Heavilin Elementary Newsletter
September 2022
For Your Calendar
7 PRIDE shirt order window closes
1-9 PRIDE week
5 No School - Labor Day
13 6:00pm PTO Meeting
15 5:00-6:30pm K/1 Event
16 Spirit Wear Day
20 Family Night Out at Culvers
22 Love & Logic Parenting Class Begins at 9am
23 Half Day - Dismiss at Noon
30 Spirit Wear Day
October
10/11 No School - Fall Break
13 Picture Retakes
Heavilin PRIDE shirts
Each year, we offer families an opportunity to purchase a PRIDE t-shirt. This year, the shirts are white with house-colored print. (We wouldn't normally do white, but supply chain shortages on colored t-shirts forced our hand.) They do look great, though! This year, you can purchase a shirt with the 2022-23 theme "I Can & I Will" or a standard "This Is Our House" Viking helmet shirt, as well as a "donate a shirt." The donate option is something we have had great success with and allows us to give a PRIDE shirt to students who are unable to purchase due to financial need, and to families that move-in during the school year as a welcome gift.
There is no requirement to purchase a shirt. We do not make any profit on PRIDE shirts.
Click here to purchase your 2022-23 PRIDE shirt.
The ordering window for purchasing shirts is open until September 7. We hope for delivery by our September 16 spirit wear day.
Houses are designated by student last name (see the graphic below.)
PRIDE 2022-23 has launched! Check out PRIDE week~
Love and Logic Parenting Class
Along those lines, we are offering some "professional development" for parents this fall, too! Our Greater Good is sponsoring a Love & Logic parenting class at Heavilin on Thursday mornings starting on September 23. Child care is available. Click the flier below to learn more and register by calling the school office.
If you are interested but unavailable at the time of our class, Our Greater Good offers free sessions throughout the year, including evenings.
Ready Set Kindergarten!
We are currently enrolling For Ready, Set, Kindergarten!!! RSK Is a free Kindergarten readiness class held once a week inside the elementary schools. Heavilin Elementary's RSK will be held on Monday afternoons from 12-2. Click on the flier below.
Please email rskclassroom@gmail.com for information and to enroll.
Meet Our New Staff
Mrs. Laura Huber
Mrs. Gail Orozco
Mrs. Marsha Pieters
Mrs. Stacy Riale
Mrs. Kala Stone
Mrs. Angie White
Mrs. Ashley Taylor
Notes from the Nurse
From the Back of the Kitchen...
Student Council
This year at Heavilin Elementary, students in grades 3-5 are invited to run in a classroom election to become a Student Council representative. Members will be responsible for sharing information with students in the building, and representing their classes during the meetings. They will also be involved in service projects as much as possible around the school building.
On election day, each interested student will turn in their name to be on their classroom “ballot”. If students wish, they may prepare a short explanation of why they would be a good representative for their classmates. The interested student candidates will have time to present to their class, and then a vote will be taken. Two students from each class will be voted into the council from each (grades 3-5) classroom. Elections will be held the week September 19th-23rd. Your child's classroom teacher will communicate when elections will be held in their classroom.
Meetings will be held every second Friday between the months of October-April at 7:45am.
Choir Announcement
Choir is right around the corner! Look for sign up papers to come home the week of September 12th. There is no fee for this extracurricular and all 4th and 5th graders are welcome to join. We meet from 8:00-8:30 on Wednesdays beginning October 5th and will continue rehearsals through our wonderful "This Is Our Story" event the first week of December. The dates are being finalized for this all district concert and will be given on the sign-up sheets. The more the merrier so please consider joining us!
From our PTO...
Heavilin Walk-a-Thon:
The PTO is so very grateful to our families, friends, teachers & staff, for your generous support in making our 4th Walk-a-thon called “Walking through the Decades” this year, the most successful ever! Each day was themed and so many students and staff dressed the decade. We also had so much fun at our first Color Walk. The moving trophies exchanged hands and the highest fundraising classroom in each grade level got to keep the trophy all year long! Since we surpassed our goal, all classes will be receiving all prizes! Silly Safari will be visiting Heavilin for special assemblies for k-2 & 3-5 graders on September 7th, and our school-wide popsicle party will be the afternoon of September 9th. Mr. Ostafinski and Mr. Steiner won the $200 scholastic shopping sprees. Congrats!
