The past couple of weeks have been so incredible! We welcomed OUR newest staff into OUR NEST a couple of weeks ago and then just this past week, everyone returned and we were able to spend time together, catch up, and prepare for the greatest year ahead!

I wanted to take a moment to welcome everyone back for the 23/24 school year, let you know about some upcoming events, and remind you about some things that we have in place for the safety and security of OUR GRAY HAWKS.

OUR COMMUNITY NEST comes out weekly. When it arrives in your inbox, please be sure to check it out for everything that is going on at OUR GRAY HAWK.

We had a successful 22/23 school year and are excited about the opportunities that await us this year.

In the 23/24 school year we are going to continue to focus on academic excellence and continuing to support innovative practices. We are introducing a new math curriculum (iReady) and are excited about how this tool will enhance the art of teaching that each teacher brings to the classroom.

We are becoming more intentional in our efforts to provide experiences and strategies to aid in self-regulation and further developing executive functioning skills in OUR GRAY HAWKS. We will do this with the support of our counseling curriculum Character Strong, as well as teaching OUR GRAY HAWKS about their brain.

OUR teachers have always emphasized Goal Setting with students but again, INTENTIONALITY is going to guide us this year. Students AND Staff will set quarterly goals and we will publicly celebrate OUR WORK towards these goals with W.I.G. celebrations! (More to come on that in the upcoming week, but I would like to encourage you as you may run into fun or silly wigs at the store, you pick a couple up for your child. :) This is going to be FUN!)

Finally, we are placing an emphasis on attendance. Please learn more about our efforts below in the ATTENDANCE MATTERS section.

Kindergarten Parents - You’re invited to the Gray Hawk PTO’s

Boo-Hoo Woo-Hoo! Breakfast

Tuesday,August 15th, 2023

8:45-9:30 AM outside

Please Sign-up to attend:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090E4AACA929A3F94-boohoo

ARRIVAL: SCHOOL DOORS WILL OPEN AT 8:35. (Please do not arrive sooner as there are no adults to supervise the safety of our Gray Hawks).

• BUS RIDERS/DAY CARE TRANSPORTATION: The parking lot on the Southeast side of the school is the area designated for these students. This is NOT a drop off/pick up area for our students. Please do not park in this lot and walk up to the school.
• CAR RIDERS - Cars enter the parking lot by the digital Gray Hawk sign and proceed around the circle drive to the drop off area.
• WALKERS/BIKE RIDERS - Children coming to us from the North (Villas of Prairie Garden) will stay on the sidewalk and enter the front door of the school. Bike racks are available for these students out front.
• WALKERS/BIKE RIDERS that cross Garden Parkway MUST cross at the cross walk shown on the map. We do not have a crosswalk directly across the street, so students will not be allowed to cross the street there. We will have a Crossing Guard at the designated crosswalk by 8:30 and he will leave that post at 8:45 am.

DISMISSAL: School dismisses at 3:45.

• BUS RIDERS will be escorted to their busses by GHES staff.
• CAR RIDERS (VERY IMPORTANT!)- Cars enter at the digital GHES sign and there are two lanes that may be used. Drivers will stay in one of two lanes until arriving at a merge closer to the building. A staff member will be outside at the merge, allowing 5 cars to the pick up locations at a time. To help speed up this process, please open the CAR RIDER SIGN template and enter your child's grade and first and last name and print it off to have in your car. Picking up multiple children, put them all on the sign. (See the examples below). Our teachers outside will see that you are here to pick up those students and will call them outside and have them ready at your pick up location. If you don't have a sign, you can create one at SNEAK PEEK and take it with you on Monday night.

• VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT PARK ON GARDEN PARKWAY OR IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS AND WALK OVER TO GET YOUR CHILD(REN). While it will take everyone a couple of days to get used to the routine, once everyone has it, dismissal will go very quickly. We got our entire dismissal down to less than 10 minutes for the entire school last year. Circumventing these procedures puts community safety at risk. Thank you for your consideration.
• WALKERS/BIKE RIDERS HEADING NORTH to VILLAS of PRAIRIE GARDENS : Students walking North towards the Villas of Prairie Gardens will be escorted by a staff member and monitored for safety until they are off school grounds. At no time should they cross the street.
• WALKERS/BIKE RIDERS THAT CROSS GARDEN PARKWAY : All walkers and bike riders that must cross Garden Parkway to get home will cross at the crosswalk and proceed to their destination - even those living directly across the street from our front doors will need to use this route. Safety is our #1 concern and the designated crosswalk will have an adult supervising and assisting our students.

OUR FAMILIES are why we are here and we want to celebrate you. If you are not new to GRAY HAWK but you never turned in a picture, please do so.

We ended our 22/23 school year with an overall attendance rate of 94.75%, but together we can do better - and we need to FOR OUR GRAY HAWKS. To cast some light on the attendance issue, we had over 30 students that were characterized as "chronically absent" based on the definition of missing 10% of the school year (18 days of school).

In an effort to bring awareness to this, we have a goal of 96% (PREFERABLY HIGHER), and we will keep an Attendance Board in the lobby that not only includes % attendance for OUR students, but OUR staff as well. At the end of each month, we will announce the grade levels that have met OUR attendance goal and celebrate collective grade level achievements in different ways.

Ultimately though, the responsibility falls on the loved ones of OUR GRAY HAWKS that are responsible for getting OUR students up and out the door for school. Please make on time attendance a priority this year so we can raise our attendance rate. Together we can do this!

There may come a time when we are conducting a brief drill and a guest arrives. If you see the sign below indicating a drill is in progress, guests will need to wait outside of the school until the drill is completed. Thank you for your understanding.

Last year Gray Hawk piloted the Raptor Guest Management System and it brought a new level of security to OUR building.

In order to enter GRAY HAWK beyond the office doors, a person must have their state issued identification. A person will not be permitted to enter beyond the doors without an id - not exceptions. Ms. Amy will scan your id into the Raptor System. The Raptor System scans every guest's id to make sure that guest is not listed on a registry and should not be around children. Once the ID is scanned, the guest will receive a Visitor sticker with their face printed on it and the location of where they should be in the building. This is to be worn at ALL times while in the building. If a person is not wearing one, they will be escorted back to the office to check in before proceeding anywhere in the building. Upon leaving the building, guests must return their sticker to the office to check out.

ONCE YOU HAVE REGISTERED, YOU ARE IN THE SYSTEM. Please note that if you have students in multiple buildings, you will need to register at each building.

When we have special events in the school (during school hours), a link will be sent out ahead of time for you to pre-register. For example, if a guest plans on attending the Fall Party, they will need to pre-register at that link. If you have already had your identification processed in Raptor, we will have your information already in the system, and will print off your Visitor sticker before your arrival, making entry very quick. Getting registered in the system takes about one minute, so we encourage guests to stop by school after school or at Sneak Peek to register their ids. If you wait until the day of an event, your entry into the event will definitely be delayed depending on the number of people registering at that time. PLEASE bring your ID in ahead of time.

Forgotten items at home: Occasionally, OUR GRAY HAWKS are going to forget an item at home. If you need to drop anything off something for your child, please clearly label the item with the child's name and classroom teacher. You may leave it at the front desk with Ms. Myers and she will make sure that it is delivered to the classroom.

I wanted to remind you that if you scroll to the bottom of the page, there is a button you can click that says "SHOUT OUT A GRAY HAWK STAFF MEMBER". I want to encourage you to click on that throughout the year and send your gratitude to any of OUR staff members - it does not just have to be your child's own personal teacher. When this is filled out, a certificate is created for that staff member and we hang it on their mailbox. It is a wonderful pick me up. Check out the two minute video below to learn more about the Science of Gratitude.

THE DEADLINE TO ORDER IS AUGUST 31, 2023! Please get your order in as we are unable to take orders after the deadline.

23/24 SCHOOL SPIRIT WEAR STORE