Dear HSA McKinley Park Families,
We are very excited to begin welcoming our staff and students back into the building. So far we have approximately 40% of our students who are coming back for in-person learning. The school is ready to host all of our students safely and effectively as well as continuing e-learning for those students who will continue to stay home. As a reminder for our reopening plan students will be coming back to school on the staggered schedule below:
- April 12th - Kindergarten to 4th grade students
- April 19th - 5th - 8th grade students
- April 26th - 9th - 12th grade students
As we return back to in-person school, I would like to reiterate the safety protocols that we already have in place at HSA. We are completely committed to keeping everyone safe and healthy. As we continue to practice our safety protocols, all students and staff will continue to wear face masks at school. In a strong effort to stay healthy, we are asking for a few things from our school community. Please keep your child at home if they are feeling ill. If you or someone in your home is being tested for Covid-19, we ask that you notify the school immediately, and keep your child home from school. Please send your child to school with a minimum of two clean masks daily. We also recommend that students bring their own bottled water to school.
I would also like to remind everyone that the 3rd quarter is ending this Friday, March 26th. Students should make sure to turn in all of their assignments before this date. The 4th quarter will begin right after spring break!
We also had our new student enrollment lottery event on March 5th and have sent out 93 welcome letters to prospective students! Every year HSA McKinley has a waitlist in most grades and we are honored to receive a huge number of applicants every year from the community. Several siblings have also got accepted to attend HSA.
The future is looking bright and I wanted to wish everyone a restful Spring Break & Happy Easter.
Serving you,
Mr. Vedziovski
2245 W. Pershing Rd. Chicago, IL 60609
(O) 773.247.8400 | (F) 773.247.8401
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Parent Virtual Town Halls for our
Re-Opening Plan
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In preparation of the school's reopening plan we hosted Virtual Parent Town Hall meetings for our school community. Our Admin team worked hard behind the scenes to develop a safe and secure plan for those students who are coming back to school. We had a staggered schedule of town halls just as we are going to have a staggered start for our students. We hosted K-4 on March 9th , 5-8 on March 16th and 9-12 on March 23rd in both English and Spanish. We wanted to inform all of our parents about our Hybrid Return to school model so they can make the right decision for their families. Our top priority will always be the safety of our students and staff. We feel confident moving forward knowing that we have the help and cooperation of our families. In case any parent missed any of these important Town Hall meetings we recorded each meeting and have them all set up for you to view in a drive. Please click on the link below to review any of the meetings and important information.
Again if you have any questions/concerns please feel free to reach out to our Admin team:
Ms. Skrbec, K-2 Assistant Principal- skrbec@hsamckinley.org
Ms. Bivens, 3-5 Assistant Principal- bivens@hsamckinley.org
Dr. Hunter, 6-8 Assistant Principal- fhunter@hsamckinley.org
Mr. Kaya, High School Assistant Principal- kaya@hsamckinley.org
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Celebrating The Women of HSA McKinley |
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International Women's Day (IWD) takes place on March 8th every year and primarily celebrates the movement for women's rights. The earliest known celebration of women was on February 28th 1909 in New York City and was called "National Women's Day". Two years later, the first IWD was celebrated in some European countries. Now a global phenomenon, International Women's Day is celebrated all over the world!
We wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate all of our staff member's for International Women's Day! We designed this beautiful poster showcasing all of our awesome women staff members. We also sent our female staff a digital gift card to show our appreciation! Again we wanted to say Thank you for all that you do for our school and community. We are proud to have a total of 68 women staff members on our team!
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This Month's Podcast:
Yo Soy Ella Organization
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HSA McKinley Park's Outreach Department is honored and excited to share this month's Community Connections Podcast with our school community. We reached out to Sarah Taylor and Maria Seda from the YoSoyElla Organization. In 2019, Sarah Taylor (founder and Executive Director) and her team came out to speak with our middle school and high school girls in honor of International Women's Day. So again, as we celebrate IWD and Women's History month we wanted to take this opportunity and get to know more about the YoSoyElla Organization.
It was a great conversation with Sarah and Maria as they gave us a closer look at all of the great and amazing things they are doing especially for women of color. YoSoyElla is a Non-Profit Support group where Women, specifically those marginalized groups, identify their true potential, and feel empowered to use their gifts, strengths and voice to foster healing for themselves, their family and community. They provide Personal and Professional development to include Self-enrichment workshops, Power panel discussions and Educational forums. They also provide supportive services such as Individual & Group counseling, Referral services, Life skills support groups and Immigration and DV advocacy. They are also very heavily involved in different social and community engagement events. Most recently during this pandemic they have hosted several Diaper Drives all throughout the city. They have also branched into hosting a YoSoyElla Teens. It was a great way to celebrate this month by highlighting this group of amazing women doing so much for our community.
