Happy Mother's Day!! I hope you have enjoyed special time with your family. I am privileged to know so many great moms. Some are friends. Some are teachers. And, of course, some are my family. There are a 1,000 wonderful qualities of great moms and so many of you reflect them. For me, though, I want you to know why I think my wife, Jan, is such a great mom. 1. She listens. My wife is a little introverted (as opposed to her talkative husband). She is a phenomenal listener and everyone tells her what's going on. Jan always knows what's happening with our two children, Whitney and Joey, because they tell her everything...well, mostly everything. She listens with her ears and her eyes and her heart. She really hears our kids and understands the what and the why about them. She and I can even listen to them in the same conversation and she walks away knowing way more than I do. It is amazing. 2. She is "intuitively wise." I choose those words carefully. Jan sees the lines, she reads between the lines, and she sees beyond the lines in most situations. I cannot count the number of times when she arrived at a conclusion that I thought was wrong only to find out her thoughts were right on target. I have humbly come to realize that "she can't help that she's always right." (It took me years to admit that.) Her combined intuition and wisdom allow us to guide our kids in the right way at the right time which leads to the right outcome. She does not miss a trick (as my grandmother used to say.) 3. She has high expectations. Here are Joey's words: "Mom has high expectations for me and Whitney but she expects the most from herself. She makes sure that we are running at 100% while keeping our well being in mind. She is committed to her work (as a chemistry teacher) and to her friends, but she puts our family before anything else. She allows us to experiment and try and fail. She inspires all of us to push to our limits but also provides a safe place to come and relax. I want to thank her and all moms like her." 4. She loves our kids (and likes them) just as they are. Here are Whitney's thoughts: "Mom laughs at my jokes when no one else does and she's not faking it. She loves us even when we mess up. Even when she's mad or frustrated with us, she helps us learn from our mistakes instead of making us dwell on them. She gets excited about things with us. Whether it's something we accomplished or something fun we're doing or knowing I'm coming home from college, she gets excited and that makes everyone else excited." Jan is truly such a great mom. And...so are you. You are your children's first teacher and their greatest advocate. Our children at Cherry Park are so blessed to have you as their moms. Blessings to you.

Mr. Maness (and Joey and Whitney)

Volunteer Monitors for Testing

We need your help monitoring statewide SC READY testing on the mornings of May 14 and 16. Usually it takes from 8:00-11:00 and training will be provided in the Media Center at 7:30 AM each morning. Your help in this area allows us to complete testing for all our students before lunch and we will not have to pull other staff members and assistants from their responsibilities to help. Even if you can only help on one day, that would be beneficial to us. Please click on the Testing Monitor button below to sign up.

Field Day Volunteer Signups (See Below)

We will have two field days in May. On May 24, we will have our Kindergarten, First and Second Grade Field Day in the morning. On May 31, we will have our Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade Field Day and it will be all day. We will have them across the street in Cherry Park Fields 1, 2 and 3. You can click on the Field Day Volunteer button(s) below to sign up to volunteer. We wanted to let you know about these days so you can plan for them. We will need volunteers at both events to help them be a fun day for our kids. If you want to volunteer, you must have a current background screening completed and you can go here to submit that if needed: https://www.rock-hill.k12.sc.us/Page/3391 We realize all three schools did Field Day differently. To best address our safety and security concerns, we want to make sure you know that we will not be able to allow visitors to walk up and visit at Field Day. We will not have any way to check ID’s across the street. All adults at Field Day will be prescreened and will wear bracelets indicating they are staff or volunteers. As always, we welcome parents to visit with their child during lunch those days. Field Day is a day for our kids and we want them to be safe and secure while having fun.

CPES Spiritwear

Thanks for your orders and know that they should be back the last week of school.

Teacher Appreciation Week Activities and Signups

Will be May 20-24 and we will need lots of help to express our appreciation to our teachers. Please click on the button below to see the information flyer about activities and you can click on the button below to sign up to help with them. We chose to do our Teacher Appreciation Week after statewide testing is done rather than last week during it. We think our teachers will enjoy events much more once testing is done.

Nominations for PTO Leadership for 19-20

We want to begin planning now for next year for our PTO Leadership. If you have a nomination, you can go to the button below to submit that person’s name. Please ask them before submitting their name.

Parent Teacher Organization and School Improvement Council Update

The PTO serves to raise funds, coordinate volunteers and encourage teachers through appreciation activities. We had a great meeting last week and minutes from the meeting were sent out earlier this week. We will meet again on Monday, May 20 at 6:30 PM to continue organization efforts. We encourage all parents to come and participate. We will meet in the Cherry Park Elementary Library. Our School Improvement Council will meet on the same days at 5:30 PM in the Fishbowl near the main entrance. All parents are invited to attend either or both meetings. Both groups are working on bylaws and have started organizational efforts. The group at PTO divided into committees to work on Bylaws, Fundraising, Volunteers and Teacher Appreciation. We hope you can come and join one of these subcommittees. Click on the PTO Newsletter button below if you wish to receive the PTO Newsletter:

Monday, May 13--Kindergarten MAP Reading

Tuesday, May 14—SC READY Math Test (3rd-5th Grades)

Wednesday, May 15--Kindergarten MAP Math and Third Grade MAP Math

Thursday, May 16—SC PASS Science Test (4th Grade) and SC PASS Social Studies Test (5th Grade)

Friday, May 17--First Grade MAP Reading

May 20-24--Teacher Appreciation Week (See above for signups and activities)

May 20--First Grade MAP Math and Fourth and Fifth Grade MAP Reading; 5:30 SIC Meeting and 6:30 PTO Meeting

May 21--Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade MAP Language Usage

May 22--Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade MAP Math; Guarino/Avilez MAP Reading

May 23--Parrish/Cromer/Woods/Sumner MAP Reading

May 24—Kindergarten through Second Grade Field Day (in the morning at Cherry Park on Fields 1, 2 and 3); BOGO Book Fair (See above)

May 27—Memorial Day Holiday (No School)

May 28--Second Grade MAP Math

May 29--BOGO Book Fair (See above)

May 31—Third through Fifth Grades Field Day (all day at Cherry Park on Fields 1, 2, and 3); BOGO Book Fair (See above)

June 3—9:00 Fifth Grade Graduation (Sullivan Middle School Auditorium); Half Day for Students

June 4—Half Day for Students and Last School Day

June 8—High School Graduation Day (10:00 RHHS, 2:00 NWHS, 6:00 SPHS)