Happy New Year! We are excited to welcome students, parents, teachers, and staff back to school for a new year of growing and learning. The district realizes that we are all living in trying times, especially in view of the ongoing pandemic. It is our hope that families stayed safe and healthy during the break and that you had a peaceful holiday.

COVID-19 Updates
We are remaining vigilant and cautious while highly encouraging our entire Cleveland School District community to utilize all preventative measures recommended by local, state, and national health authorities, including receiving the vaccine.

Remember to aim high this new year, stay healthy, stay safe, stay informed and help keep our Cleveland School District community safe.

Sincerely,

Dr. Otha Belcher, Jr.

Superintendent

Cleveland School District

Congratulations to our newest AR Millionaires! Cassidi & Savanna
have read over one million words in accelerated reader. Katherine is
now a multi-millionaire having read almost three million words!
Congratulations to these 5th graders!

Bell Academy students collected can goods for the Helping Hands Food Pantry as their Christmas community service project. Pictured with the donations are members of the Bell Ambassadors.

Students who had the most words read for the month of November in Accelerated Reader along with a comprehension rate of 86% or higher were invited to enjoy cupcakes with Principal Tiffanie Russell.

Matthew Lambert, 5th grade ELA and Social Studies teacher at Bell Academy, has been named one of Curriculum Associates’ 2022 Extraordinary Educators.

Hayes Cooper Center spent the last week of school with a special event planned each day. Monday, the students contributed to our community project by donating to the animal shelter. Tuesday, the students were surprised with hot chocolate and Santa. Wednesday, the students wore their pajamas for story hour and a holiday movie with popcorn, and Thursday, the school community presented “Christmas Around the World” for members of the community. Their newly gained knowledge was very impressive! As usual, we ended the last day before break with holiday parties. It was a busy, but exciting time for Hayes Cooper!

December was full of fun for all of our classes. Our students enjoyed fun parties and holiday crafts.

The entire Parks team would like to congratulate Mrs. Megan Armstrong on being voted as our Teacher of the Year and Mrs. Lisa Thompson on being voted our Paraprofessional of the Year. We are so lucky to have each of you at Parks!

Thank you to the Junior Auxiliary of Cleveland for inviting our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade students to watch JA’s production of “A Child’s Dream.” Our students truly enjoyed seeing this wonderful performance.

Upcoming Dates:

January 17 MLK Holiday (no school)

February 11-14 Winter Break

Cleveland Central had an exciting month of December. We completed our first cycle of state testing. We were excited to have our Drama club participate in the North State Drama competition where two members received outstanding an outstanding rating. Our band performed their Christmas concert in front of a packed gymnasium. We had three students recognized at DSU for their performance on the ACT test. Our student with the highest ACT score was Clark Swartzfager with a score of 33. Other sports and activities that performed during the month of December were girls and boys soccer, girls and boys basketball, and girls and boys bowling. Our faculty and student body are eager to go in 2022. Go CCHS wolves.

Students in the Teacher Academy and Early Childhood classes from the Cleveland Career Development & Technology Center decided to spread some Christmas cheer with the residents of Azalea Commons Assisted Living of Cleveland. The students decorated the residents, doors with different Christmas themes to get everyone excited about the holidays. The Teacher Academy class also donated gifts to the facility's angel tree to make sure the residents had a very Merry Christmas.

Congratulations to our Teacher of the Year: Mrs. Bakisha Veal-Hudson. Mrs. Hudson is employed as the Early Childhood teacher and has been a part of the CTE Center since 2007.

We are so elated and honored to have you as a part of our staff!

"Students striving for progress, not perfection."

This sign, in one of our classrooms in WRAC, captures the essence of our Alternative School program.

The Cleveland School District has the responsibility and opportunity to provide an alternative educational experience for students whose behavior and/or academic performance in the traditional academic setting has proven not to be the best place for them to be successful.

Furthermore, once students are enrolled in our program, opportunities for each student to improve their grades is enhanced with our small class size. Additionally, our daily character education themes are echoed throughout our building from the director, our counselor, teachers and even our custodian. Although our counselor drives the character education program, we all take a hand in ensuring all student are held to the same standard.

Therefore, this does not mean each student will arrive at the academic or behavior standard at the same time. However, this does mean that with an appropriate use of equity as it relates to each students’ needs; our staff will help each student navigate toward their individual goals.

The Alternative School staff considers all the issues each child brings to school each day.

Educators learn about Maslow’s hierarchy of need, but as you will see below, our staff makes sure each student’s individual needs are met each day of class. The poster below is also in one of our classrooms at the WRAC.

Ms. Hutton is working with one of our students and an elementary student shows off an ice cream treat he earned because of his academic and behavior progress.

Student with academic and behavior progress have the opportunity to earn prizes and cash.

Season Greetings!!

The business department is closing out the year with a bang! We have been working on mid-year fixed assets audit, payroll is gearing up to process W2's in January as well as Accounts Payable processing 1099's. We are looking forward to the second half of the year as we will hit the budgeting process for the 2022-2023 school year.

Wishing you a Happy & Safe New Year!!!

Merry Christmas from 4K Paves the Way!

Updates from the Federal Programs Department

*ESSER II and ARP ESSER have been approved

*FY22 Consolidation Application has been approved

*MDE will have a monitoring visit in January

Below is a list of Maintenance Division Projects:

• Pest Control Services for classrooms and offices from July 2021 to June 2022.

• Repaired gas line for room 12 at Hayes Cooper Center.

• Repaired sewer line for CCHS C campus.

• Repaired HVAC for Parks Elementary Auditorium.

• Replaced window for CCHS room 43.

• Parks Elementary School Library project is ongoing.

• Reinstalled fiber line for CCHS.

• Installed glow coil for Nailor Elementary room 112.

The CSD Technology Department is wishing you 12 months of success, 52 weeks of laughter, 365 days of fun, 8,760 hours of joy, 525,600 minutes of good luck, and 31,536,000 seconds of happiness.

The Transportation Department wants to take the time to encourage and remind everyone to keep doing their part! Keep wearing your mask! Keep social distancing! Keep washing and sanitizing your hands! Stay home if you are sick! We can’t give up now or slack up on keeping ourselves and those around us safe. This battle with COVID 19 is not over just yet, so let’s all do our part. On the buses wear your mask, and make sure it covers both your nose and mouth. Always sit in your assigned seat and remain seated while on the buses. Always follow the rules and obey the bus drivers. Keep up the good work!