Girls on the Run will be at Wood Elementary this Spring!

First Practice: Monday February 27

Schedule: Monday & Wednesday 3:00-4:15pm

Register by February 2nd & learn more: www.girlsontheruniowa.org/3rd-5th-grade-program-details

At an age when girls’ confidence begins to decline, they need a program that reminds them of their excellence. Compared to organized sports or other clubs, Girls on the Run uplifts the whole girl – mind, body and soul. Take the first step to igniting your girl’s spark by signing her up this season. You won’t regret it!

*This year, the program is for 3rd-5th graders.

REMINDER: Register by February 2nd & learn more: www.girlsontheruniowa.org/3rd-5th-grade-program-details

The school year is well underway and we are focused on our students learning and growing, as well as acknowledging them for representing The Wildcat Way: Being Safe Responsible, & Kind. We are committed to establishing positive working relationships with students and families. Several emails, pone calls, as well as in-person feedback indicate that strong positive, supportive, and collaborative relationships are in fact part of our Wood experience. If you are so inclined to nominate a Wood teacher or staff member for a District Shine Award, you may do so at the Shine Award Nomination Form.

The Shine Award honors employees who go above and beyond for the students and schools in our community. Honorees positively influence, inspire, and leave a lasting impact with the work they do every day, helping to fulfill the overall District mission.

Nominations can be submitted by completing the Shine Award Nomination Form. If preferred, you can also copy and paste the following link into your web browser: https://bit.ly/3QeTeUP. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.

Time: 5:30pm

Location: Grant Wood Library

We will meet in the Library. The building will remain secured - to participate you'll need to arrive by 5:30pm, because there will be no office staff to buzz in late arrivals.

We ask all our driving families to continue using extra precaution when entering and exiting our school parking lot. Similalry, we remind all our walking families to be extra cautious when walking to and from school, including when walking into, across, and onto the parking lot. Let us all manifest the Wildcat Way at all times: Being Safe, Responsible, and Kind.

Morning Drop-Off

Doors open at 7:30am for those eating breakfast. Our first school bell rings at 7:50am (students should be at line up spot at this time); Tardy Bell rings at 7:55am.

1. Note we have 10 numbered car spots, please advance to the front-most empty car spot and drop-off your child/ren curbside along the Drop-off Lane. This will maximize safety and efficiency.

2. Families who wish to walk their student to the building MUST park in a parking lot parking spot, NOT in the drop-off lane.

3. As you enter the parking lot please pull as far forward as possible in the drop off lane leaving room for families arriving after/behind you to also advance to a numbered car spot for drop off.

4. Once your child/ren exit your vehicle, carefully pull out and exit the lot remaining aware of pedestrians walking in the parking lot.

Afternoon Pick-Up

Pick-up begins at 2:55pm on M, T, W and F; and on Thursdays at 1:55pm.

1. Be cautious and curteous if arriving before this time - please advance tothe front-most empty numbered car spot.

2. Your child/ren will be directed by a supervisor to meet you at a specific pick-up space.

3. When all of your children are secured in their seatbelts, exit the parking lot safely; remaining aware of pedestrians walking in the parking lot and of our staff directing traffic.

THANK YOU!

We at Wood strive to support our students and families in establishing and sustaining positive school attendance. Students with 10% or higher absenteeism are considered chronically absent. Our office and attendance response team will continue to reach out to our families whose student(s) attendance reaches this level of concern. Similarly, repeated late arrivals will also continue to be addressed via our District Attendance Notification letters as well as communication from our office and attendance response team.

NOTE: Chronic absenteeism resulting from unexcused absences and/or repeated unexcused late arrivals can result in a student being deemed habitually truant. Tuancy is processed in accordance with our District's guidelines for addressing truancy.

Attendance/Absences/Truancy: levels of concern

• 5 or more unexcused absences
• 8 or more excused absences
• 10 or more unexcused late arrivals
• 10% or more ababsenteeism (excused, unexcused, or combination of the two)

The impact of daily and timely attendance can be seen throughout our students' school experience and academic achievement. Daily and on-time attendance nurtures a student's sense of connectedness to their school community - feeling a stronger sense of connectedness fosters a stronger sense of engagement with peers, school staff, and the curriculum. Studies have shown, how regular school attendance has a high impact on academic achievement for students who who have regular attendance, even when not perfect attendance but under the chronic absenteeism level.

Please take special note to the points below:

• Please keep your children home if they are not feeling well or have a fever, diarrhea, or vomiting. Keep them home for 24 hours after these symptoms are resolved without the use of medication.

1. Please check with your child’s health care provider before giving any medication to stop diarrhea or vomiting—it may not be recommended and could potentially lengthen the time your child is ill.
2. Also, discuss and or schedule an appointment for the influenza vaccine if you have not aleady done so;

• The most effective illness prevention is thorough and frequent hand washing. Hand sanitizer kills some germs, but often does not kill the germs that cause most diarrhea and vomiting illnesses.

