The Hornet Buzz
Parent Bulletin for Horace Elementary
ADMIN. ASSISTANT
Kristie Sauvageau
PRINCIPAL
Carol Zent
COUNSELOR
Lynsdey Simonson
Welcome Back to School!
The classrooms reflect the many hours of thought and effort our teachers have expended to prepare their room and their lessons for the children. The support staff has thoroughly cleaned and creatively decorated the school. The office staff worked tirelessly to ensure all systems are in place. The West Fargo School District has generously provided our kids with the staff, equipment, and learning materials necessary to provide our children with a first-class education. Based on the first few days of school, it is obvious that parents have encouraged our kids to do their best and demonstrate respectful, responsible, and safe behaviors which are the cornerstone of expectations in WFPS and at Horace. All the ingredients for a successful school year are now in place. Let us continue to inspire our children and ourselves.
Morning Drop Off
Student's should not arrive before 7:30 AM. There is no staff supervision until 7:30. The only exception is if your child is enrolled in the YMCA before school program.
When dropping off your child in the morning make sure to pull up as far as you can in the drop off loop. Also, remain in the car when your child exits. Do not block the crosswalk . We understand that everyone is busy but the safety of our students is most important.
Homework/Reading Room
End of the Day Student Messages
Intramural 4th and 5th Grade Boys Flag Football
2:30 - 3:30
August 29, 30
September 1,2,6,8,9,and 12
Everyday Math Parent Information
Horace Student ID Cards Start September 5!
Parents/Guardians of WFPS Elementary Students:
West Fargo Public Schools is excited to advance the use of ID cards with all elementary school students this fall! During Spring 2016, Harwood Elementary served as the pilot site for the use of these cards. The information gathered from the students, families, and staff at Harwood helped guide the district’s decision to roll this project out to all students in grades K-5 in the district.
Students will be issued two ID cards:
The first is related to transportation services. Students will be issued a passive RFID card that will document when a child gets on a bus, which bus they get on, and when and where they get off. This tool will help locate students who get off at wrong stops, as well as helping the district communicate more efficiently with families when a bus incident occurs (the system will allow us to pinpoint which students are actually on the bus, rather than just using the mass call approach).The card will be secured to the student’s backpack with a rubber loop and must be held within 6 inches of the reader in order to complete the check-in and check-out.
The second card is for food service and the library program. Students will be issued a plastic card with a Code 39 barcode printed on it that they can use to scan in the lunchroom to pay for meals and check out library books. This tool will allow students to go through the meal and book lines more quickly, and with a higher accuracy rate. The card will be placed on a lanyard or clip that will be left at school each evening. The card will be scanned in order to complete the payment or check-out process.
Both cards will have the student’s name and ID number printed on them. As a safety measure, photographs and specific school names will not be printed on the card. Back-up mechanisms will be in place for all operations, in the event that a card is lost and needs to be replaced. If you would prefer that your child not receive one or both of the ID cards, please communicate with your child’s principal about alternatives.
In order for the project team to dedicate enough time to each school site, we will be distributing IDs at one school per week. The schedule is listed below; please know that changes may occur based on any issues that arise.
Week of Aug. 22 > Harwood Elementary
Week of Sept. 5 > Horace Elementary
Week of Sept. 12 > Legacy Elementary
Week of Sept. 19 > South Elementary
Week of Sept. 26 > Aurora Elementary
Week of Oct. 3 > Berger Elementary
Week of Oct. 10 > Freedom Elementary
Week of Oct. 17 > Westside Elementary
Week of Oct. 24 > Independence Elementary
Week of Oct. 31 > Eastwood Elementary
Week of Nov. 7 > Osgood Kindergarten Center
Week of Nov. 14 > Lodoen Kindergarten Center
Transportation and Food Service representatives will be at your child’s school the Friday prior to the rollout, as well as the first day of the actual rollout week, to help students and staff become familiar with the ID process.
If you have questions about this project, please connect with Heather Konschak, Community Relations Coordinator / School Safety & Security Coordinator at hkonschak@west-fargo.k12.nd.us or 701-499-1072.
BUS INFORMATION
Horace Elementary SchoolsAlive! Energ-I-ze - October 6 - Save the Date!
