Welcome Back Letter
School Year 2018-2019
From your CLES Administration
Dear CLES Families,
We hope you are enjoying this wonderful time of year that allows us all to slow down and connect with our families and friends. One of our highest values at CLES is family, and for our staff, ourselves and our school community, our motto is "family first, always." All decisions are made answering the question, "What is in the best interest of the children?" As a community, we are a unique family of stakeholders, and Mrs. Lynam, our staff and I are looking forward to working alongside you to make this another exceptional year!
Our vision for CLES continues to be to provide an educational environment that empowers, engages and inspires our students, families and staff. Each summer brings another opportunity to reflect as a school and community on the successes from the previous year and opportunities for growth. As a school, we continue to gain feedback from our families, our staff and our students through surveys, meetings and personal conversations. We have spent the summer working hard with our staff, central office and members of the community (PTA - leadership and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee) to strengthen and enrich our academic program, put systems in place that will facilitate positive and collaborative teacher/family communication, and ensure that their continues to be consistency in our practices.
As shown in our visual above, our focus for next year continues to be on relationships. Relationships are key to success for our students in their educational journey. Our staff will be focusing on wellness within, relationships with each other and relationships with students and families. We will continue to work with central office staff and our PTA to provide opportunities for relationship building within our building and with our community. In addition to focusing on relationships, our staff have identified their own professional development for the year, and will be engaged in monthly meetings to grow and learn as professionals. Finally, we will be focusing as a school on best practices for collaborative planning. "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure." (Colin Powell)
As part of our focus on relationships, we will continue to work with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff from central office and the PTA to review our practices and implement action steps based on last year's surveys and community circles. We will share information throughout the year on some of these next steps. However, here are a few of the next steps that will be taking place in school year 18-19:
- New Families Brochure with information to help new (and old) families become more informed about the CLES school and community!
- PTA DEI committee will be developing our front bulletin board in celebration of our diverse community. In addition, morning announcements are being developed to deepen our students' and staffs' knowledge around diversity, equity and inclusion.
- PTA and the school are collaborating on opportunities for parent presentations about their heritage/culture as it fits into the curriculum.
- Professional development and team building through the lens of DEI will be taking place with every team at CLES. From the front office to the grade level teams, we will be joining in a journey of reflection and relationship building.
As another part of our focus on relationships, we will continue to have community circles with our students. These circles will focus on the social emotional learning that is critical for students to maintain a healthy balance in school and life. In addition to community circles, we will be conducting a series of Health and Wellness evening presentations to support our families in navigating the impact of stress/anxiety, cyber bullying and mental health concerns.
Over the summer, we have been working with our leadership team and our school climate team to reflect on instructional practices, homework practices and collaboration with our teams and families. Our professional learning communities will continue to build on our core instructional practices, which include: Daily Five, Independent Daily Reading, guided reading and strategy instruction, math routines and structures. In addition, we will be supporting our families with homework by identifying the standards being taught in the upcoming week in our weekly newsletter "The Dolphin Detail." Additional resources will be identified as well. Any other changes to homework will be shared at our back to school nights in September. We will continue to use Canvas as our core form of communication, in addition to our parent/teacher conferences, weekly newsletter, monthly Curriculum Corner and email/phone calls.
As we move towards our new school year, we will continue to provide opportunity for your feedback and collaborative decision making. As shared above, our goal is continue to create an environment in which our students thrive and feel empowered, engaged and inspired! We are blessed to be a part of a community comprised of teachers, staff, parents and students who want to achieve great things!
This is our favorite time of the year. We love the excitement that comes with the beginning of each new school year, and we eagerly await welcoming our students and hearing their great summer stories. See you soon!
Sincerely,
Amanda Wadsworth, Principal
&
Alayna Lynam, Assistant Principal
How will I find out my child’s teacher for the upcoming school year?
Map removed
Custodians Shout Out
New Families Brochure
Welcome to our new staff and a fond farewell to a few staff members.
- Student needs;
- Strengths of the staff member and how they will strengthen a team need;
- Cross curricular knowledge that a new member brings; and
- Providing a growth opportunity for a staff member.**
Please join us in saying a fond farewell to the following staff:
Julie Reed (ESOL), who has moved back to New Jersey to be closer to her family.
Katie Steurnagle (Special Education assistant), who will be supporting us in a substitute capacity this year.
Debbie Yeager (Special Education assistant), who has moved back to her hometown.
Kristin Townsend (Speech Language Pathologist) who was placed with another school instead of a split position).
Sri Patel (Special Education assistant) who will be spending more time with her family.