If you would like to know more about the YoSoyElla organization please head to their website at: yosoyella.org
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Celebrating 100 Days with our students |
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Our Kinder and 1st grade teams honored our annual 100 days of school celebration with our students. As an HSA tradition, every year we look forward to their 100 day parade but due to the pandemic we were happy to see pictures of our young students dressed up even if it was celebrated virtually. Our students are 100 days smarter! A special shout out to our Kinder/1st grade team for continuing the fun with our students. We can't wait to get back to school and host this event when it is safe to do so. |
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HSA McKinley's Equity Committee:
Woke Student: A Seminar #2
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The HSA McKinley Park Equity Committee facilitated the "Woke Student: A Seminar Session Part 2" Assemblies for our students. We continued the conversation that started back in January by incorporating methods to combat racism. The school's goal with these assemblies is to create a safe platform to facilitate conversations about Racism, Prejudices and Privilege for all our students. The Equity team were able to present to all students in each grade level. This second session is part of the three part series. We are looking forward to hosting part 3 this coming May and our main goal is to get more students involved to help us create a great environment for our students to grow overall as socially aware individuals so that they can contribute to our society with empathy, compassion and respect. |
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Celebrating Holi with CYSP |
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On March 20th, our CYSP students celebrated Holi, a Hindu festival celebrating the beginning of spring. Holi is primarily celebrated in India, but has spread all over the world. The festival begins with a bonfire with the next day observing Rangwali Holi, a free for all festival of colors. During this part of Holi, everyone participates by throwing plant based colored powders at each other in all colors. Afterwards everybody celebrates by eating snacks and being with friends and family. Mr. Khan, Mr. Kaya, Ms. Portugal, Ms. Martin and Ms. Manzella's CYSP groups came together to both learn about and celebrate Rangwali Holi together in the parking lot of HSA McKinley. |
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We were so happy to celebrate with our
K-5 students: Read Across America week!
March 1-5
Each day was celebrated with either a dress-up day or small activity that went along with a selected book that our team of teachers put together. A special shout out to Ms. Folk for setting up this fun filled week and sharing it amongst our students and staff.
Dress Up Days for the week included:
Day 1: Books that Celebrate You
Day 2: Books About Taking Action
Day 3: Books that Celebrate Voices
Day 4: Books that Give a Different Perspective
Day 5: Books About Influential People
We will continue to share the love of literacy to all of our students & always promote to continue to Raise Readers!
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In celebration of National Reading Month we were excited to host our annual Family Literacy Night for our k-5 students on March 18th. This year we celebrated virtually and our team worked hard to keep our Literacy Night the same as year's past. They hosted a story time, games, crafts and fun family dancing. A big shout out to Ms. Johnson, Ms. Roberts and Ms. Garcia for hosting this amazing night for our families. All of our participating students were awarded an artic gift bag full of books, games and crafts. Our parents of our Artic explorers' were able to pick up the goodie bags right before Spring Break! |
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Winter Scholastic Book Fair |
We wanted to express our appreciation to all of our HSA Family community that supported our Winter Scholastic book fair that took place March 15th-20th. Adhering to the Covid-19 safety protocols we were happy to open our doors for in person shopping this time by requesting our families to book an appointment in advance. We also allowed our families to shop online and have their books shipped to their home. We are happy to report that we had a very successful turn out! Looking forward to our end of the school year book fair, THE BOGO Book Fair (Buy one get one free) we will be sharing details soon. We hope you all enjoy the books you have purchased and catch up on some spring break reading!
*Please click on the Thank you Video link to hear a message from our school Librarian Ms. Manzella.
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Our Local Library Podcast |
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What better way to celebrate "National Reading Month" than to host an interview with our Children's Librarian in our local McKinley Park Chicago Public Library. We were so excited to sit down and chat virtually with Katie Boucher. We wanted to share with our school community the programs and benefits of taking our children to the library to read! Katie was awesome and explained to us all the new procedures during these pandemic times, virtual programs and tutoring services, new library hours, the process of obtaining a library card, scheduling field trips, neighboring branches, as well as showing us how to navigate their website! We hope you all enjoy this informative podcast and we are looking forward to continuing to strengthen our relationship with our local library so that our school community can benefit from all the amazing resources so close by. |
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Congratulations to PTO's
Easter Raffle Winners
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Pictured above are a few of the winners of the Easter Raffle. Not all winners are pictured because many of them received digital gift cards :) Again we wanted to express our appreciation to our PTO for hosting this raffle for all of our students this month. Happy Easter Everyone! |
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Save the Date for PTO's next meeting on
April 20th at 4pm via zoom!
