Paramount Elementary
April 3rd, 2024
Included in This Newsletter
Important Information
- Important Dates
- ISAT Testing
- End-of-Year Diagnostic Testing & Attendance
- T-Shirts for All Students
- Solar Eclipse
- LINQ Nutrition Accounts
- Teacher and Classified Employees of the Year
- PTA Glow Night and Glow Night Student Store
- Save My Family Event
- Staff Appreciation Week
- PTA Positions Available
Important Dates
Mark Your Calendar
- Monday, April 8th: Partial Solar Eclipse: 11:30 am-1:30 pm
- Thursday, April 18th: PTA Dine-Out Night @ Sonic
- Friday, April 19th: 4th-Grade Growth and Development Presentation
- Thursday, April 25th: Glow Night and Glow Night Student Store
- Tuesday, April 30th: Save My Family Event: 6:30-7:30 pm; Subway Forms Due
- Friday, May 3rd: Kindergarten Celebration
- Monday, May 6th-Friday, May 10th: Staff Appreciation Week
- Thursday, May 9th: Tiny Stars: 2:30 pm
- Friday, May 10th: PTA Student Store
- Friday, May 17th: Fun Run Fundraiser
- Wednesday, May 22nd: Field Day
- Thursday, May 23rd: 5th-Grade Celebration and Senior Grad Walk (3:00 pm)
- Friday, May 24th: Last Day of School; School Picnic
Important Information
ISAT Testing Begins Soon
It's our time to shine; our students will show us what they know. Our Idaho Standardized Assessment Tests for our 3rd-5th grade students will run from April 8th through May 8th. Each grade will have one or two assessments per week. Please remember these are STATE required assessments. It is very important that our students are present for their assessments.
Our teachers will communicate a more specific schedule to parents on testing dates and times.
End-of-Year Diagnostic Testing
As the end of the year draws closer, it is important to be aware that we have several final diagnostic assessments we are required to have our students take, in addition to the 3rd-5th grade ISATs. These assessments help us gauge how much our students have grown since the beginning of the year, in their overall reading and math development. We love to review this data so we can celebrate how hard our students and staff have worked throughout the year. Please help us with this by ensuring your students are in attendance as much as possible. We appreciate your help with this immensely!
T-Shirts for All Students
We would like to send a huge thank you and shout-out to DaBell Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Center for donating funds so ALL of our Paramount Stars can have a t-shirt as a gift for all of their hard work this school year.
For the past two years, we have given these t-shirts out as a reminder of how incredible each student is and how they can push through hard challenges. These shirts provide an extra bit of fun to the end of the year when students are struggling a bit to maintain enthusiasm for sticking with it.
We will be presenting the shirts to students as they begin end-of-year assessments. We are not requiring them to be worn on the day of assessments.
Solar Eclipse Viewing
The 2024 Solar Eclipse will happen on Monday, April 8th. While the Treasure Valley is not in the "path of totality", we will be able to see a partial eclipse of approximately 46% coverage of the sun by the moon. This will occur between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm, during our lunch time.
While we are excited about being able to view this eclipse with our students, we will need to ensure we do so safely. We will be providing solar eclipse glasses to all students for them to wear while outside during lunch recess. These will be expected to be worn if students choose to look directly at the sun. Thank you to our PTA for purchasing these glasses for our students.
Please help us emphasize the importance of students wearing these if they plan on looking at the eclipse. Please DO NOT have your student bring a personal viewing device, as we cannot guarantee they will provide the appropriate filtering. We will not be allowing students to view this with cellphone cameras, digital cameras, telescopes, binoculars, or any other optical devices.
School Meal Accounts: LINQ
If your student eats school breakfast or lunch, please review your students' account. School meals can be paid for through your LINQ Connect.
Setting up a LINQ Connect account is free. From your account, you can monitor your student's activity, view menus, add funds (credit card only, transaction fee applies), and apply for free/reduced lunch.
Payments can also be made directly to our school's kitchen staff with cash or check (payable to School Nutrition). There are no transaction fees associated with these types of payments.
Click the button below to access our district website with more information regarding school nutrition, menus, and payment options.
2024 Teacher and Classified Employee of the Year
Please help us congratulate Melissa Ireland (3rd-grade teacher) and Michelle Manu (Special Education Paraprofessional)! These two incredible ladies were chosen by our staff to represent Paramount Elementary as our Teacher of the Year and Classified Employee of the Year. Melissa and Michelle are both incredibly hardworking, talented, dedicated, and inspiring people. We are so lucky to have them working with our Stars!
Paramount Canned Food Drive
Thank you to all of our students and families that participated in our canned food drive. Paramount was able to bring in over 2,000 non-perishable food items to donate to the Meridian Food Bank. This is an incredible demonstration of the character trait we have just concluded focusing on: citizenship.
Great job, Paramount Stars!!
PTA Glow Night and School Store
The 2nd annual PTA Glow Night will be held Thursday, April 25th from 5:30-7:00 pm. Please join us in having a blast while we dance and create neon art with one another. See the flyer below for more specific information.
PTA will need volunteers to make Glow Night run smoothly. If your are available to help, please sign up here: Glow Night/Art Show Sign-Ups
The PTA will also have a Glow Night themed school store during lunchtime for students to purchase items to wear during the event. Items will range in price, starting at approximately $0.50.
PTA is in need of volunteers to run the school store on April 25th. Please consider signing up. Click the link to view the sign-up: Glow Store Sign-Ups
Save My Family Event
Paramount Elementary School is excited to be hosting a "Save My Family" event on Tuesday, April 30th from 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm. This presentation will help provide information on the impacts of digital media on our students' well-being. Please see the flyer below for more specific information.
