Welcome to our weekly Gator Bites newsletter! Every Friday evening our team at CGE will send out any important updates for the following week. Our goal is to be prepared, transparent and informative! We appreciate your time and urge you to read through carefully each week- especially during these unconventional virtual learning weeks.

Stay safe, stay informed and stay Gator Strong! 🐊

In our morning announcements recently, we have been sharing with students “proverbs from around the world.” This week we shared 2 from Russia: “Many hands make light work;” and, “Be swift to hear, slow to speak.”

It’s never too soon to teach your children the power of simple words. Proverbs are a great way to do this. Have a great weekend!

Book Fair -- Week 2: March 1-14th

Please share book fair information with your friends and family! Please help us meet our goal and grow our library collection!

Links you’ll want to check out:

• CGE Online Book Fair Site

• Book Videos

• Virtual Book Fair Flyer

• eWallet information

• How the online book fair works

AIG and Talent Development zoom groups for all grades will be cancelled in March, beginning on March 1st, while Ms. Merilee and Ms. Wilkie complete required testing for students referred for AIG evaluation. We will miss meeting with your children and rest assured we will be working to finish this testing as quickly as possible so that we can begin meeting with your children again.

During this testing period, weekly asynchronous activities will be posted in google classroom or sent to students via their email accounts, to provide independent challenge and enrichment experiences for students.

The families of students previously referred for AIG evaluation will be contacted via email to schedule remote testing sessions.

Read to Achieve Parent Session

Thank you to the families who attended our RTA Parent Session on Thursday. If you were unable to attend, we recorded the session and are also providing some resources below:

• Read to Achieve Parent Night (Condensed Presentation)

• Recording of RTA Session

• Released Passages (Practice at Home)

Please contact your students' teacher or our curriculum coach, Erin Boecke, with any additional questions: eboecke@chatham.k12.nc.us.

During Guidance lessons, we have been talking about Growth Mindset. Check out three ways that parents/guardians can instill a growth mindset from mindsetkit.org. Know that this is a process that takes time!

1. Recognize your own mindset: Be mindful of your own thinking and of the messages you send with your words and actions.

2. Praise the process: Praising kids for being smart suggests that innate talent is the reason for success, while focusing on the process helps them see how their effort leads to success.

3. Model learning from failure: When parents talk positively about making mistakes, kids start to think of mistakes as a natural part of the learning process.

Curbside meal pick-up will take place at CGE each Wednesday from 10:30 to 1:00 starting on January 13th. Please reach out to our Cafeteria Manager, Ms. Jessica Frye, for questions. Her email address is: jfrye@chatham.k12.nc.us.

February Menu

Student materials will be available for pick up again starting on Monday March 1st at 9 a.m. Please contact your student’s classroom teacher if you have a question about the materials/resources that need to be collected at our school.

To create consistency in grading K-5 Art, Music and PE classes, all students for quarters 3 and 4 in grades 3-5 district-wide will receive the following feedback on report cards--Proficient, Developing, or No Evidence. For quarters 3 and 4, all students in grades K-2 will receive a 1, 2, 3, or 4 for specials.

Please know that in conversations and in our recent CGE Parent Survey, we heard feedback regarding assessing for Virtual Academy students in our specials’ classes. Specifically, some of our VA parents are really struggling with balancing, home, work, and school demands. We understand. For K-2 students who are unable to consistently attend specials, they will not receive a grade and that section of the report card will be blank. For 3-5 students who are unable to consistently attend specials, they will not receive a grade and that section of the report card will say ‘No Evidence.’