Dear Leighton Families,

I hope all of our families had a wonderful, restful, and family filled long weekend and Easter Break! I am looking forward to the "Spring -like" temperatures towards the end of the is week and hopefully saying goodbye to the snowflakes!

I could not be more proud of all our students for their focus and hardwork over these last few weeks with state testing. These days are long and our students have done a great job putting forth their best efforts and showing what they know! I am equally as proud of our Leighton Staff for ALL of their hard work in preparing our students not just for the required tests, but also to be "future ready" learners. It is such a gift to be able to spend our days helping to support our learners academic and social-emotional growth. We are so appreciative for the strong partnerships we have with our parent community which makes it all possible! We are looking forward to finishing up testing strong with Math and Science State Tests over the next two weeks.

We have many end of the year events coming up so please see the important dates below including Field Days, end of the year concerts, transition days, and 5th Grade Clap out (5th Graders are "clapped out" of the building on the last day of school - video will be provided to parents) to name a few.

Aurora will once again be offering Summer Academy to students who would benefit from the extra summer support. We will be offering it in the areas of reading and math and invitations will be going out via email in late April. Decisions to offer Summer Academy to students are data based to ensure we have the students needing the most support attending. If you have any questions about Summer Academy please feel free to reach out to myself at mnizen@aurora-schools.org or our RTI Coordinator, Laura Arters at the following email larters@aurora-schools.org.

As we near the end of the school year our team will be getting ready to beginning the process of student placements for next school year. This process takes several days to complete as many factors are worked through including servicing needs, data to support best placement, teacher and specialist input, parent input, and any student needs. We work very hard to ensure each student is placed in the best learning environment. While we are unable to take specific teacher requests, please feel to email me if you have any special circumstances of which I should be aware. I do my best to honor special circumstances.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

Kind Regards,

Mrs. Michelle Nizen, Building Principal

Mrs. Maria Goodman, Assistant Principal

Our UDL (Universally Designed Lessons) hone in on each focus skill allowing us to explicitly teach those skills, reinforce them, and connect them to our strategic vision including our 6 competencies of a learner (critical thinker, collaborator, innovator, resilient, balanced, and empathetic). Ms. Mazzella also capitalizes on teaching these skills in her classroom lessons focused on various topics including friendships, growth mindset, perseverance as it relates to school work, etc.

We will announce our next Golden Fork winners this week! These classrooms earn this honor by demonstrating our 3 pillars in the lunchroom and at recess while following all the expectations. Congratulations went out to Mrs. Radtke, Ms. Sauto, and Dr. Stoyle . These classrooms will be passing the Golden Fork along to the next winning classes to display outside their classroom doors.

Our next monthly PBIS office raffle will be Friday, April 29th. Students will continue to turn in their caught being good tickets to the office and a building-wide drawing will take place, where caught being good tickets will be read over the announcements and students will pick a prize from our PBIS rewards cart.

Lastly, our 4th quarter PBIS building wide reward of a school wide Bingo Event! Thank you to our PTO for helping with prizes for this fun event!

Here are some great resources to support your PBIS efforts at home. Thank you for your partnership!

https://www.pbis.org/resource/supporting-families-with-pbis-at-home

https://www.pbis.org/resource/supporting-families-with-pbis-at-home

THANK YOU to all who ordered from our spring Foertmyer & Sons fundraiser!!! We were able to raise $5,976.00!

PICK UP for the flowers will be Sunday May 15th in the Leighton parking lot. Times will come closer to the date.

Save the Date - If you did not receive a form in your child's folder you can find it below.

Want to Help Next Year?

Use this link to sign up to chair events next year. If you have any questions please feel free to email auroraptopres@gmail.com

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pb-R4mz0HSKHaBPkl7FV-LCTPZDR16CIcT1IYwIa26g/edit?usp=sharin

As a reminder, please monitor your child for any COVID-related symptoms and contact our school nurse if you have any questions. We appreciate your attention to this.

• Check your child each day for COVID-related symptoms. If your child is showing any symptoms whatsoever, it is best to keep him/her home to monitor.
• Students sent home with a fever, may not return to school until they are fever-free without medication for at least 24 hours. This means if your child was sent home on Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. with a fever, he/she may not return to school until Thursday. If your child does return the next day, our school nurse will be calling for you to come to pick him/her up. Thank you for your support and efforts in this area.
  
• We have COVID-19 home testing kits available that we can send home with any child or family should you question symptoms or exposure. We will be able to answer any questions about these kits should the need arise.
• Please make sure your Final Forms medical information is up to date. We will closely read the health sections to address any medical concerns.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Tanski in the clinic at 330-954-2285 or email her at atanski@aurora-schools.org

**** If your child will be absent for an extended period, please reach out to your child's teacher and they will get school work ready for your student for the period of the absence. You may pick up the work outside the main office on a table that will be labeled with your student's name. We are a google district and utilize google classroom in our 3-5 classes. Please check in with your child's teacher about any google classroom posting and/or assignments in his/her absence.