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Coach Tas is posing here with his team at the first game of the High School Boys soccer season. We are very happy our students can now take part in our sports program! Go Hawks! |
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High School Girls Volleyball team has also received the green light to play this season. Coach Jasso is pictured here with his team and we wish our Lady Hawks a very great season! |
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Pictured above from left to right:
Yunus Kazimli #5, Thomas Bittings #15 and Enrique Zuno #32.
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We are glad our students had the chance to play basketball this year especially our Seniors. Although the season was short we appreciate the hard work and dedication of all of our HSA Hawks. In a regular season we would host a Senior night or award our Seniors during the Winter pep rally but obviously we couldn't host these events this year. Nonetheless we wanted to say Thank you to our Seniors for representing HSA McKinley park and being a key players on our team. |
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Show your support & watch Livestream: |
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College Acceptance Update:
As of March 15, 80% of the seniors completed their college applications. Out of those who applied, 72% have been accepted to 143 colleges with over $2.3M in scholarships. We expect the application and acceptance rates to reach above 90% by April 15th.
Below are some of the colleges that our seniors have been accepted to:
· University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
· University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
· Ohio State University
· University of Wisconsin—Madison
· Illinois Institute of Technology
· Purdue University
· Loyola University
· DePaul University
Way to go HSA Seniors! We are so proud and excited for your future!
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Our College and Counseling department is working with the College Board Opportunity Scholarship program with our Juniors. Together they have started their six steps to complete the Opportunity Scholarships. This amazing opportunity may get our Juniors a chance to earn $500 for completing each step. If they complete all six steps by February 2022 in their senior year, students will then have a chance to earn a $40,000 scholarship. Our counseling department wants to promote and encourage our students to complete these six steps, parents if you can also help us encourage them too!
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Final PSAT for the Class of 2022 |
That's a wrap! Our Junior class took their last practice SAT (PSAT) on Tuesday, March 23rd. We are so proud of all of their hard work. This last PSAT test will help our students and teachers better prepare for the SAT test they will take in April. A continued special shout out to Mr. Kaya, College & Counseling Department and our HS teachers who stay committed in helping out students prepare for their future and these important tests!
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If you have any questions regarding the information posted in our College Corner
please contact:
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*COVID-19 Community Corner* |
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Staff Spotlight: Jamie Kovatch |
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This month's staff spotlight shines on Ms. Jamie Kovatch!
We want to shine the spotlight on our Band Director, Ms. Jamie Kovatch. Ms. Kovatch has been teaching at HSA McKinley park since it opened in 2013. Currently, she teaches Band at all levels from grades 5th-12th.
Ms. Kovatch is originally from a small town close to Bloomington, IL. Although she grew up close to ISU, it was from Western University that she earned her BS degree in Music Education. After her college graduation, she moved to Chicago to continue playing (she majored in flute but can play all instruments) and to start her music career.
While she student taught in Evanston Township High School, she played and soloed in various orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and the Northwestern Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Ms. Kovatch started teaching in the 90s with the Music House, which she traveled to 17 public schools a week teaching and starting music programs and lessons all over the city. Since then she has taught in Public schools, Private, and Charter schools for a total of 25 years.
At HSA, she started the band program and it is now in its 8th year. With our school band and under Ms. Kovatch’s direction they have performed numerous concerts at school, nursing homes, and The Historic Palmer House Hilton Hotel. She has also started a marching band with our students and has marched in the Chinese New Year, Polish, and Memorial Day Parades. The band has also participated in the State Solo and Ensemble contests for 6 years now and always receiving 1st and 2nd place in all categories entered. She has also helped and supported all the efforts of the HSA Parent Band Booster Club. They host fundraisers throughout the year to help with the purchasing of band equipment, scholarships to send our students to summer college band camps, and to help our families purchase band instruments who need financial support.
Although at HSA our focus is STEM we also wanted to highlight the Arts. Our music program is such a success and it is all because of the amazing work Ms. Kovatch has done since the beginning. Thank you Ms. Kovatch for developing our amazing band program and a sincere thank you for being part of many of our students' success stories here at HSA. We love our school band and we love watching them play!
Closing out with her favorite quote:
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.
-Arthur O'Shaugnessy
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At HSA McKinley Park our top priority is the health and safety of students and staff, and we will continue to follow the guidance of local, state, and federal health officials in this evolving situation. Should you have any questions or concerns please email our school principal,
Mr. Seat Vedziovski at:
Ms. Armouti, Outreach Coordinator:
Mrs. Vega, Outreach Coordinator:
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Be sure to Follow us on Social Media for daily updates! |
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