Welcome All Elementary School Families!

Dear LNC Elementary School Families,

Welcome back (or welcome aboard)!

On behalf of the Lake Norman Charter Elementary School faculty, staff, Ms. Latza and the administrative team, I would like to officially welcome you to the 2022-2023 school year. I hope all of our families are finishing up a wonderful, safe and restful summer break and that our students are getting ready for the start of school. Your LNC ES school family is beyond excited to welcome back our returning students and welcome aboard our newest Knights! This is a unique and an especially important year as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of our school.

LNC'S STRATEGIC AREAS OF FOCUS

Fostering a place of belonging for each LNC student and helping develop and support their "whole" self will be the two overarching themes throughout this 2022-23 school year. We will continue to build upon our district-wide Global Diversity and Inclusion initiative with the goal of every student knowing they belong and feeling valued for all their individuality and uniqueness. It is fitting as we celebrate 25 years of school service that we return to our roots as we implement LNC's THRIVE strategic area of focus. THRIVE focuses on our students' overall well-being, supporting their full selves while growing areas of individual strengths and needs. To that end, we are grateful that mental health therapist, Dr. Danielle Graham, will be returning to LNC to support our students.

HEALTH PROTOCOLS

While we continue to monitor COVID conditions in our area, we return to normal, pre-COVID school operations. We continue to have strong health and safety protocols in place, striving for the healthiest possible learning environment. Since we are a mask-optional school, some families will opt to mask. Please speak to your child about being respectful of individual choices. If you have specific questions, please contact Nurse Denise at dlinerode@lncharter.org.

MEET YOUR TEACHER

By now you should have received a “Meet Your Teacher” letter via email introducing you and your child to his or her teacher for the school year. The teachers are looking forward to meeting their students at the upcoming Meet the Teacher Open House to be held on Wednesday, August 10 from 9:00 AM- 11:30 AM.

Please take note of the following important information regarding this special morning. This is a drop-in style event for over 600 students. Therefore, we are asking that our families stagger their visit and consider coming a little later in the morning. This will assist with parking availability as well as crowded hallways and classrooms. This event is an opportunity for students to quickly meet their teacher and see their classroom. There will be other opportunities very soon for parents to have more time with the teacher (Back to School Night, parent teacher conferences, etc.). Please do not arrive on the ES campus that morning until after 8:45 AM. If you arrive before 8:45, the entrance will be blocked and you will be required to leave campus. This will give our staff time to arrive to work and prepare for the event as well as assist with parking. We will use the parking lot as well as the two outside carpool lanes (keeping the middle lane open for movement of vehicles coming and going throughout the morning). Thank you for your cooperation and understanding to help make this open house event successful and exciting for our students.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL / CARPOOL

As you know, school begins Thursday, August 11! Please note the elementary school start time of 8:30 AM and the dismissal time of 3:30 PM. Drop-off begins at 8:05. Please do not allow students out of the car until staff is on morning carpool duty. Please be mindful that it always takes a few weeks at the beginning of the school year before carpool is running smoothly and efficiently. Your patience during the first few weeks of school is greatly appreciated as we all adjust to learning the carpool procedures.

Student safety is always our number one priority! Since we are a carpool school, we do not have the space and staff supervision to allow you to walk your child into the building. Please know that your child will be safe and cared for as you drop them off in the mornings as staff members will be opening car doors and supervising/assisting students in the building as they report to their classrooms. (The only exception is kindergarten families, who are welcome to walk their child in on their staggered start day. This date will come from your child’s teacher.) We will communicate additional carpool information before the opening of school.

Student enrollment is critical to ensuring that students are engaged with their teacher and curriculum in order to be successful from day one. This student enrollment is also crucial to our school’s funding. If you haven’t done so already, please complete the parent acknowledgement form prior to the first day of school.

LUNCHES

Please remember, the PTO does not offer an ordered lunch option in the first few weeks of school, so our students will need to bring a lunch. We will share more information about the PTO-led lunch program before school begins.

SERVICE & ENGAGEMENT

We look forward to fully reinitiating our commitment to service for our parents through our Serve10 program. Our PTO, led by Ms. Nikki Lowe at the ES (espto@lncharter.org), has many exciting plans to support our teachers and your students and needs your involvement. Your family already belongs to the PTO and and we hope your membership fosters a sense of belonging to our school community. Please sign up here to get involved.

SAVE THE DATES

Please mark your calendars for our elementary school Back to School Night on Thursday, September 8 beginning at 6:30 PM. You will have the opportunity to hear from your child’s teacher and learn about the curriculum and other grade level information. Please be mindful that this night is for parents only. The information shared is parent-specific, and we truly don’t have extra space nor supervision available for children. Thanks for your understanding. More details and reminders will be forthcoming.

