at the beginning and we need you to play an active role in the process of developing a new school experience for our community.
  • Between January and June the ELT Team will implement a community engagement process moving forward, stay tuned for meeting dates and other pertinent updates.
  • In the coming weeks you can get involved by reaching out to a member of the ELT team with questions and ideas (Ms. Ciardi, Ms. Grassa, Ms. Kidd, Ms. Peters, Ms.Wright). Click Here and you can submit your ideas and questions anonymously. We are asking families to do so by Monday, January 4, 2016.
• Health and Wellness: The next Health and Wellness meeting is on Tuesday, January 5th at 7:30am in room 208 (Upper School).
• School Site Council: The next SSC meeting will take place on Tuesday, January 5th from 5pm-7pm in room 101 (Upper School). We will review the proposed budget for SY 2016-2017. Please use the CASP entrance to enter the building.
• Principal Breakfast: The principal breakfast will take place on Friday, January 8th from 8:45am-9:45am in room 221 (Upper School). We will discuss the school’s instructional focus as well as gather some ideas and updates regarding the extended school day for next year.
• SPC Meeting: The first SPC meeting of 2016 will take place on Wednesday, January 13th from 8:45am-10:45am in room 221 (Upper School). We encourage all families to attend and we will be discussing the extended school day at this meeting. We look forward to hearing from families about their ideas.
• Labeling Coats: We are asking families to label their child’s coat on the inside tag. This way if the coat gets lost we can return it to the rightful owner. We have had many winter coats end up in the lost & found and we want to prevent this from continuing.
• School Showcase: Thank you to the families who volunteered time last year to help prospective families make informed choices about schools for their child next year. We have one more showcase session on Thursday, January 14th from 3-4pm. Please email Arusha Hollister if you are interested in helping out or sign up here.
• Arrival: Please keep in mind that the doors open at 8:15am and the official school day begins promptly at 8:30am. Please make sure to have your child arrive on time for the start of the day. Families are welcome to accompany their child to the class each morning between 8:15-8:35. After 8:35am all students will be marked tardy and cannot be escorted by families members to class.
• Dismissal: Dismissal begins at 2:25pm. We are asking all families to remain outside at dismissal. We are also asking families to not release students after 1:45pm. It makes for a hectic dismissal and is disruptive to classroom learning. Also to assure the safety of the 300+ students who participate in afterschool activities we will not be able to allow families back into the building to use the facilities after dismissal. There are not staff on duty to supervise this past 2:45pm.
• Social Media: For up to date information about the Curley K-8 School please sign up for email alerts by joining the Mailing List. You can also follow Principal Grassa on Twitter @principalgrassa and be sure to always use the hashtag #curleycares when sharing/posting/tweeting information about our school.