Cougar Courier
Greetings from Dr. Garcia!
August 29, 2020
We just completed our first full week of school. Thank you for your feedback, encouragement, patience and participation. We will continue to improve and adapt our instruction and schedules based on feedback from our teachers, scholars and families. We are currently using a mix of live meetings and instructional videos to meet the diverse needs of our scholars and families. Our teachers are also working to provide resources that families who cannot log on during the day can use to support their scholars.
This coming week we will begin NWEA testing for our 1st through 4th grade scholars. Our 5th-8th grade scholars will test beginning on September 8th. The NWEA is a normed assessment given to scholars three times a year. It does not impact our scholars' grades nor is it tied to school accountability grades. It is used to provide valuable growth and proficiency data that teachers can use to support scholars. I've included a quick overview later in the newsletter.
Our fall athletics teams begin competition this week. Good luck to all of our Cougars!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you on Monday!
Blessings,
Dr. Garcia
NWEA Information
What is MAP Growth?
MAP Growth helps teachers understand what students know today, so goals can be set to improve growth throughout the year. Students cannot pass or fail this test.
This test will not affect grades. In fact, it’s normal for students to only answer about half the questions correctly. Please don’t help them!
Given the challenges of learning from home, MAP Growth test results are especially helpful for us this year. These results will help us know what students are ready to learn.
CIA Spirit Week!
We will be hosting a CIA spirit week September 14th-18th. On Tuesday, September 15th, we will have a drive-thru parade where scholars and families can see their teachers, get a treat and celebrate being a Cougar. The parade will be from 3:30-5:00 pm in the car rider line facing Cleveland Road.
We encourage our scholars to participate in spirit week by sending us videos and pictures from the week. Our themes are:
Monday, September 14th: Tie Dye
Tuesday, September 15th: CIA school spirt (wear red and gold yellow or Cougar gear)
Wednesday, September 16th: Character Day
Thursday, September 17th: Decade day
Friday, September 18th: Favorite college or university
Links to Teacher Newsletters
Dates to Know
Monday, August 31st: Controlled volleyball scrimmage at 5:30 pm; Cross country at Charles Black Center at 5:30 pm
Monday, September 7th: No school due to Labor Day
Wednesday, September 9th: Cross country at Jefferson, football at home, volleyball at home. Start time for all events is 5:30 pm.
About Us
We are a K-8 public school in the South Bend Community School Corporation.
