| |
|
|
Greetings Skokie Community,
As I anticipate my return from maternity leave, I have been reflecting upon what I can glean from this special time in my life to inform my work with our Skokie community. As I awaited the arrival of my new baby, I wondered, "How am I going to give him what he needs while continuing to meet the needs of my other children?" What I learned was that, with the arrival of a new child, my heart seemed to grow. It is a sincere and fierce love that I feel for my children. I recognize that when you send your children to school, you are sending us a piece of your heart each and every day. This responsibility is not one we take lightly, as we strive to meet the needs of each and every child.
In addition to learning about the capacity of a mother's heart, I also reflected upon the importance of stepping back and letting my children fail. This is a lesson I learned from a book I read this summer:
Daring Greatly
by Brene Brown. As parents, that fierce love we have for our children can often lead us to protect them from hurting. Brene Brown contends that we do our children a disservice by shielding them from disappointment. One quote from the book that resonated with me was:
"Raising children who are hopeful and who have the courage to be vulnerable means stepping back and letting them experience disappointment, deal with conflict, learn how to assert themselves, and have the opportunity to fail. If we're always following our children into the arena, hushing the critics, and assuring their victory, they'll never learn that they have the ability to dare greatly on their own."
As educators and as parents, we can help our students grow by allowing them to experience struggle and coaching them through it rather than shielding them from it. One concept we focus on with our students is the idea of "growth mindset," and that with each failure comes the opportunity to learn and grow. Next time your child encounters a challenge, I encourage you to consider how you might step back and allow them to grapple with it and work it out. You might be surprised what they learn from the situation!
I look forward to reconnecting with our Skokie community upon my return to school next Thursday.
Warm regards,
Betty Weir
Reminder that there is No School on Monday, September 30th, for Rosh Hashanah.
Crosswalk Safety
With the delightful weather, many of our students are biking to school. Please review bike safety with your child.
- Always use a crosswalk
- Wait for the crossing guard to signal you to cross
- Do not walk diagonally through the intersection
- Walk you bike or any non-motorized device in the crosswalk.
Grand Foods Receipts
Collecting Grand receipts is an easy and no-cost way for you to support the Skokie-Washburne PTO (so ultimately our schools!) and also support The Grand, a fabulous local grocery store. It is simple, too. Just collect and drop off your Grand receipts in the colorfully wrapped boxes labeled "Grand receipts" located in the front foyer of Skokie School. In fact, your 5th or 6th grader can easily get involved in the process and drop off the receipts themselves. The Grand generously donates 3% of the pre-tax amount to the PTO on each receipt collected from their Winnetka or Glencoe stores. Don't forget to bring in the Grand Food Center receipts that you saved over the summer.
iPad Chargers
This year we are giving families the option for 5th Graders to take a charger home to charge their school iPad. In the past we gave 5th graders iPad chargers for home use with the added responsibility that they had to turn in that charger at the end of 8th Grade or if they left the district. If they did not turn in the charger and cord, the family was charged a $20 fee.
At Skokie School students have access to a cart to charge their iPad at school. At Washburne students are solely responsible for charging their iPad at home each night.
We understand that families may have chargers available for charging all the devices in their household. This is a reason why we are giving you the option to take a charger home with the same responsibilities as before.
A 5th Grade family can request and receive a charger from school with the understanding that at the end of 8th Grade or if they leave the district, they are turning the charger back in to the school district or being charged a $20 fee.
If a 5th Grade family does not request a charger via this form they are still responsible for charging their iPad at home, but they will not be responsible for turning a charger in at the end of their 8th grade year or leave the district.
If you have any questions please contact Maureen Miller (Director of Technology) or Matt Boyer (Technology Integration Specialist at Skokie School).
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @skokie36
Memory Books
Please use
this link
to order a Memory Book for this school year! There is a promotional cost of $20 until October 4th, after which the cost will be $25. There is an additional cost for personalized icons and all ordering is done online.
Annual Vision and Hearing Screening at Skokie School
Wed. Oct. 2nd, and Thursday, Oct. 3rd.
Please have students bring in any eye glasses they wear, even if it is on an occasional basis.
These will be checked at the screening. Those who are absent will be screened in the coming weeks.
Graf
Gehrig
Agouridis/Lambros
Skokie Families,
This year, Skokie is again collecting tabs for the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) near Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. Ronald McDonald House's mission "...is to care for families of children with complex medical needs by providing comfort, compassion and a sense of community... by keeping families of hospitalized children together in a 'home away from home'." For more information, visit http://rmhccni.org/about-us/mission/.
Why tabs? United Scrap Metal, a local recycling company picks them up from RMH. They recycle the metal and then pay them the market value, plus a charitable match on a percentage of their profit. United Scrap Metal recycles all types of metal; however, they focus mostly on pop tabs since they are clean, compact, easy to collect and the aluminum in the tab is a higher-grade so it has a higher recycling value.
All types of tabs are accepted - from juice cans, pop cans, to cat food cans.
Last year Skokie collected over 50 pounds of tabs...it was quite amazing.
This year, we are hosting a competition between the advisories. The advisory with the most tabs, as determined by the weight, will win a prize.
Thank you for your support of this program.
Marla Goldberg
|
Assistant Principal Corner
This week, we started our second Social Emotional Learning (SEL) theme of the year about
Understanding How to Get Your Brain and Body Ready to Learn
, and I've seen great activities about being able to recognize our own feelings and others' feelings, and how to regulate our emotions and actions.
