Heritage Monthly Newsletter
October 2022
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Dear Heritage Families,
With September behind us, we are well on our way to all the fun October brings! In September we celebrated homecoming, had a blast at the Boosters All-Star Kickball Game, and welcomed many volunteers into the building for our SOAR Store and various classroom learning activities. To keep up-to-date with all our fun, please follow us on Twitter, @HeritageElemen2. We post regularly to help you stay connected to our students, staff and school.
Below you will notice October is filled with just as much fun as September. Our Boosters will be hosting their annual Halloween Happenings, our counselors have some ideas for kindness challenges, and we are recognizing students who show respect this month.
Thank you in advance for reading through all the information proved in our newsletters. We appreciate the time you take to familiarize yourself with our information, activities and events. Wishing you a wonderful start to fall, with all the apple picking, hay rides, pumpkin patch visits and fun you can fit in!
Have a wonderful month!
Maura Neville
MAP Results
3rd Grade Fall Ohio State Test
Halloween at Heritage
Halloween is fast approaching and we are preparing at Heritage Elementary School for a safe and healthy day with our children on Monday, October 31, 2022. As you are well aware, SAFETY is a priority at school. We aim to ensure that ALL students and staff members feel comfortable throughout the day. To accomplish this objective, we request your assistance and cooperation on some important details. While students are not required to wear costumes on Oct. 31st, those students who do wish to participate are reminded of the following guidelines:
Please choose a costume that does not reflect violence. Inappropriate “props” such as blood, plastic swords, guns, knives, and weapons of any kind are not allowed – even if they are a part of your child’s costume.
Students should wear their costume to school.
No face painting.
Costume masks are not permitted.
Finally, all costumes should maintain the integrity of our school dress code.
Please understand that these guidelines are put in place to ensure the safety of all our students. Students are allowed to wear their costumes during the course of the day, but the costume must not interfere with the student’s duties and responsibilities, both in and out of class. Plan to wear costumes that are comfortable as they will be worn all day.
Each year, our students display some of the most well designed costumes that require a lot of thought and planning. This year should be no different. We look forward to seeing the creativity of our students when they arrive at school on October 31st. Let’s all have an enjoyable fall/costume day.
Avon Heritage Boosters
Halloween Happenings!
We will need parents to help make this event a success! To sign up to decorate your trunk: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A45ACA62FA0F58-halloween
Holiday Wreath Fundraiser!
It is time for our annual evergreen gift fundraiser. For every purchase, Heritage Boosters earns $8 AND an evergreen is planted in a National or State Forest! These products are live, gorgeous, and last a long time! Orders are accepted through December 9th, but don’t delay in purchasing because some products will sell out. Products are shipped directly to the gift recipient and delivery will begin just after Thanksgiving. Use this fundraising code when placing your order: AVONBOOH001 and order via this link: www.GiftItForward.com
Thanksgiving Turkey Craft Fundraiser!
We are partnering with Pinspiration again for our Turkey Craft Kit Fundraiser. Each kit contains the turkey, paints, brush, apron, paper, wood glue, and instructions. Decorate your table with your child’s hand-painted turkey, showcasing what they are thankful for. The order deadline is October 26th and kits will be brought home by students on November 11th. Each kit is $18 and Boosters will get a portion of each sale. Order your craft kit here: https://thanksgiving-craft-2022.cheddarup.com
Notes From the Office
Sign- Out
To ensure the safety and security of our students at Heritage Elementary we ask that if you are picking your child up early from school, you bring your identification card to the office when signing your child out. Our office staff will ask you to identify yourself and hold your ID card up to the window for verification. This will help us ensure you are a safe adult for one of our children. While we understand this procedure can be frustrating, especially if you have to go back to your car for your identification, we are doing this to keep everyone safe and secure. Thank you in advance for cooperating with this very important procedure.
Tardy Sign-in & Dropping Off Items
To promote safety, we will be limiting guests entering our Main Office areas. Therefore, parents needing to drop off items at the school will be doing so within the double door vestibule areas, where a table will be set up to leave the marked item(s) example: lunchbox. This table will also have a sign-in area if your child were to arrive late due to a given reason. Guests can always push the buzzer to ask questions with the office personnel.
Student Illness During the School Day
In the event your child is sick, the office and/or nurse will contact you directly. Teachers are busy instructing our students and are unable to answer any type of communication about sickness during the day. We also ask that students do not email or text their parents during our school day to report illness. All communication must go through the office in order for us to know who we are expecting and when.
Safety
We have already practiced some safety drills and have more planned as the year progresses. All of our students have talked about safety within their classrooms, going over and practicing fire, tornado and lockdown procedures. Along with classroom talks, we have practiced various drills to help our staff and students be prepared in case of any emergency. At all times our exterior doors are locked at Heritage and only accessible by staff members and safety forces. To ensure we are always safe, we also practice the saying, "See Something, Say Something".
Heritage North or South?
There are two school offices at Heritage. We have one on the southside of our building, off of Bentley Drive and one on the northside of our building off of Detroit Road. If your child is in 3rd grade the south office is your best choice for picking up your child or dropping items off because all of our 3rd grade classrooms are on the southside of Heritage. This will eliminate them having to walk through the entire building to their classrooms. The opposite can be said for our 5th graders. All of our 5th grade homerooms are housed on the northside of Heritage, so picking up students and dropping off items will be better served at our north office. 4th graders have the luxury of using any office because they are housed in the middle of our building, either office will work for all your 4th grade needs.