Other Important Events Coming Up
Please note the following events will be occurring in May. We will send out more specific information as the dates draw closer. We will also likely be adding additional dates/events for May.
- Friday, May 3rd: Kindergarten Celebration
- Monday, May 6th-Friday, May 10th: Staff Appreciation Week
- Thursday, May 9th: Tiny Stars: 2:30 pm
- Friday, May 10th: PTA Student Store
- Friday, May 17th: Fun Run Fundraiser
- Thursday, May 23rd: 5th-Grade Celebration and Senior Grad Walk (3:00 pm)
- Friday, May 24th: Last Day of School; School Picnic
PTA Positions Available
School Closure Packets--JUST IN CASE!!
You should be noticing students now have a "Choice Board" packet of work included in their take-home folders or binders. This packet of work is being sent home JUST IN CASE! If we were to have an additional school closure due to weather or an emergency, we have the ability to offer remote work for students to complete. This would allow us to potentially count the closure day as seat time for students, if they complete the work. Our district has an allotted amount of days built into our calendar for closures, but if we were to miss too many days, we would have to add one or more back onto the calendar to make up for the missed class time.
At this time, please just keep the packet where it has been placed. Students DO NOT need to do anything with it, other than keep it safe. If we were to need a remote day, you will be notified of this. We will provide a more specific explanation if the need arises.
Paramount PTA
'-
Follow Paramount on Social Media
- Follow our Paramount PTA on Instagram: paramountpta
- Follow our Paramount PTA on Facebook (private group, click "join group"): paramount pta
Paramount Elementary (teacher-created posts):
- Follow on Instagram: paramountes_wasd
- Follow on Facebook: Paramount Elementary School
Community Bulletin Board
Additional Community Events
There are free reading events like Reading is Lit, Halloween activities and events, and sports opportunities.
Previous Information
A Paramount Mindset
This year's school theme is having a Paramount MINDSET--maintaining high expectations of ourselves/students behaviorally and academically in order to be at our "PEAK" capabilities. While we will focus on a growth mindset with students and staff, we will also be emphasizing how to adjust our mindsets in other areas within our lives beyond our learning--how we are thinking about challenging situations and not just focusing on the negative.
We spent some time with our students defining "paramount"--helping them understand this word means more than just the name of our school or subdivision. We explained that paramount means the following:
- More important than anything else
- Superior to all others
- Ranking higher than any other
- Of the greatest importance or significance
We are emphasizing that our mindsets--our Paramount Mindsets--are more important than anything else in our learning journey. We are excited to see how this will become a positive impact with our students.
~"Our mindsets are everything; what we think, we become."
Student Drop-Off Times
Please help us keep your students safe! DO NOT drop students off for school before 8:50 am. (M, T, Th, F) or 9:00 am (W). If a student is eating breakfast, they can be dropped off to enter the building at 8:45 am. Breakfast is not served until this time.
Because we cannot guarantee the supervision of students prior to this time, we cannot allow students to enter the building or be on campus. Please help us with this.
Recess Times
Morning Recess: 10:15 -10:30
Lunch/Recess Schedule:
- Kinder Lunch/Recess: 11:30-12:15
- 1st-Grade Lunch/Recess: 11:40-12:25
- 2nd-Grade Lunch/Recess: 11:45-12:30
- 3rd-Grade Lunch/Recess: 12:05-12:50
- 4th-Grade Lunch/Recess: 12:10-12:55
- 5th-Grade Lunch/Recess: 12:30-1:15
Afternoon Recess: 2:30-2:45
Important Safety Reminders
Our #1 priority is to ensure a SAFE campus for our students and staff. In order to do this effectively, we do need your help. Please read our safety reminders below:
- Paramount is a CLOSED CAMPUS during the school hours of 8:30 am – 4:30 pm. Any visitors will need to check in at the front office during these times if they plan to enter the building or be on campus beyond our drop-off locations. For the first week of school, we will allow parents to escort students to line-up locations. After the first week, we will expect parents to adhere to remaining behind our gates when dropping off students.
- Please bring your ID with you when checking in at the front office. Please avoided checking your student out during recess times; please plan ahead to let us know if a student will need to wait for a parent during recess.
- We cannot allow anyone on our fields or playgrounds during the school day that are not approved to be here. Please do not bring young children to play on our equipment during the school day. Our staff is trained to report anyone they believe is not approved to be on campus.
- For students or parents riding bikes to school, please plan on “walking” bikes once on campus. This will help ensure the biker’s safety through the parking lot.
- For parents who will be dropping students off at school, or picking them up, PLEASE adhere to our “Drop-Off/Pick-Up” Zones. This helps ensure students are only entering/exiting cars in a safe area, where other drivers can see them.
- Students and parents are expected to use the crosswalk and wait for the Crossing Guard to indicate it is safe to cross. Please help us with this.
- No dogs are allowed on campus during the school day. Please do not bring animals on our campus without permission. If you bring them with you during drop-off or pick-up, they must be on a leash or remain in your vehicle (and remain in the parking lot area). Again, this is for the safety of all—our students and staff AND your pet!
- If you are accessing the school grounds outside of school hours with a dog, please be sure to clean up after them. We often find dog waste left in the fields. As you can imagine, if a student steps into this, it creates a major disruption and hygiene issue for our students, parents, and school. Please spread the word for us to help keep our fields free of pet waste.
- Throughout the year, we will practice a variety of safety drills: Lockdowns, Fire drills, Reverse Evacuations, Evacuations, etc. We work in conjunction with the Meridian Police Department and the Meridian Fire Department to establish the best practices for these drills. We will communicate when these occur, so you are aware of the drills. We will also send more communication regarding the types of emergencies and the procedures we will practice with our students.