Happy New Year!!! I hope everyone enjoyed their Holiday as we had a great 2 weeks back to school! All of our students did a great job of remembering all of routines, expectations, and rekindling friendships. Thank you to our Leighton Staff and families for helping to make this transition so smooth. We also would like to welcome many new students to our Leighton Family this semester! We are so excited to welcome you and your families to our community of learners! We are very excited and looking forward to all the learning, growth, and gains we will make during the second semester. We also want to send well wishes to Dawn Zorc, previous Secretary, as she began her new journey in Cuyahoga Heights where she is closer to home and family. We are looking forward to welcoming a new addition to our office staff soon.

Please don't forget that the cold weather is upon us and students should dress in warm clothes including winter coats, hats, gloves, scarves, boots, etc . We typically go out to recess if the "feel like" temperature is between 15-20 degrees or above.

A special welcome to Amy Dolzine who has joined our Board of Education. We are excited to have her apart of the Board of Education and are looking forward to celebrating each of the members of this important team at our next meeting in honor of Board Appreciation Month. Thank you for all your support of our students, staff, and community.

We are looking forward to a productive, learning filled second semester. Thank you for your continued support as we navigate the rest of this unique school year together and keep our learners at the center.

Kind Regards,

Mrs. Michelle Nizen, Building Principal

Mrs. Maria Goodman, Assistant Principal

We continue to capitalize on opportunities to teach and reinforce our 3 pillars of Being Respectful, Being Responsible, and Being a Problem Solver through our daily words and actions and celebrate our students' successes with "caught being good tickets." Each week we teach our students "focus skills" based on the data from the previous week including any referrals or situations that have arisen. This week's focus skill is I can stop, think, and make a good choice. Our UDL (Universally Designed) lessons hone in on each focus skill allowing us to explicitly teach those skills, reinforce them, and connect them to our strategic vision including our 6 competencies of a learner (critical thinker, collaborator, innovator, resilient, balanced, and empathetic). Ms. Mazzella also capitalizes on teaching these skills in her classroom lessons focused on various topics including friendships, growth mindset, perseverance as it relates to school work, etc. We are looking forward to announcing our Golden Fork winners every 2 weeks for demonstrating our 3 pillars in the lunchroom and at recess while following all the expectations. Congratulations went to Mrs. Leone, Ms. Most, and Mrs. Dorner who earned the Golden Fork and will be getting ready to pass it along to the next winning classes to display outside their classroom doors. Lastly, our monthly PBIS office raffle will be Friday, January 28th. Students turn in their caught being good tickets to the office and a building-wide drawing takes place, where caught being good tickets are read over the announcements and students pick a prize from our PBIS rewards cart. We always capture that moment with a group photo.

Here are some great resources to support your PBIS efforts at home. Thank you for your partnership!

https://www.pbis.org/resource/supporting-families-with-pbis-at-home

https://www.pbis.org/resource/supporting-families-with-pbis-at-home

Lastly, we are excited about our PBIS or Positive Behavior Intervention Supports Programming and the engaging, safe, and supportive learning environments it fosters. Part of the program's effectiveness is looking at feedback from all stakeholders including students, staff, and parents. Please take a moment to complete our PBIS family survey linked above if you have not already done so to help us continue to enhance our PBIS program. We always look forward to your feedback!

Yearbook Orders: Yearbooks are now on sale! The sale runs through February 21st. Please use the link to purchase your yearbook

https://mailchi.mp/a3827dc5c1cb/pre-order-your-2021-2022-yearbook-for-leighton-elementary-school?e=5913bcd71d

Password: leighton22

Teacher Appreciation Week 2/7-2/11: We want to shower our teachers with gratitude during this week. Each day will incorporate a different way of showing our gratitude to our teachers. Be on the lookout for information to come from your head room parents for what each day will be.

PTO Meeting: 2/9/22 Our next monthly meeting will be held on this date. Please stay tuned for location/time.

PTO ELECTIONS: There are board positions for next year! It's a wonderful way to volunteer in your child's school! Please consider joining the PTO board and helping to plan fun and meaningful events for our elementary schools!!! If you have any questions, or would like to talk to a current board member, see the emails below:

PTO President: Katie Stump auroraptopres@gmail.com
Craddock Vice President: Lindsey Twarogowski auroraptocesvp@gmail.com

Miller Vice President: Erin Toler auroraptomesvp@gmail.com

Leighton Vice President: Natasha Rodriguez-Olah auroraptolesvp@gmail.com

Treasurer: Ashley Keating auroraptotreas@gmail.com

Secretary: Bridget Sable auroraptosec@gmail.com you would like to join the PTO please click the link and fill out the form.

http://auroraelementarypto.org/membership/

Head Room Parent Communication:

If you would like to receive communication from your head room parent, please click on the link and fill out the form.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeKGjTwj3kvxBeEWJHYTk9Dh7tg_pBsEKtoOQFhWd1GE3jeFQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

As a reminder, please monitor your child for any COVID-related symptoms and contact our school nurse if you have any questions. We appreciate your attention to this.

• Check your child each day for COVID-related symptoms. If your child is showing any symptoms whatsoever, it is best to keep him/her home to monitor.
• Students sent home with a fever, may not return to school until they are fever-free without medication for at least 24 hours. This means if your child was sent home on Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. with a fever, he/she may not return to school until Thursday. If your child does return the next day, our school nurse will be calling for you to come to pick him/her up. Thank you for your support and efforts in this area.
  
• We have COVID-19 home testing kits available that we can send home with any child or family should you question symptoms or exposure. We will be able to answer any questions about these kits should the need arise.
• Please make sure your Final Forms medical information is up to date. We will closely read the health sections to address any medical concerns.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Tanski in the clinic at 330-954-2285 or email her at atanski@aurora-schools.org

**** If your child will be absent for an extended period, please reach out to your child's teacher and they will get school work ready for your student for the period of the absence. You may pick up the work outside the main office on a table that will be labeled with your student's name. We are a google district and utilize google classroom in our 3-5 classes. Please check in with your child's teacher about any google classroom posting and/or assignments in his/her absence.