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Lafayette Elementary School
Tuesday Bulletin
hsa logo
November 1, 2016
Sophie Hanrahan, Editor
 
Mark Your Calendar
November 3
HSA General Meeting
7:00pm

November 4
No School - Parent/Teacher Conferences

November 8
Election Day

November 11
No School - 
Veteran's Day

November 17
LEP Session Ends
Drama Club Performance

From the  HSA
Lafayette logo
Dear Lafayette Parents,
On Thursday October 20th,  the Lafayette Home and School Association Board voted to reaffirm our mission. We, your Lafayette Home and School Association Board, thought it was an appropriate time to make sure HSA members and members of our Lafayette community know who we are, what we are committed to doing for each of you and how to get in touch in with us with questions, concerns, compliments or just to say hello.
 
The Lafayette HSA is a group of volunteer parents, Lafayette staff, and members of our local community. The HSA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit group, like a traditional PTA. All 22 members of the Board (volunteer parents, Lafayette staff and a volunteer community person/neighbor) strive to create a sense of community by bringing parents and the school together in a cooperative way. A complete list of board members and their emails can be found here .
 
The HSA ' s primary mission, as laid out in our bylaws, is two-fold:
  1. To establish and operate an organization to promote cooperation among parents, teachers, and other staff at Lafayette Elementary School, the community, and the government of the District of Columbia. 
  2. To bring home and school closer together, and work for the best interests of the children.
 
The HSA works to achieve our mission in a variety of ways including :
  • Engaging parents in volunteer and social activities around the school; 
  • Raising funds to support programs and events not covered by the DCPS budget;
  • Keeping parents informed of what is happening at schoolthrough our communications channels like the website, constant contact emails, backpack stuffers and Facebook and Twitter account; and
  • Serving as a resource for parents who have questions or thoughts about what is happening at school.
 
We serve as a resource for you, the parents, by fostering dialogue and helping to facilitate and strengthen the communication channels between you and the school.   But we also understand that with all of the changes this year, many of you may not be aware of these channels or how to reach out with questions, concerns or even compliments
 
The following is a list of ways to contact the HSA and key school leaders:
  •  Contact any of our 22 HSA Board Members directly. Each HSA Board Member can be reached via his/her HSA mailbox in the front office of the school or by email or phone.   
  • Leave a note in the suggestion boxes located in the Main Office and at the Security Desk.  We worked closely with Dr. Broquard to set these up.
  • Respond to the HSA Parents Survey which will be sent to parents tomorrow, November 2, with results being shared at the January 12th HSA General Meeting.
  •  Come to the HSA General Meetings.  Our next meeting is this Thursday, November 3rd, where we will discuss safety issues. We welcome suggestions for topics for these meetings.
 
In an effort to be more responsive, we have also added an item to our monthly Board agenda that will allow each Board Member to share any questions, comments and concerns that have been expressed by our community.  We will discuss as a group and work with Dr. Broquard on how to address these topics.
 
We also want to remind you that Dr. Broquard is always willing to meet with parents. You can contact her directly at carrie.broquard@dc.gov or sign up for Dr. Broquard ' s office hours  - if you would like to meet with her, please sign up for a 15 minute time slot.  A SignupGenius will be posted on the HSA website by next week.  We are also exploring additional communication vehicles soon, so stay tuned to hear more.
 
Lastly, we are excited to announce that Sophie Hanrahan, 1st grade mom, has joined the HSA Board as a Communications Co-Chair, effective November 1st.  Sophie will replace Stacy Beck, who has decided to step down from her position on the HSA Board. 
 
Stacy truly changed the level of communications for the HSA in the past two and a half years, leading the charge as Lafayette joined the social media world and providing beautiful photos of our children on the HSA website while keeping all news and events current.  Stacy worked behind the scenes organizing our communications data, making information and the overall process for future Board members as streamlined as possible and user friendly.  We extend a heartfelt thanks and endless gratitude to Stacy for her commitment to the HSA, we fully support and honor her decision.  Please share your thanks and appreciation with her when you see her at school and within our community.
 
