Dear Leighton Families,

Can you believe it is almost May!! I think we are all wishing for "May-like" weather! We had a busy month of April as we "Rocked the State Tests". I have to reiterate again how proud I am of our Leighton students and staff for all their hard work during this rigorous month. We have worked very hard to continue to focus on the "process" of ensuring to challenge each student within their own unique strengths to reach their fullest potential through the development of critical thinking, innovation, collaboration, and best instructional practices and we know the "product" will come! I have a big smile each day when I am walking around the halls or in classrooms seeing the growth our students have made this school year both academically and in their social-emotional learning. We are looking forward to May and continually to finish the year strong and celebrate all of our successes and commemorate another successful school year with our end of the year events. We are looking forward to celebrating our teachers next week during a "de-stress after the test" week filled with goodies and teacher appreciation treats as a 'thank you' for all our Leighton staff does to make each day exceptional for our learners.

Aurora will once again be offering Summer Academy to students who would benefit from the extra summer support and are currently receiving 2 B Intervention. We will be offering it in the areas of reading and math and invitations went out this past week. Decisions to offer Summer Academy to students are data based to ensure we have the students needing the most support attending. If you have any questions about Summer Academy please feel free to reach out to myself at mnizen@aurora-schools.org or our RTI Coordinator, Laura Arters at the following email larters@aurora-schools.org.

As we near May our team will be getting ready to beginning the process of student placements for next school year. This process takes several days to complete as many factors are worked through including servicing needs, data to support best placement, teacher and specialist input, parent input, and any student needs. We work very hard to ensure each student is placed in the best learning environment. While we are unable to take specific teacher requests, please feel free to email me if you have any special circumstances of which I should be aware. I do my best to honor special circumstances.

As we head into the first week of May, I want to take an opportunity, once again, to thank our families for the amazing support you have provided all school year. Our efforts help each of our students be the best versions of themselves so they can go out into the world and do amazing things! I also want to take a moment to wish all of our moms out there, a very Happy Mother's Day coming up next week! Enjoy the day and the memories you create with those around you.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kind Regards,

Mrs. Michelle Nizen, Building Principal

Mrs. Maria Goodman, Assistant Principal

Our UDL (Universally Designed Lessons) hone in on each focus skill allowing us to explicitly teach those skills, reinforce them, and connect them to our strategic vision including our 6 competencies of a learner (critical thinker, collaborator, innovator, resilient, balanced, and empathetic). Ms. Mazzella also capitalizes on teaching these skills in her classroom lessons focused on various topics including friendships, growth mindset, perseverance as it relates to school work, etc.

We announced our next Golden Fork winners and congratulations went out to Mr. Clapper, Mrs. Heller, and Mrs. Skeels ! These classrooms earn this honor by demonstrating our 3 pillars in the lunchroom and at recess while following all the expectations. These classrooms will be passing the Golden Fork along to the next winning classes to display outside their classroom doors next week.

Our monthly PBIS office raffle was this Friday, April 29th. Students turned in their caught being good tickets to the office and we had our building-wide drawing! Caught being good tickets will be read over the announcements and students picked a prize from our PBIS rewards cart.

Lastly, our 4th quarter PBIS building wide reward will be a school wide Bingo Event! Thank you to our PTO for helping with prizes for this fun event!

Here are some great resources to support your PBIS efforts at home. Thank you for your partnership!

https://www.pbis.org/resource/supporting-families-with-pbis-at-home

https://www.pbis.org/resource/supporting-families-with-pbis-at-home

THANK YOU to all who ordered from our spring Foertmyer & Sons fundraiser!!! We were able to raise $5,976.00!

PICK UP for the flowers will be Sunday May 15th in the Leighton parking lot. Times will come closer to the date.

If you would like to help with delivery day, please use the link below to sign up.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084aaea628a6fd0-flower1

Want to Help Next Year?

Use this link to sign up to chair events next year. If you have any questions please feel free to email auroraptopres@gmail.com

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pb-R4mz0HSKHaBPkl7FV-LCTPZDR16CIcT1IYwIa26g/edit?usp=sharin

The Elementary PTO is excited to be holding the Scholastic Buy 1, Get 1 Free Book Fair on Monday, May 9th - Wednesday May 11th in the Leighton Science Lab. Check out Scholastic's eWallet. It's a cashless way that allows parents/guardians to set an amount for your student to spend on books. Any unused funds can be used towards future Scholastic purchases. Cash and checks made out to the Aurora Elementary PTO are also accepted.

Link to the E-Wallet Setup:

Parent How it Works (scholastic.com)

Go cash-free!

New digital payment option for our book fair. Visit our school's fair homepage to create or manage your eWallets.

bookfairs.scholastic.com

We are still in need of volunteers for the book fair. If you'd like to help out, then we'd love to have you!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0C4CAEAE23A57-leighton

Leighton BOGO Bookfair Volunteer Sign Up

Hello All, We are excited to be holding the Leighton BOGO Book fair this spring! The book fair will run Monday, May 9th through Wednesday May 11th. Please review the available time slots, we would love to have your help. The classes do not preview books for this bookfair, so each class only attends the bookfair one time to purchase books. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at danifelice@hotmail.com Thank you, Danielle Felice - danifelice@hotmail.com Kelli DeMicco Cindy Kestner Stephanie Sekerak

www.signupgenius.com

As a reminder, please monitor your child for any COVID-related symptoms and contact our school nurse if you have any questions. We appreciate your attention to this.

• Check your child each day for COVID-related symptoms. If your child is showing any symptoms whatsoever, it is best to keep him/her home to monitor.
• Students sent home with a fever, may not return to school until they are fever-free without medication for at least 24 hours. This means if your child was sent home on Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. with a fever, he/she may not return to school until Thursday. If your child does return the next day, our school nurse will be calling for you to come to pick him/her up. Thank you for your support and efforts in this area.
  
• We have COVID-19 home testing kits available that we can send home with any child or family should you question symptoms or exposure. We will be able to answer any questions about these kits should the need arise.
• Please make sure your Final Forms medical information is up to date. We will closely read the health sections to address any medical concerns.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Tanski in the clinic at 330-954-2285 or email her at atanski@aurora-schools.org

**** If your child will be absent for an extended period, please reach out to your child's teacher and they will get school work ready for your student for the period of the absence. You may pick up the work outside the main office on a table that will be labeled with your student's name. We are a google district and utilize google classroom in our 3-5 classes. Please check in with your child's teacher about any google classroom posting and/or assignments in his/her absence.