Greetings Families!

The school year is well under way and I am pleased to share that the students have settled back into the routine of school and LOTS of learning is taking place every day! The teachers and staff are working hard to make every day count for your students! The most successful years are those with strong home and school partnerships. Throughout the year there will be many opportunities for you to be involved here at school. PTO is the very best way to share your time and talents with CGES! Keep open lines of communication with your child's teacher and share both celebrations (we love to hear those) and concerns (we are happy to address those) as they come up! In addition, I am available through Parent Square or email (bucklerc@centergrove.k12.in.us ). Enjoy the Labor Day weekend and continue your support of the awesome students and amazing staff of CGES!

Warmly,

Mr. Buckler

Hello, Knights!

We had a great first month of school! Our biggest focus was safety and procedures. The first week of school was Safety Week. We had some outstanding fifth graders leading safety stations for grades K-4. Grade levels rotated through stations learning how to follow our Knights Creed and model safety at Center Grove Elementary. Students learned about the expectations on the playground, in the hallway, cafeteria, restrooms, and on our buses. We also practiced all of our safety drills. The students modeled safety while participating in a fire drill, lock down drill, and severe weather drill. They did a fantastic job!

September is National Attendance Awareness Month. We will be sharing some attendance facts with our students throughout the month. Chronic absenteeism means that a student has missed more than 10% of the school year. Here is a video with more facts about attendance. At our school last year, we had 17 students that had more than 10 unexcused absences. Let’s work together to shrink that number this year!

Thank you to all the students and families who have made the beginning of the school year such a positive experience. I am looking forward to a great year!

Hello! I honestly cannot believe that we are already through August! It’s been a great start to another school year, and things certainly seem to be moving right along throughout the building. With that being said, I wanted to take a moment to define a bit of what my role is within the school.

What a school counselor does:

• Work with ALL students to encourage a safe school climate of trust and respect

• Promote the social and emotional well-being for all students to ensure they achieve academic success

• Meet individually with students to do brief/short-term solution focused counseling

• Help students who are struggling to make positive behavior choices

• Facilitate small groups

• Provide guidance lessons on a variety of topics in the classrooms

• Connect families in need of resources with help in their community

• Maintain confidentiality of students and their families unless there is a need to know or a safety concern

What a school counselor does NOT do:

• Meet individually with student to do long-term mental health counseling or tractional therapy

• Administer disciplinary action for students

Please know that my primary goal is to support BOTH our students and staff in order for them to feel and be successful. BUT! Parenting is hard sometimes. (I have a 22 year old daughter and a 20 year old son) Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to support YOU also.

Respectfully yours,

Mrs. Taylor

CGES is happy to partner with the Johnson County Public Library who is running our reading program “Achieve 3000” to encourage students to read all school year.

Achieve 3000 will run from August 15, 2022 until May 15, 2023.

The program supports reading for students by keeping track of time read.

We request 15 minutes of reading a night. In order to reach 3000 Minutes Read, students will need to read 15 minutes a day for 200 days, so the program encourages students to read a little longer than 180 school days.

The Library will run the program in Beanstack so students could track their reading times online or on the Beanstack Tracker app.

The library is also offering a paper log where students can mark off their reading in 15 minute increments. Download the Paper Log: https://cdn.zephyrcms.com/a4c225ea-c153-43bc-940f-373e81385aba/reading-log-achieve-3000.pdf

• The program encourages good reading habits of students.
• The program promotes the School and Public Library partnership.
• The program promotes SMART card use of Tumble Books, Cloud Library, and other databases.
• Prizes will be awarded at signup, halfway, and completion of the reading 3000 minutes.

We hope your student will join us on this year of reading fun!

https://www.pageafterpage.org/achieve-3000

Excited to share that CGES has 121 participants and 39 finishers in this summer's reading program with JCPL. Program finishers read for at least 600 minutes (ten hours)! Congratulations to the following students who completed the program this summer!

Carrie Cunningham, Owen Colter, Emery Hardin, Lucas Hillenberg, Aarna Gupta, Emily McBride, Jaren Schreier, Alaina Webb, Myla Berkeley, Ariana Argiris, Oliver Hendress, Jaxon Jones, Elliot Donohue, Vivian Noland, Isabelle Hoch, James Cox, Calise Ehresman, Taylor Miller, Quinn Berkeley, Charlotte Colter, Dhyana Sanghvi, Joe Noland, Bennett McBride, Allison Hillenburg, Solomon Roberts, Jamison Mohr, Josey Fowler, Cora Miller, Hannah McBride, Rowan Berkeley, Surabhi Viswanatha, Vivian Cox, Benny Donohue, Bridge Harding, Gabriel Roberts, Mary Larson, and Chloe Young!

Awesome Job!

Exciting news! Our school is participating in Kinsa’s FLUency™ school health program. I have a limited number of free smart thermometers, so please reach out to me at BachmannS@centergrove.k12.in.us to request one for your family! This is one per family and only if you have not received one in the past few years.

Thank you!

Stacey Bachmann, BSN, RN

Mark your calendars for the events that will be taking place in September!

September 1 - Fun Run Donations Begin

September 5 - Labor Day, No School!

September 7 - Early Release

September 9 - Dine to Donate @ Ella's

September 13 - Fun Run

September 14 - Early Release

September 19 - 23 - College Go Week

September 20 - PTO Meeting @ 6:30

September 21 - Early Release

September 28 - Early Release

Please welcome the following new staff members:

Revathi Jegatheesan - Kindergarten Assistant

Jen Woodhouse - 5th Grade

We are excited to have these new staff members join CGES!