Gilbert Park Elementary Newsletter
March 2, 2022
Principal's Message
Dear Families,
Today is National Read Across America Day. Read Across America is the nation’s largest celebration of reading. Ask your child what they did to celebrate reading at school today. I invite you to also celebrate reading at home too. Here are a few ideas:
- Read books with kids and promote the message there is room in our community for all readers. The world—and books—are filled with many different kinds of people. Getting to know them is interesting, exciting, and fun!
- Help kids enjoy and relate to what they read by linking books and reading to other experiences in their lives.
- Check out these websites for some great resources: https://www.netflixbookmarks.com/ and
There is a lot of great information in this week's newsletter! Please be sure to mark important dates coming up.
As always, please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Stacie Moncrief
Principal, Gilbert Park
Upcoming Dates
March 3 - Spring Picture Day
March 4 - Site Council Mtg 7:45 am
March 9th-16th Scholastic Book Fair
March 11 - No School, Teacher Work Day
March 16th - 1:40 Dismissal, Conferences 4:00-8:00 pm
March 17th - No School, Conferences 8:00 am - 8:00 pm
March 18th - No School
March 21-25 No School - Spring Break
March 29th - PTA Meeting 6:30 pm
April 4th-8th - GP Staff Appreciation Week
April 5th - Garden Work Party - 3:30-5:30
Spring Picture Day - Thursday, March 3rd
Only Students with Orders are Individually Photographed
Place your order today at mydorian.com. Search for your school's name, click the green
"Order" button next to the Spring Picture Day event, and place your order! All orders for
spring pictures must be placed before 9:00 AM on picture day.
Late orders for groups only will be accepted
TIPS FOR PICTURE DAY
- Avoid wearing green - Green-colored clothing will disappear when photographed on a green screen.
- Logos and Text - Graphics or wording may not photograph completely and become partially cropped out of the photo.
Customer Support - Contact Dorian Customer Advocate Team by visiting mydorian.com, searching for your school name, and clicking the yellow Help button associated with the picture day you need assistance with.
Spring Parent - Teacher Conferences
Spring Conferences will be virtual and will use Google Meets. Teachers will send home the meeting link and post it in their Google Classroom. Families can use their child's school email address if they do not have a google account. You may have a phone conference if Google Meets is not available to you. Students will be able to bring home their school chromebook if you do not have a device at home. Please let the teacher know if you need your child to bring home their school chromebook.
You will be getting a conference day and time confirmation letter by this Friday. Please complete the confirmation in the bottom portion of the letter and return it with your child as soon as possible so that the teacher may confirm their conference schedule.
Please look for important conference documents coming home between now and conferences You will get a reminder about your conference time and a Family Information Sheet that will be discussed at the conferences. Please have this sheet on hand for the conference.
Conference and School Schedule Reminder:
Wednesday, March 16th - ALL STUDENTS RELEASED AT 1:40 PM, Conferences 4:00-8:00 PM
Thursday, March 17th - NO SCHOOL, Conferences 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM
Friday, March 18th - NO SCHOOLSchool Messenger Text Messaging
SchoolMessenger is a system we use districtwide to communicate with families. We are able to call, email and text through the SchoolMessenger system. Our school would like to utilize the SchoolMessenger system to deliver text messages, straight to your mobile phone with important information about events, school closings, safety alerts and more.
You can participate in this free service just by sending a text message of “Y” or “Yes” to our school’s short code number, 68453.
You can also opt out of these messages at any time by simply replying to one of our messages with “Stop”
SchoolMessenger is compliant with the Student Privacy Pledge, so you can rest assured that your information is safe and will never be given or sold to anyone.
Scholastic Book Fair
We will be holding a Scholastic Book Fair for students during the school day from March 9th-16th
Book Fair Fliers are coming home in this week's Wednesday Folder. Students can shop the Book Fair during their scheduled Library class or you can shop the Virtual Book Fair Online. The online Book Fair will run from March 9th to March 16th. Online orders are shipped directly to your home. Orders of at least $25 (books only) will ship for free.
Students can shop at school by either bringing cash or you can put funds for them into an eWallet. eWallet is a safe, cashless way for students to shop the fair. It is easy to set up, eWallet funds are immediately available for use at both the in-school and virtual Book Fair. Plus, family and friends can contribute too!
Set up your eWallet by visiting our Book Fair Home Page
Our school will earn 25% of our net sales in Scholastic Dollars that we will use to purchase books and materials for our school.
Thank you for sharing your voice through our YouthTruth surveys!
Thank you for sharing your voice through our YouthTruth surveys!
Last November and December, we launched our fourth annual YouthTruth survey in partnership with YouthTruth, a national nonprofit that helps districts improve their school climate and culture.
We heard from you, our students and families, about how we’re doing and how we can improve. YouthTruth has completed the analysis of our survey results and we are reviewing the findings and beginning to plan our next steps.
While we will explore the findings more over the next several months and strategically use the feedback to inform next year’s planning, I wanted to sincerely thank you for your participation and to let you know what we are currently doing and planning to do with your feedback.
We gathered anonymous feedback from nearly 380 members of our community, including 125 family members and 255 students.
From Students, We Learned:
In general, we learned from students that 91% of students who responded felt their teacher wanted them to work hard. This is great news.
But we also learned that there are significant improvements that we can make to better support and inspire you. In particular, only 45% of students feel that other students are friendly to them.
From Families, We Learned:
Based on family members’ feedback, we learned that our staff does a great job of building relationships with families.
According to many of our families, we have room for improvement in ensuring that children are safe from bullying at Gilbert Park
Your voice matters. Please continue to share your insight with us.
Together, we are ensuring that all 443 students at Gilbert Park are inspired and challenged to learn, grow and thrive to their fullest potential. I truly believe that our ability to be effective is only as great as our ability to give and receive feedback. Thank you for engaging in this feedback process with us.
We will continue to listen and learn, and we look forward to doing this again next year.
How Are We Doing?
We love to hear your feedback! Therefore, in addition to the once-per-year Youth Truth Survey, we have created a short (2 question) form you can use throughout the year to tell us how we are doing.
https://forms.gle/Uc2eYwc3ijBGTL8F8
You can use this form anytime you think of something you would like us to know. We appreciate both hearing about what we are doing well and areas we can improve.
Zenger Farm Open Farm Day and Summer Camps
Zenger Farm's Open Farm Day programming is opening for the season in March and will be happening almost every Saturday through November. They will provide lunch, activities, guided tours, and free produce at each event.
The Summer Camp program will be enrolling starting in mid-March. They will be hosting nature-themed day camps for rising 1st-10th graders from June-August.
Zenger Farm prioritizes David Douglas families for both of these programs and offers sliding scale (pay what you can) enrollment to make our programming accessible to all students and families who wish to attend.
Gilbert Park School Yearbook - 2021-2022
You can place your order now by visiting ybpay.com and entering our Yearbook ID Code: 14620422.
The deadline to order is April 18th.
Food Pantry
Looking for Past Newsletters?
Did you miss any of our past newsletters? Maybe there was something you wanted to revisit?
You can find our previous issues here:
Gilbert Park Contact Information
Email: stacie_moncrief@ddsd40.org
Website: gp.ddouglas.k12.or.us
Location: 13132 Southeast Ramona Street, Portland, OR, USA
Phone: 503-256-6531