1. Remind your students to wash their hands often with soap and water—especially before and after eating, using the restroom, and touching their eyes, nose, or mouth.
2. Encourage “covering your cough” in your elbow, not your hand.
3. It is also important that your child is well rested and eating healthy foods to help their immune system work properly.

• Finally, when reporting an absence for your child due to illness, please state the nature of their illness or symptoms they are experiencing, and keep in mind our District Attendance Guidelines along with our District Health and Safety Protocols.

1. If your child has accumulated 8 or more absences from school - you will need to provide documentation from their medical provider to exuse additional days.
2. Details regarding our District attendance guidelines can be found here.

NOTE: If your child will be absent from school please contact our school office, 319-688-1180 and provide a reason for the absence (Attendance Secretary, Ms. Kara Steggall steggall.kara@iowacityschools.org). Providing a reason for the absence helps us determine the appropriate District-approved code for the absence within Infinite Campus.

ICCSD is entering its fourth year of using Securly, a service that filters internet access on District devices and also includes the SecurlyHome Parent Hub, which parents can use to monitor internet usage, receive usage notifications, and establish limits on what your child can access. Limits parents can set include turning school-issued devices off at parent-determined times (such as bedtime).

You may have already received an email from Securly when your child was issued their 1:1 device. You can access Securly at https://www.securly.com/parent-login, and your login email will be the primary email address listed for your child(ren)'s contacts in PowerSchool. If you have trouble accessing Securly, please verify your primary contact email in PowerSchool or contact your child's school to do so (Grant Wood, 319-688-1180). You can also contact Securly support if you've confirmed your email in PowerSchool and are still having trouble accessing Securly.

SECURLY HOME APP

The Securly Home App allows you to monitor & restrict children's internet use. Once you register for your Securly Parent Portal account, download the Securly Home app and navigate the tools from your cellphone/handheld device to support your child's safe internet use on the school-issued chromebook.

Additional information about content filtering and about Securly can be on the ICCSD Technology & Innovation Blog.

In 2018, our Board directed the administrative team to create a safety committee. The goal of the committee was to conduct research and make recommendations back to the Board on safety measures to be implemented across our District. Care Assessment was one of those recommendations.

Care Assessment is a program to prevent violence and resolve conflicts proactively. The goal is early detection and attention to problems such as bullying, harassment, teasing, and conflict before it escalates into violent behavior. This is accomplished through staff observation, student reporting, and the Say Something incident reporting tool. In addition to these methods, our District implemented the Securly 24 monitoring tool for District technology devices.

Our District uses Securly content filtering to block access to inappropriate websites and material on school-owned devices. In addition to blocking inappropriate content, Securly alerts the district when they detect activity such as searches, sites visited, or emails sent and received that indicate a student may be considering self-harm and harming others. The goal of this monitoring is to provide early notification of concerns so that families and schools can work together to provide intervention and support in an effort to circumvent violence and harm to oneself.

For additional information on the process Securly uses when concerning activity is detected, please visit the Securly informational page located on the District’s website.

If you have any questions regarding Securly and its use within our District, please visit our Care Assessment webpage or contact Kate Callahan at callahan.kate@iowacityschools.org.

We have confidence that together, collectively, we can positively nurture a safe and welcoming school community, as well as a safe and supportive learning experience for all our students.

Voice level expectation - will be determined by context and circumstance - and communicated to our students accordingly throughout the school day and year.

*Additional details within our previous Wildcat News newsletter.

PBIS invests in proactive prevention. Some of the strategies include:

• Ongoing recognition of appropriate behavior—including verbal praise & documented recognitions, ClassDojo points reedemable for tangible rewards, and the traveling Golden Ticket class plaque;
• Proactive intervention—identifying expected building behaviors throughout all school settings;
  
• Active teaching & reteaching—teachers, students, families, and community members often work together to teach and model appropriate and expected behaviors;
• Clear, consistent responses to inappropriate behavior;
• Additional support for students with more significant needs; and,
• Collecting and using data to inform decisions

More PBIS information available here.

The Iowa City Community School District will hold open interviews seeking paraeducators, nutrition services employees, and custodial staff. Interviews will be held on the following Fridays from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm at the District’s Educational Services Center, 1725 N. Dodge Street in Iowa City:

• Friday, February 24, 2023

Assistance will be provided, if needed, to complete the application process. To view available positions or to apply online, visit www.IowaCitySchools.org/Jobs.

High Reliability Schools (HRS) is a framework that supports fulfilling our District vision of equitable outcomes for all students. It gives us common language to name what we’re doing, assess our current reality, align our initiatives, and determine where to go next. It is a vehicle that allows us to balance shared responsibility and autonomy to make decisions that best meet the needs of all of our students.

HRS like Culturally Responsive Instruction (CRI) is a multi-year endeavor for continuous school improvement, including the development and implementation of culturally responsive teaching practices through which we strive to nurture community and deliver rigor with care for all our students.

Together, these two frameworks help our school community fulfill our mission:

To provide academic rigor with care to every student, every day - and to do so through a welcoming and safe learning experience.

While HRS provides a framework for how we plan for teaching and success; CRI provides us the needed framework for how we THINK about learning & success for ALL our students.