Cougar Community Connection
A Newsletter From Your Principal, Shannon McPherson
Welcome Back Wonderful Cougar Run Families!
How can it already be the end of July? Well, it is, so it is time to start getting excited about another fantastic year at Cougar Run. We hope you all had an enjoyable summer and are ready to hand those babies of yours off to us to get back to work and have a lot of fun creating their new classroom families. We couldn't be more excited to welcome our kids back into their Cougar Run Family and kick off 22-23
Over the summer, "Jason the Great", our building engineer, refreshed our atrium into a more colorful and inviting space. We are excited for you all to see it as you are visiting our school this year.
As most of you are aware, we have adopted a new literacy curriculum Wonders, and are about to embark upon the journey of being trained in the new resource. We are excited about this new opportunity as we spent last year focused on professional development in the area of literacy. All of our K-3 teachers are certified and licensed in the Science of Reading and our 4-6 teachers completed their upper grades coursework in the Science of Reading. We are excited to dig into all of the materials that we will be using to continue to move our readers and writers forward this year.
Our staff is busily preparing to welcome our kids back to their CRUN Family. August 8th is right around the corner for our 1st-6th graders and August 11th for our sweet new kindies. We can't wait to see you all soon!!
There is a lot of information that families need in order to be prepared for the start of the school year. Please carve out time to read through this newsletter in its entirety so you are ready to go on August 8th.
New Staff
Stephanie Hinkle- Physical Education
Christine Baird- Music
Christine is certainly not a new staff member, but she is definitely a "Jack of all Trades". Christine has been an EA as well as a Health Assistante and Attendance Clerk in sub status. Christine also got her Colorado substitute teacher license and served in the capacity of guest classroom teacher many times last year. She is a registered nurse and as we found out this past year, plays many musical instruments and sings like an angel. We couldn't be more excited to welcome her to her new position and watch her grow our music program with her voracious talents as a musician.
Mari Diaz- Kindy EA
Alissa Scheussler- EA
Mary Becker- Behavior Technician Specialist
DCSD Nutrition Services
The waivers that the USDA issued during COVID to allow schools to provide free meals to all students will not continue into the 2022-2023 school year, so all school meals will be paid beginning in August 2022. Please note that students who are approved for Free and Reduced Meal benefits will still receive free meals this school year.
2022-2023 DCSD School Meal Prices:
Breakfast 2.00
Lunch 3.25
Free and Reduced Lunch Application
Free/Reduced School Meals: Meal benefit applications for free and reduced priced meals must be filled out each year - APPLY HERE. All families must submit an application in order to receive free meals (if applicable) for the 2022-2023 school year. Current meal benefit applications are crucial to ensure that eligible students continue to have access to free meals. These applications also provide additional benefits to students and schools, including waived transportation and school fees, and additional school funding. See additional benefits HERE.
We are looking forward to having your student(s) back in August!
Bus Transportation Information
Bus Transportation/SMARTag Cards
Families who are eligible for DCSD bus transportation (student has a valid AM and/or PM route in our systems) will be presented with an opportunity to apply for a bus pass. Eligible families who received a bus pass in the past few school years just need to select a billing option in the tool. The annual billing option is available until September 30, 2022 at which time all billing will revert to quarterly billing on a per-ride basis. We encourage parents to sign up for SMARTag notifications via the SMARTag Parent Portal.
Express Check In
Dear DCSD Families,
The Express Check-In registration process for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year is now open for most Douglas County Schools. Cougar Run's Express Check in assigned date is Monday July 25th.
We encourage all parents to complete the registration process by the first week in August to coincide with the beginning of the academic year.
EngagED Parent Portal Link - https://engaged.dcsdk12.org
All families must check in through the link above using their Infinite Campus (IC) Parent Portal login and password. Once logged in, you will be presented with information for each of your students. Please complete the check-in process for each of your students individually.
Problems logging in? Please view our FAQ’s for Parent Accounts: https://www.dcsdk12.org/faqs-for-parent-accounts
Quick Reference for Express Check-In:
Tool Available in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Russian
The Express Check-In tool is available in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Russian versions. Parents should see the option to translate the tool in the upper right hand corner.
Payment of Fees for 22-23
After completing Express Check-In for all of your students, you will click through to MySchoolBucks to select optional fees and to pay all required/optional fees. Instructions on how to access the system are linked below. If you have previously paid for school lunches you should already have an account for this system. If not, please follow these instructions to create an account.
Link to MySchoolBucks Payment System - https://www.myschoolbucks.com/ver2/login/getmain?requestAction=home
Quick Reference for MySchoolBucks Payment System
For MySchoolBucks payment processing system help, please call the MySchoolBucks parent support line at 855-832-5226 x2048.
Upcoming Important Dates
August 5th-School Supply Drop Off/ Back to School Sessions to Meet Teachers
Session 1 8:00-9:30
Session 2 12:00-1:30
Families are encouraged to stop by at one of the sessions to drop off supplies, meet your child's new teacher & get important Back to School classroom information.
August 5th-Picture Day for Students & Parent Volunteer Badges
August 5th-Cougar Club and Little Cougars CLOSED
August 8-First Day of School Grades 1-6 (Soft start doors open at 8:25, late bell is at 8:40)
Kindy/ 1st grade entrance at the front doors/ west entrance of the school
2nd/3rd Grades enter on the blacktop doors entrance (southwest entrance)
4th Grade enters at the Venneford Ranch North Doors
5th/6th Grades enter at the bus loop doors, east entrance.
August 8 & 9- Kindergarten Balanced Beginnings (Appointments will be emailed to kindy families)
August 10- KG ONLY, no school
August 11-First Day of School Kindergarten (Kindies line up by teacher on the front entryway sidewalk)
August 17- 9:00 New Parent Orientation in the Learning Commons