The Roadrunner
Ben Franklin Elementary School
December/January
Dear Families,
On behalf of the PTO board and all of our students, we want to THANK YOU for making our Turkey Bingo event a success! We enjoy having all of our families together once again! A special thank you to those who provided donations or volunteered their time. Your continued dedication to Ben Franklin is appreciated.
For the safety of ALL students, we count on our families to follow the Turn Lane guidelines in the morning, as well as after school. Even in the morning, students should be exit the vehicle from the right side of the car. Drivers should only let students out when they are in the right lane and exit from the curbside only. Depending on the size of the vehicle, children may not be visible to the driver. We recognize that the mornings are a busy time for everyone but following our turn lane rules is crucial for student safety. Our staff members will signal all drivers to pull forward, as soon as a car leaves, please do so to make traffic move efficiently.
Pajama Drive and Food Drive
Class Meetings to Increase Social-Emotional Skills
Grades K-5
*Self-Awareness
*Self- Management
*Social Awareness
*Relationship Skills
*Responsible Decision-Making
A few of our teachers attended a conference about SEL development and learned how many of our youth do not experience the social lessons we learned through playing outdoors or board games due to the increased screen time (using phones, video games, or iPads). We encourage all of our families to provide more opportunities for child(ren) to play board games or outdoor games to learn the skills needed for life: How to handle disappointment, turn-taking, sharing, empathy, and so on...
Part of our focus during class meetings also involves teaching our students the difference between bullying and conflicts. We included an image to help our families understand what the students are learning.
Please Mark your Calendars!
PTO News
Thank you Roadrunner families for joining us at our most recent Dine to Donate event held at the Pizza Ranch. With your help, we were able to raise $280!
This year is about 'choice' for our fundraisers - pick and choose what is best for your family. We'll see this again with our next dining events: Popolino's Pizza night on PTO/PIZZA Monday, and our first Deek's Pizza Week!
December 9th-13th- use the special code 'SCHOOL' and the school receives 20% of the Deek's pizza order!
If you want to get involved, have suggestions or questions, or simply want to meet our current PTO please join us for our next meeting on December 2.
Turn Lane Guidelines~ Please make sure everyone who picks up your child(ren) understands these rules.
Kindergarten
THIRD GRADE
FIFTH GRADE
Fifth graders that attended the State in Song in Early November. It was a teacher-selected honor choir that rehearsed for one day and performed a concert at the end.
Information from the School Nurse
District Information
See Something, Say Something
Statistics consistently show that schools are among the safest places to be due to the strong commitment of educators, families, and our community to our students and schools. We strive to be proactive rather than reactive.
Despite these proactive measures, there may be times when your student struggles socially, academically, or otherwise at school. There may be a time you/your student sees, hears, or is made aware of something that causes concern. In these circumstances, we would like you to remember the phrase, “See Something, Say Something.”
Please directly contact your student’s teacher, counselor, or administrator when a school-related concern arises that requires intervention or assistance. The phone number to our school office is 701-746-2250.
If there is a safety concern after school hours, on the weekend, or when school is not in session (ex: holiday break, summer break), contact the Grand Forks Police Department (GFPD) at 701-787-8000. To text an anonymous tip to the GFPD, text GFPD to 847-411.
If it is an immediate concern, call 911.
Please do not use social media (ex: Facebook, Instagram, etc.) as a forum to share these concerns. Individual privacy settings may inhibit emergency responders and school administrators from seeing these messages, making them unable to assist.
We care about each of our students and work hard each day to support their needs. Thank you for your efforts in keeping our students, employees, and community safe.
Sincerely,
Leslie Bjelde
Information from our Social Worker
Ben Franklin Elementary
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