Our two vocabulary words this week were:
-
Self-Regulation :
The ability to manage our behaviors and emotions based on where we are, who we are with, and what we are doing (the situation).
-
Zones of Regulation (The Zones):
a program that helps us think and talk about our feelings.
We also had the first meeting of our student leadership team (official name to be voted on by the team next week), and I'm so excited to be working with them and getting their input on future SEL themes, lessons, and assemblies this year. While this is starting as a 6th Grade group, 5th Graders will have a chance to join a bit later on this year.
We'd love it if you would talk to your kids about what they've been doing this week in school, especially related to their thoughts about self-regulation and the zones of regulation.
Thank you and have a great weekend!
Larry Joynt
Assistant Principal
|
District News
Redistricting 2020
After three years of evaluating redistricting scenarios, The Winnetka Public Schools Board received a recommendation from Superintendent Kocanda at the School Board Meeting on September 24, 2019 endorsing Option 2 as the option best aligned to the Board's Redistricting 2020 Guiding Principles. The Board will make final approval of a change in attendance boundaries at the October 22, 2019 School Board meeting.
The September 24 meeting included a presentation from Cropper GIS, the District's demographer, summarizing data from a newly updated forecast model on student enrollment in the district. This updated forecast suggests a stabilizing enrollment for the district over the next ten years, and a continued imbalance amongst our three schools without a change in attendance boundaries.
Feedback from the community as well as input from the Village and Winnetka Police Department was reviewed at the meeting. Community concerns largely centered on changes in traffic patterns and the need for safety measures (signage, lighting, crossing guards) at the newly traveled intersections. The Village and Police are committed to partnering with the District in efforts to make this transition a safe one for families.
The School Board also continued discussions on "phasing-in." Phasing-in allows a subset of students to remain at their current school AFTER new boundary lines go into effect. The Board gained consensus on phasing-in the following students who reside in the redistricted zone (representing 2020-2021 grade levels):
-
All 4th graders
-
2nd and 3rd graders who attended D36 Kindergarten
-
2nd and 3rd graders who did not attend D36 Kindergarten
-
1st graders who attended D36 Kindergarten with an older sibling who attends Crow Island
Students that will not be given phase-in consideration are as follows:
Community members are invited to attend the following upcoming School Board meeting:
October 22, 2019
7:15 p.m. at Greeley School
School Board Meeting
The School Board will approve the plan for Redistricting 2020. New attendance boundaries and "phase in" accommodations will be approved at this meeting.
Winnetka Parents Institute Event
Teaching + Learning in a Connected World: Engagement | Enhancement | Extension
October 3, 2019
9:30-10:30 a.m.
The Skokie School Auditorium
Join District educators for an overview of best practices for using technology for teaching and learning. Presentations will include researchers from the Technology in Early Childhood Center (TEC) at Erikson Institute and an overview of how The Winnetka Public Schools integrates technology and learning to foster creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking. RSVP here.
A Traffic/Pedestrian Request from The Winnetka Police
Working in collaboration with the Winnetka Police Department, we are addressing specific concerns regarding the traffic/pedestrian impact of the Streetscape Project in the West Elm Business District.
We strongly encourage pedestrians and bicyclists to consider alternative routes to avoid the road construction and lack of normal sidewalk accessibility at Elm Street and Chestnut Street. If traveling from the east, recommendations include detouring north or south on Green Bay Road one block to Oak Street or Spruce Street. Pedestrians and bicyclists may utilize the sidewalks on either street westbound to Birch Street, which are much clearer of any related construction concerns. Traveling from the west, recommendations include utilizing Birch Street in either direction to Oak Street or Spruce Street to avoid the construction when traveling east. The Winnetka Police Department is increasing their presence to assist with crossings of pedestrians and bicyclists at Elm Street and Chestnut Street.
Officials at the Winnetka Police Department have expressed confidence that with your cooperation during this period of inconvenience, the use of these alternative routes create the safest travel conditions possible. The Village anticipates the substantial construction of the Streetscape Project will be completed by October 18th.
From the Alliance for Early Childhood:
From Family Action Network:
Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive
Founding director, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and professor, Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019,
7:00 PM, New Trier High School, Northfield Campus, Cornog Auditorium, 7 Happ Rd., Northfield.
In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, Marc Brackett, Ph.D., author of the insightful and compelling new book
Permission to Feel
:
Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive,
has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults - a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. He has led large research teams to investigate the roots of emotional well-being. His prescription for healthy children (and their parents, teachers, and schools) is a system called RULER, a high-impact and fast-effect approach to understanding and mastering emotions that has already transformed thousands of schools nationwide. RULER has been proven to reduce stress and burnout, improve school climate, and enhance academic achievement.
Carol Dweck, Ph.D. (FAN '11 and '14) notes: "We often create a false dichotomy between thinking and feeling. In this dichotomy, thinking is important, strong, and adaptive, but feeling is not. Marc Brackett shows us how emotions - and our ability to feel, understand, and use them - are key to fulfilling our potential."
Family Action Network (FAN) is a 501(c)(3) organization that curates a high-quality speaker series each academic year. All FAN programs are free and open to the public. To view a calendar of upcoming events, visit the FAN website: https://www.familyactionnetwork.net/.
|
|
|
|
|
Dates to Note
************************************
----------------------------
|
|
