👋🏻 Hello Highlands Families!

❤️ Kindness Week is next week: Make a ripple, change the world. The SMSD and Highlands will be participating in Kindness Week. Please see above for all the spirit days. We are looking forward to spreading kindness!

📚3rd-6th Grade families: see the attached Hooked on Books sign up form. This is due by February 1st.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Laura LaHue

Principal

⭐️Don't forget to order spiritwear! Open now through January 30.

⭐️Trivia Night Auction Items: contribute to the below grade level baskets below:

• Kindergarten & 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade & 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade & 5th Grade

🎉 Thank you to our PTA for providing this unique opportunity for parents and caregivers in our community to attend a workshop of learning on January 26th, 2023. Childcare will be provided!

1. Parent Workshop: 1.26.23 from 6:00-7:09 pm

• Title: An action plan for growing grit and building resilience in your child
• Objective: Parents and caregivers will learn practical strategies to navigate emotional distress and build emotional wellness through co-regulation and connection.
• This workshop is FREE to all Highlands community members (thank you, PTA!)
• RSVP HERE

Parents, we are in need of your help regarding smart watch usage with our students during the school day. Students that wear watches with texting/phone call capabilities are receiving texts from family members or other peers while at school. In addition to the disruption of learning, it confuses the communication chain between the front office, the teacher, and the student (for example, dismissal changes).

If you need to communicate with your child during the school day, please relay that communication through the classroom teacher or the front office.

The smart watch policy will match our cell phone policy: students will be asked to turn in his/her watch to the office until the end of the day if it is used for texting or calling during the school day. Please make a plan with your child to either leave their smart watch at home, leave it in his/her backpack during the school day, or disable the texting/calling feature while at school.

Thank you so much for your help on this matter!

At Highlands, our academic mission is to prepare, challenge and inspire to ensure high levels of learning for all students. This semester, teachers at Highlands are prioritizing and focusing on the following instructional practices to enhance learning for our students:

• Intentional Core Instruction: Students are doing the talking (thinking); teachers ask questions based on student discussions and encourage students to think and generalize what they know to new situations.
• Intentional Core Instruction: Teacher teams will use common formative assessments throughout the learning process to strategically target skills that will accelerate student achievement.