Please join us in welcoming all new staff members to CLES:
1st Grade - teacher - Mary Armstrong (HCPSS experienced teacher returns from leave)
PE .4 teacher - Thomas Janasek (joins us from Bryant Woods)
Speech Language Pathologist - .8 - teacher - Barbara Stanton (Joins us from Cradle Rock)
Music teacher . 6 - Brian Gossard (joins us from Dayton Oaks Elementary)
Changing Assignments:
Erin Scrivens from 2nd grade to 3rd grade
Natalie Ricketts from K para to .5 Gifted and Talented teacher (former teacher at CLES)
Christina Vettori from 3rd grade teacher to split ESOL teacher (split with Clarksville ES)
Deepeka Yoegentharan from TE to Kindergarten para 1.0
Leadership Team:
Kindergarten - Co-team leaders: Kris Kalinock and Lisa Cramer
1st Grade - Megan Welsch
2nd Grade - Meagan Monfrida (Teacher Development Liaison)
3rd Grade - Kelly Risolo
4th Grade - Nancy Strigle
5th Grade - Karen Manlove
RA - Francesca Graham/ Ron Pusloskie/ Mike Kilberg
Special Education - Jenni Kinloch
Reading Specialist - Jaimie Shirokobrod
School Psychologist - Mary Nalepa
Guidance Counselor - Kevin Gillespie
ESOL - MeHae Roldan
GT - Eric Pellegrino
Paraeducator - Deb Newman
Principal - Amanda Wadsworth
Assistant Principal - Alayna Lynam
General Information for Centennial Lane Elementary
Friday, August 31st
Kindergarten Student Orientation, 9:30-10:30 am
New Student and Parent Orientation Grades 1-5 - 10:45 am
Open House – 11:15-12:00 pm
Monday, September 3rd Labor Day/Schools & Offices Closed
Tuesday, September 4th School Opens for Students
Tuesday, September 25– Back to School Night
6:30 – 8:00 pm, Grades 1, 4, 5 & GT
Wednesday, September 26– Back to School Night
6:30 – 8:00 pm, Grades K, 2, 3
Other Important School Information:
First Day of School
Tuesday, September 4th at 8:45 a.m. marks the first day of the 2018-19 school year! Our daily schedule begins with morning announcements at 8:45. Doors open at 8:33 a.m. Please make sure your children arrive at school by 8:33 a.m. so they can be in their seats, ready to learn, no later than 8:45 a.m. **Remember, we highly encourage you send your students to school the way in which they will arrive and dismiss all year. This allows them to start their routines immediately. Kindergarten students will all meet in the cafeteria and will be assisted in the transition from the bus to the building. The teachers will walk them to their classrooms.
Student Supply Lists for each grade can be found on our website: http://cles.hcpss.org/news/2017/07/school-year-18-19-school-supply-list
Student Cafeteria Accounts
Please be sure to visit www.myschoolbucks.com to ensure your child's meal payments are up to date and ready for the new year.
School Bus Schedules Online
School bus routes for the coming school year will be available on the HCPSS website, www.hcpss.org, and then updated regularly. The school bus locator can be found on the website as well: https://hcpss2.securesites.net/SchoolLocator/index.jsp
After School Activities
* New this year * If you are signing your child up for after school activities taking place at CLES, you will NOT need a note telling us a change in dismissal. If you enroll your child in the program, you are only responsible for telling us if your child is NOT going to attend a given day. If we receive no notice that they will NOT be attending, then we will send them to the after school program. Recreation and Parks is responsible for notifying you of cancellation. Exception - If you sign up 3 days or less prior to the start of the class, you must send a note sharing that your child will attend and change dismissal. We receive a roster typically a week in advance so any registrations after that need to notify the front office via the parent.
Communication: Administration use our email alerts (see HCPSS News information below) for a majority of our communication in conjunction with our website http://cles.hcpss.org/ , Twitter @hcpss_cles and information sent home in folders. For more information on the subscription process, please visit the HCPSS website: http://www.hcpss.org/hcpss-news/. Staff will use CANVAS as their main source of communication, including upcoming events, curriculum resources and communication of grade level procedures and practices.
HCPSS School News - All CLES and school system newsletters are sent through HCPSS News. Parents and guardians of currently enrolled HCPSS students automatically receive HCPSS News emails from the district and their child’s school, based on contact information submitted through the Family File last school year. Subscription information for parents of newly enrolled students and students changing schools will be automatically added to and/or updated in the system before the school year begins. For more information:
- Website – http://www.hcpss.org/hcpss-news/
- Email – webmaster@hcpss.org
- Call HCPSS Public Information – 410-313-6682
Centennial Lane Elementary School
Email: amanda_wadsworth@hcpss.org
Website: http://cles.hcpss.org/
Location: 3825 Centennial Lane, Ellicott City, MD, USA
Phone: 410-313-2800
Twitter: @hcpss_cles