This year our special give back to Heavilin consists of beginning to outfit all classrooms with indoor industrial grade reading carpets. We will update you on our progress throughout the year.
September 13th 6:00 p.m. - Heavilin PTO Kickoff and “Spirit Wear Drop!”
Our first PTO meeting of the year will be September 13th at 6:00 p.m. and football themed! Please consider joining us! This is a great way to meet parents, get involved or find out what is going on at Heavilin. Back by popular demand, we will have a Spirit Wear Swap, where you can pick up a gently used piece of spirit wear donated by Heavilin families. We will again have childcare available for students and their siblings thanks to our NJHS volunteers and students can play on the playground or in the gym (weather dependent) during the meeting.
Assuming we are able to sit outside, please plan on bringing a lawn chair. Dr. Stephens will be there to discuss this year’s PRIDE theme, “I Can, I Will!”
If you have gently used Heavilin or Valpo Spirit wear that you would like to donate to our Swap, please send that into our office to Dana Funk by Friday, September 9th.
September 15th 5:00p.m. - 6:30 p.m - K-1 Family Event – Galactic Games!
If you have a kindergartener or first grader, please join us at our K-1 event, blasting off on Thursday, September 15th from 5:00-6:30 p.m. (to be held rain or shine) at Heavilin Mission Control. All Kindergarteners and 1st Graders along with their families are invited for an out of this world event featuring Space Snacks and Galactic Games!
September 20th 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. - Heavilin Night Out at Culver’s
Heavilin PTO partners with a local business each month that donates a portion of proceeds in support of Heavilin. Culver’s donates a portion of ALL sales, so please let you friends and family know to eat at Culver’s this evening!
Room Parents: It’s room parent time! Room Parents will be contacted via email in the coming weeks letting them know they have been selected to serve as a room parent for this school year along with more information for the school year expectations. We expect room parents to be notified before 9/23.
Apples for Students & Box Tops: Please start saving your receipts from Strack & VanTil beginning September 1, 2022 and send them into the school office. We are able to turn receipts in and earn free school supplies.
For Box Tops, you can either download the Box Top App on your phone and scan in your receipts to benefit Heavilin, or send them into the school and a member of the PTO will scan your receipts for you. We only have 14 days from date of purchase to scan for Box Tops, so please send them in right away.
We are looking for a volunteer to scan receipts for Box Tops and submit receipts to Strack’s. Please email us of you are interested in helping in this capacity.
Heavilin Highlights: We are looking for a parent who is interested in helping with Heavilin Highlights. We would like to highlight Heavilin staff members in a brief feature shared via Heavilin PTO email and Heavilin PTO social media. Heavilin families will get to learn about Heavilin’s amazing staff at school and some of the amazing things that are happening. If you are interested, please contact us at heavilinpto@gmail.com.
Directory Spot: Our school directory is published each school year by the Heavilin PTO. The PTO graciously pays for the subscription to an online directory platform called Directory Spot. The online directory on Directory Spot allows parents to receive updates from the PTO via email, room parents can reach out to other parents via phone or email, and parents are able to find other students' information for birthday parties, play dates, etc. The PTO would like to continue this service to our families this school year. Family information, such as parent email addresses and phone numbers, have been published in the directory, unless you chose to OPT OUT via the school registration process. If you would prefer to opt-out of this student directory, please advise us no later than 9/10/22 by sending us an email to heavilinpto@gmail.com. If you need information on how to access Directory Spot, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Save these October Dates:
October 12th – Heavilin Night Out at Jimmy John’s
October 18th - PTO meeting – one week later due to fall break
October 19th – Heavilin Hospitality for Staff
October 24-28 – Scholastic Book Fair
October 27 – Heavilin Trunk or Treat
We would love for you to join us in any way you can. Please contact us if you have any questions.
Tara Worthley, PTO President