I hope you all have been enjoying the nicer weather! For the upcoming week, I want to remind you that students do not have school on Friday, April 16 and Monday, April 19.

In this issue, please see the notes from PTA regarding Teacher Appreciation Week needs and other updates about help needed for next year. Also, we need your help in deciding on the yearbook cover for this year. Families have until April 16 to put their vote in.

We hope you have a great weekend and stay well!

Sincerely,

Hayden

April 15- Spirit Day: Twin Day

April 16- NO SCHOOL, Parent/Teacher Conference Comp Day

April 19- NO SCHOOL, Staff Work Day

April 19- PSD Mental Health Matters (see flyer below)

The Werner PTA is so proud of how our community helped show support and school spirit during our Fun Run fundraising event and we want to thank everyone for all you did to make it a success! We will have more information about how much we raised and our plans to use it soon. Our final PTA meeting of the year will be May 13 at 10:00 am via the Zoom link below.

We will be discussing our plans for the next school year to engage and expand the activities that we do, and we hope you can join us and get involved. In particular, we are looking for two people to join the Board as our VP of Fundraising and VP of Programs. You can find more information about the PTA on our page on the Werner Elementary Website at https://wer.psdschools.org/about-us/pta. Also be sure to check out our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Werner-Elementary-PTA-145086898860740/ for our latest updates on our events. We welcome your ideas and feedback about what we can do to serve our community, and you can share your thoughts by emailing wernerptapresident@gmail.com.

PTA Meeting
Time: May 13, 2021 10:00 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81396291135?pwd=OHVZNzRyZjBZaUFOQ2lpTnRhVjBCQT09

Meeting ID: 813 9629 1135
Passcode: 692122

Hi Werner Families,

Teacher appreciation week is coming up ( May 3 -7th) and we need your help to ensure all of our teachers feel super appreciated this year! We are asking for 2 volunteers per teacher to be our point of contact for teacher appreciation. For traditional classroom teachers you will also be responsible for coordinating your classroom gift. For our other amazing teachers (such as our specials, ILS, Speech, etc.) we are looking for two volunteers per teacher to work together to help ensure they feel the love too! The teacher appreciation committee has been working hard to come up with a fun week to thank our hard working teachers! If your classroom slot gets filled, don’t worry we will have a sign up genius going out next week for other ways you can support our teachers. For those of you that sign up Juliana will be having a zoom meeting to answer questions and go over responsibilities on Tuesday, 4/27 one at 9am and another at 5:30pm. If you sign up but cannot make it, don’t worry we will get the necessary info to you :). Volunteers are the only way we are able to make this a success and you are so appreciated!

Sign up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0C49AFAF2DA7F58-teacher1

Thank you,

The Teacher Appreciation Committee

Juliana Schump and Courtney Bradshaw

Parents! Order your 2020-2021 Werner Elementary Yearbook TODAY!!

DEADLINE is 4/24/21

*Any books purchased after deadline will be charged shipping and sent directly to your home*

Easy to Order:

Visit www.treering.com to register your family. If you haven’t purchased a yearbook before, you will need this passcode: 1014056506643352.

Once registered, you will also have the option to create 2 custom pages for your student!

--Custom Pages must be completed by 4/17/21 --

Yearbook cost: Soft Cover - $20.13

Any questions?!? Email wernerelementaryyearbook@gmail.com or Contact Jennifer at 307.509.9246

This spring, Poudre School District will administer statewide assessments. These tests provide valuable information for our school and teachers, who use the data to understand where students are in their learning and tailor instruction accordingly. The district also uses these results to measure overall student academic progress and identify opportunities for improvement.

On March 26, the Colorado Department of Education announced that the state legislature and U.S. Department of Education reduced the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) tests that students will take in spring 2021 due to the unique circumstances Colorado schools and districts are facing as a result of the pandemic. Normally, students in grades 3-8 take CMAS assessments in both English Language Arts (ELA) and Math. Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) is the alternate assessment for ELA and Math in these grade levels.

Required Assessments

ELA-3rd & 5th

Math- 4th

Optional Assessments (Opt In)

Math- 3rd & 5th

ELA-4th

Our school’s current testing schedule is down below.

Opting in or out of tests

As a parent, you have the option of opting your student into any non-required tests, beyond those that will be assessed as part of the state's plan. To opt in, you may complete the necessary form digitally by logging into ParentVUE and accessing Services Tracker. You may also fill out the form manually and return to the office (Attn: Caity Sahimi) Instructions are available here. The deadline to opt in is April 9.

To excuse your student from state assessments, you may complete a Parent Excusal form digitally by logging into ParentVUE and accessing Services Tracker. Instructions and screenshots on how to do this can be found here. Please note that you will need to fill out a form for each subject area. You may also print a PDF version of the "2020-21 Opt Out of State Testing Form" and return it to your school. Forms are available in English, Spanish and Arabic.

If you decide to opt out, we encourage you to keep your student home on our scheduled testing days. Absences will be excused. Due to COVID-19 protocols, students who are opted out of tests but come to school will still sit with their classmates during the testing sessions, so we do not mix cohorts. They may sit quietly or read a book, according to state guidelines.

For more information about state assessments, visit the Colorado Department of Education website here or visit the PSD District and State Assessments web page.

Please let me know if you have any questions and thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Caity Sahimi

Assistant Principal/Assessment Coordinator

Werner Elementary School

csahimi@psdschools.org

As you may know, PSD has decided to allow a limited number of volunteers to work at schools during the second semester. Sites can decide whether to utilize this support, and our team is excited to take advantage of this opportunity to work with you.

The district has established the following COVID-19 protocols for volunteers. These are posted on the PSD website on the Volunteers web page.

· All elementary school volunteers must wear a KN95 mask and eye protection (e.g. face shield) as part of PSD’s contact tracing strategy at the primary level. We will provide these to you on your first day at school.

· Volunteers must always wear required PPE, maximize social distancing from others and wash their hands frequently.

· Volunteer duties are designed to limit the potential for close contact (within 6 feet for 15 cumulative minutes with a COVID-19 positive individual) as much as possible. These include but aren’t limited to traffic monitoring and recess duties outside, grading, shelving library books or making copies while distanced from others (preferably alone), and more.

Please fill out this short Volunteer Interest form if you are interested in helping us. We appreciate your help!