Homecoming is Friday, September 9. Look for more information about pregame tailgating activities once we are back to school. You will also want to save October 17 on your calendar as that is when we will hold our annual Royal Golf Outing, benefitting LNC athletics. We are also devising fun ways of celebrating our 25th year milestone throughout the year and will share those during the course of the year as they develop.

PRINCIPAL/PARENT CONNECTION

I invite all ES parents to join me, Ms. Latza and other LNC administrators at the monthly ES Principal Coffee Chats held on the third Tuesday of every month. The chats are a great opportunity for discussions of upcoming school events and exchange of ideas and questions and answers. The first chat of the year is on September 20 at 8:45 AM. We encourage parents to attend in person, but we will also continue to live-stream the coffee chat via a link on Schoology, allowing all families to view the chat live or watch/listen to the archive at their convenience. If you are not a member of the LNC2ESP Schoology group, the code to join is B8ZHV-VJTK6.

Also, please follow me on Twitter @ MichelleLNCS and/or join my Schoology group to get your questions answered ("Holland Coffee Chat Channel” using this join code: SG74N-7RTGW.) In addition, I encourage our families to connect to the school via our Facebook page, Twitter account and Instagram. We are very active on all three and they offer an opportunity to gain an understanding of our school culture and keep up with the "softer" side of the news at LNC.

Upon review of the information in this letter, please feel free to contact me with any questions at mholland@lncharter.org. I look forward to working with you to make this an exciting, fun and rewarding year for our students. I am committed to making your child’s education the best it can be.

NEW ES STAFF

While most of our teachers will be familiar faces to the majority of families, we do have four new staff members to introduce. Please join me in officially welcoming the following new staff to our school family:

Shaketa Richardson is joining the LNC Family as a kindergarten teacher. She previously worked as a kindergarten teacher in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. Shaketa received her Bachelor of Arts in Child Family Development from UNC Charlotte. She also received her Masters of Art in Teaching from UNC Charlotte. Shaketa is a familiar face as she is a Lake Norman Charter parent already; Jared is a rising 1st grader and Joshua is a rising 8th grader. Shaketa has already met some of our newest Knights as she joined us at our kindergarten orientation in May.

Heather Hopkins is joining the LNC Family as a 4th grade math/science teacher. She most recently worked in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as a 4th grade teacher. She received her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education at Appalachian State University, and she received her Master of Arts in Elementary Education from East Carolina University. In addition, her licensure areas include academically gifted as she previously worked in Salisbury Schools as an academically gifted facilitator.

Tania Agness is joining the LNC Family as an exceptional children's teacher assistant. She previously worked in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools as an exceptional children’s teacher at the elementary school level. Tania has certificates in Early Childhood from Coastal Carolina Community College and in Special Education from UNC Charlotte. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Neuroscience from UC San Diego. She received her Master’s in Educational Leadership from California State University. After staying home for a few years to start a family, Tania is ready to get back in the classroom supporting teachers and working with students who have disabilities.

Kimberly Pritchard is joining the LNC Family as a 4th grade math teacher having recently served in several long term substitute positions over the last three school years within LNC elementary. Most recently, she taught 3rd grade math from November 2021 through the end of the school year, May 2022. She was very impactful to the academic and social growth of our third grade students and will now have the opportunity to follow them to fourth grade. Kimberly has a Bachelors in Elementary Education with a concentration in Mathematics from UNC Charlotte. Kimberly had previous elementary teaching experience at Pine Lake Prep Charter School before becoming a mom and joining us in the previous long-term substitute roles. Her daughter, Lucy, is a rising 6th grader and her son, Easton, is a rising 4th grader.

SAFETY AT LNC

Our greatest responsibility and first priority is to provide a safe environment for our students and staff. You can expect to receive a communication next month explaining our protocols and procedures for ensuring our school’s security. Mark your calendars for “Coffee with Officer Bo” on September 23 where you’ll hear directly from School Resource Officer Bononno and have an opportunity to ask questions. This informational session will also be live streamed and archived for your convenience.

ELEVATE PROJECT

As you will see when you visit the main campus, construction on Knights Fieldhouse, our final campaign objective, has begun! Although we have yet to raise all of the funds needed to build Knights Fieldhouse, after careful deliberation, the LNC Board of Education decided to move forward on construction, essentially agreeing to be paid back over time as funds continue to be raised from the Elevate campaign. On behalf of the LNC board and administration, I want to thank those of you who supported and continue to support "elevating" the experience for our students and invite those of you who haven't to support your child's school experience in this important way. Your elementary student will be in middle school before you know it!

Lastly and most importantly, thank you for sharing your children with us as we partner together to make the 2022-2023 school year an exciting and memorable time in the lives of our elementary students! I am humbled and honored to be your child’s principal.

Sincerely,