Kristen Liebl, RDN, LRD
SchoolsAlive! Energ-I-ze is a fit family night held at Fargo, West Fargo, and Moorhead elementary schools. It is sponsored by Sanford Health and other area organizations and businesses. It is a small part of the bigger initiative CassClayAlive! which is a collaboration of health-minded organizations that have joined to make Cass (of North Dakota) and Clay (of Minnesota) counties the healthiest places in America to live. Our solution: Change our food and fitness culture so that healthy choices become the easy choice.
Last year Energ-I-ze visited 10 schools with about 2000 students and family members in attendance. Energ-I-ze is now in its 5th year with 4 new schools added to the schedule. Aurora Elementary in West Fargo was one of those new schools and they had over 550 students and family members attend there event alone!
The event is free and open to all students and family members of the hosting neighborhood school. Come and go as you please atmosphere.
Here are the 4 main goals of SchoolsAlive! Energ-I-ze:
1) Collaborating the Community: Organizations and businesses working together to send consistent overall health messages to our students and families, while also working together to show the many options for youth and family programing and/or activities available in our community.
2) Offer a free family fit night: Energ-I-ze gives the opportunity for families to experience a night of fitness and tasty nutritious foods all for free.
3) Nutrition Education: Learning about food through site, smell, taste and activity. Here are a few examples of our nutrition stations: Meal Makeover “White Bean Chowder” with fish shaped crackers and fresh fruit, nutrition Bingo, MyPlate Bracelet making provided by NDSU Extension, 3-A-Day Dairy Super Hero craft, fruit and vegetable walk, and gardening activities.
4) Physical Education: Each event provided activities families could do at home - hula hoops, obstacle courses, jump ropes, balls, etc. Energ-I-ze also provided special fun equipment such as gymnastics mats (provided by TNT Kids Fitness and Gymnastics or Gold Gymnastics), scooters, stacking cups, and climbing rope. Great Rides of Fargo also provided the Great Northern Bike Challenge at each event where students compete against each other to see who can provide the most energy on a stationary bike. Lastly, we provide two 15 minute sessions of family Zumba® for everyone to participate in.
Evaluation of Energ-I-ze events included attendance at each event, surveys collected at the end of the night. Each family that attended filled out one 4 question survey. Many families stated the enjoyment of the time spent as a family, new meal and snack ideas, and the ample physical activity provided as a family. SchoolsAlive! Energize program will be attending 14 different Elementary schools this 2014-2015 school year. As the program grows much of our support now comes from school PTA and volunteers from the community. Thank you NDNC for your support to help our program continue to grow successfully!
MySchoolBucks
West Fargo Public Schools partners with an online payment system called MySchoolBucks. There is no fee for using this system.
MySchoolBucks provides…
Safety. Eliminates the need for your child to take money to school.
Convenience. Make payments when it’s convenient for you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
Control. Set low balance alerts, view account activity, recurring payments & more!
Efficiency. Make payments for all your children in one easy step- even if they attend different schools within the district.
Flexibility. Make payments using VISA, Master Card, Discover credit/debit cards.
Enrollment is easy!
To set up an account, go to the WFPS website and click on the “Parent” button. Scroll down to mySchoolBucks login and click.
Set up an account by clicking “Sign up today”. Enter your information to create an account.
Add your students to your account. You will need their school name and student ID. Contact your child’s school for ID number.
Add funds to your students’ accounts with your credit/debit card. You can make one-time payments or set up automatic payments. You can use the “Setup an Auto payment” option to automatically add funds to your student’s meal account weekly, monthly or when the balance runs low.
There is no cost to you for using this account. If you choose to not use this site to deposit money, you can still use it to view a 30 day history of your child’s meal account transactions and you can also set up a low balance email notification to alert you when your child’s meal account is getting low.
Meal Prices for 2016-2017
Elementary Breakfast
$1.30
Elementary Student Lunch
$2.25
School calendar:
https://www.west-fargo.k12.nd.us/district/calendars/2015_16Elementary.pdf
Lunch Menu:
http://www.west-fargo.k12.nd.us/district/menus/
Parent Portal Application:
Information can be found on the link listed below:
http://www.west-fargo.k12.nd.us/district/parentportal/
My School Bucks:
https://www.myschoolbucks.com/ allows you to pay for lunches on line with a credit card, debit card, or automatic withdrawal from your bank account.
Bus information:
https://www.west-fargo.k12.nd.us/district/departments/transportation