We also want to thank each of you, our parents, for working with us as we continue to strengthen our community, support our teachers and staff, and continue to strive for the best and most well-balanced education for our children.  We look forward to hearing from you and working with you throughout the school year.

Your Lafayette HSA Board,
SY 2016-2017
 
Chris Lisi - Co-President
Shannon Behm - Co-President
Janine Finck-Boyle - 1st Vice President
Colleen Lyster - 2nd Vice President
Tammy Horn - Secretary
Tonya Esposito - Co-Treasurer
Kavita Chambery - Co-Treasurer
Jenny Backus - Ways & Means
Astrid Ruggeri - Ways & Means
Josh Gordon - Membership
Eileen Dombo - Volunteer Coordinator
Eve Bennet - Early Childhood Liaision
Laura Nelms - Environment
Kristin Nicholson - Hospitality
Nedra Pickler- Hospitality
Sarah Remes - Outreach/Tours
Jen Lanoff - Communications
Stacy Beck - Communications
Sophie Hanrahan - Communications
Joe Nelson - Community  

Help Save our Nurses

As communicated earlier, the DC Department of Health is moving forward on a new policy that could go into effect in January of 2017 to that would potentially reduce the number of full-time school nurses in schools across the district. Currently, The District of Columbia is only required to provide 20 hours of nursing a week in DC schools.

A new proposal from DOH, could reduce that even further and jeopardize schools who currently have full-time school nurses. The DC Public School Chancellor and the head of DC Public Charter School Board have raised concerns about this policy. The DC City Council held a committee hearing on this topic this week and in response Councilman David Grosso introduced emergency legislation to slow down the implementation of this policy due to confusion and concern in the community surrounding it. Please see our Lafayette United page to sign Lafayette's petition, and consider writing the mayor and your DC councilmembers about the issue.
Attention Lafayette 4th & 5th Grade Basketball Players!

basketball
It's time to tryout for the 2016-2017 Lafayette Boys and Girls Basketball Teams.

Tryouts will be held at the Lafayette Recreation Center Basketball Courts on November 7-9 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM.

Please come dressed in basketball gear and get ready to show your Grizzle game and your Grizzly spirit. 

Brought to you by Coaches Hover, Johnson, Jordan and McCants.
Hello from the Library!
Open  library in the mornings has started, and I was happy to welcome several students and parents last week. The readers of Lafayette continue to amaze me. Our students and teachers have checked out over 4,500 books since the beginning of school! I have to give a special shout out to our fourth-graders: all five homerooms are in my top ten homerooms, and they account for almost 23% of our circulation!

Did you know you could see from home what books your students have checked out from the library? If you visit our online catalog, you can log in with your student's username and password. If you click on "Bookbag" in the upper-right corner, you can see what is currently out of the library. By logging into the catalog, you can also read our ebooks and listen to audiobooks! Lafayette students have access to almost 600 ebooks and 87 audiobooks. The link to our catalog is also available on the HSA website and our Lafayette Technology Resources page. 

Happy reading! 
Rachel Leese, 
Librarian
A Healthy Success!
2nd grade was buzzing about bees after Milt Shapiro's presentation.
Thanks to all students, staff and parents for their participation in Growing Healthy Schools Month, the DCPS-wide celebration of health and wellness in our schools! We have had an exciting month full of presentations and demonstrations, taste-testings, and field trips.  

The final activity of the month will be a visit from Arcadia Farm's Mobile Market with hands-on activities for the fourth grade classes.  We'll also be selecting our final winner of our "Eat a Rainbow" contest and determining the class with the most participation. 

Hopefully students will keep up their healthy eating habits (rainbow Skittles don't count as a rainbow food!) all year long.  
hoodie jacket
New Grizzly Gear is Here!
Check your child's folder this week for
 the Grizzly Gear order form including new items. Order now for the holidays! If you ordered an XS Lafayette shirt, they are in! Orders will be sent home this week. Please contact Mary Jaffe if you have any questions.


 
Community
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