Tiger Tales

Newsletter #21 - January 23, 2023

Dear Medina Families and Community,


We hope this weekend brought time together with family and some moments to pause during your busy schedules. For many of us, yesterday marked the start of Lunar New Year! Lunar New Year is celebrated by many countries including China, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore. Central to the celebrations during the Lunar New Year are traditions such as visiting family members, putting on new clothes, watching lion and dragon dances and eating symbolic foods such as rice cakes and noodles.


If you celebrate Lunar New Year or observe any other traditions, we welcome any pictures or stories that we can share with the rest of our staff, families, and students. We are a community of many cultures and stories and we want to celebrate the experiences that are a part of our identities and illustrate the ways we connect with one another.


We wish you good health and fortune in this Year of the Rabbit (or Cat).


Kati & Betty

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events

January 25: Pastries with Principals, Room 155, 8:15-9:30am

January 30: School is in session; Make up Day for 12/1 Snow Closure

February 2: Kindergarten Information Night, 6-7pm

February 6-10: National School Counseling Week

February 10: World Culture Night, 5pm

February 20 - 24: Mid-winter break - No School

Upcoming Events

Using Art to Support Community

If you have a high schooler in our BSD schools, you probably know that this coming week is Finals week. Our amazing art teacher, Mary Bena, upon the suggestion of a former Medina student, worked with our current students to create posters of encouragement and positive vibes for our high schoolers. They will be sent and posted in our BSD high schools to let our high schoolers know that we are thinking of them.


In Ms. Bena's words: "In addition to thinking about the message they were trying to send, we were able to discuss design principles, keeping things simple for the audience because they might be distracted as they pass by, lettering, fonts, size & spacing...This is a great example of a real world application of the arts creating change." Way to go Ms. Bena and Medina students!

Big picture
Traffic Safety Reminders from Medina Police

Traffic Safety Reminders from Medina Police

In addition to last week's parking lot guidelines, please slow down and drive carefully around the neighborhoods leading to the school. The Medina Police Department has asked that we remind everyone to adhere to traffic rules and in particular around the following areas:


  • The five-way intersection at 84th Avenue NE and NE 12th Street
  • The intersection of 84th Avenue NE and NE 10th Street
  • Overlake Drive East and Overlake Drive West throughout the City of Medina
  • NE 8th Street in front of Medina Elementary School


Safety is always first. If you have a hard time coming to school on time or have questions, please feel free to reach out to us so that we can problem solve with you.

Traffic Safety Reminders from Medina Police
Pastries with Principals

Pastries with Principals

Please join us for an in-person Pastries with Principals this Wednesday at 8:15am. We have a special guest - Randi Peterson, Social Emotional Learning Curriculum Developer - to facilitate a discussion around:


  • Importance of Social Emotional Learning
  • Overview of the curriculum
  • Strategies and language to practice at home


There will also be time to talk as a group and share experiences to learn from each other, while we eat donuts and drink coffee!

Pastries with Principals
Reminder: Annual Family Engagement Survey

Reminder: Annual Family Engagement Survey

Last week we shared the link for our family survey. For those who completed this survey, thank you! If you haven't done so already, please take a few minutes to provide your experience. We read through and value your input to improve on our family engagement!


Please look for an email from Panorama Education on Tuesday, January 17, 2023, with a survey link and instructions. If a family has multiple students in one school, the link will be specific to the experience of the oldest student at that school.


For more information, please visit: Family Engagement Survey

Reminder: Annual Family Engagement Survey