Notes to the Office
Please remember to add your child's last name to any notes that need to be sent to the school offices. While their homeroom teacher may have only one student by that name in their classroom, we have many students with the same first name throughout Heritage school.
Dismissal
In order to make sure all of our students are prepared for dismissal and have an idea of what way they are going home each day, please try to refrain from calling the school offices after 1:30 to change dismissal for your child. We understand that emergencies pop-up and change can be necessary, but if you know in advance of a dismissal change please advise the office well ahead of time. Also, the school is a very busy place during dismissal. Please note that we will try or best to pick-up the phone during this time, but it may be necessary for you to leave a message and have your call returned once all of our students are out safely. We thank you in advance for your cooperation on these items.
Buses at Heritage North, Cars at Heritage South
As mentioned previously, the North Parking Lot (Detroit Rd.) will ONLY be used for students who are transported by bus and the South Parking Lot (Bentley Dr.) will ONLY be used for students designated as car-riders. This change has been made in accordance with directives from the City of Avon safety forces. The small loop off Bentley Dr. will not be used for drop-off and pick-up as we need to maintain an open space to the access road for any first responders. If your child is a car rider, we ask that you pull all the way around the circle and do not stop in front of the door. In the afternoon if your car is behind the orange cone on the outside loop, please pull into the parking lot and wait in one of the various lines. This helps traffic to not back up onto Bentley and makes things move much faster. Thank you for your cooperation. This will help to make our pick-ups run more smoothly and efficiently.
Office Contact Information
Mrs. Maura Neville, Principal
Mrs. Stefanie Ericksen-Lowery, Assistant Principal
Mr. Gary Vojtush, Assistant Principal
SOAR Like an Eagle
Say It ● Own It ● Act It ● Respect It
Our PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) Program is up and running! Our students are earning Eagle Bucks when they are showing appropriate behavior in all areas of the school (classroom, lunch, recess, hallways, specials, on the bus...everywhere!). This year we hope to bridge home and school with our Nightly PBIS Conversations calendar (shown below) that comes home at the beginning of each month. We encourage you to use these prompts to ask your child about their day, get them to reflect on positive choices, and reinforce our SOAR expectations. Sign off and send it back for a chance to win a prize. Thank you for your support!
Our SOAR Store is up and running! Thank you to all of our Booster volunteers who are taking time out of their day to "sell" items to our students. We all love seeing so many people work to help our kids SOAR at Heritage.
Heritage Pride Days
We celebrate our school pride on Heritage Pride Day once a month. On these days, students wear purple and/or gold to show school pride, and are encouraged to bring in $1 to donate to the Heritage Boosters based on a community-service deed that they completed to help out around the home/neighborhood to show school pride. We also recognize a student from each homeroom who shows the Pride Day Character Trait we encourage at Heritage Elementary. This month's Heritage Pride Day will be on Wednesday, October 19th and the character trait we will be celebrating is Respect.
Pride Day Character Traits and Dates for Each Month are Listed Below:
- September 14th-Decision Making
- October 19th-Respect
- November 16th-Responsibility
- December 14th-Caring
- January 18th-Fairness
- February 15th-Trustworthiness
- March 15th-Positive Identity
- April 19th-Citizenship
- May 17th-Empowerment
Kids Who Care
KWC October Activity
October Kindness Challenges
Heritage Counseling Corner
Mrs. Stringer serves 3rd grade and the following 4th grade homerooms; O'Hara, Smith, Nolan, Conroy, Poling, Barrett, Maslinski
Mrs. Haney serves 5th grade and the following 4th grade homerooms; James, Anderson, Allsop, Suter, McEwen, Bendzuck, Britt
Word the Month: ALLY: Helper, friend, buddy
- This month throughout Heritage, our focus will be on learning how to be an ALLY.
Phrases an Ally can use to help support another:
- "I am here for you."
- "I need you to be nice to my friend."
- "I need you to be kind."
- "I need you to stop!"
- "I know that things are tough, but you are tougher."
October Topics:
3rd Grade:
Conflict vs. Bullying
Recognizing Bullying
Reporting Bullying
Refusing Bullying
4th Grade:
Conflict vs. Bullying
Identifying the Types of Bullying
Bullying vs. Mean Moments
Bystander Power
Ally Power
5th Grade:
Conflict vs. Bullying
Identifying the Types of Bullying
Bullying vs. Mean Moments
Bystander Power
Ally Power
- When someone keeps being mean to someone else on purpose.
- The person it is happening to has not been able to make it stop.
- It is unfair and one-sided.
- Happens more than once.
- There is a power differential, or the person doing the hurting has more power, (older or bigger, more than one person, afraid of them).
Know someone in need of help this Thanksgiving?
- Local Businesses are looking to help this Thanksgiving! If you know a family that would benefit by being provided with a Thanksgiving meal or you would like to sponsor a family, please reach out to Mrs. Haney and Mrs. Stringer. The family will be provided with a box of essentials. They will need to be able to prepare the meal. If the family is a larger family unit, multiple boxes will be able to be provided. Someone in the family must be able to receive the box/boxes of food on Saturday, November 19th. Information will be kept confidential.
- Mrs. Stringer = (440-937-3055) / (Mrs. Haney = (440-937-9660)
Innovation Labs at Heritage
CALL FOR DONATIONS
These materials don't have to be trash--we will repurpose, upcycle, and use them to CREATE in our school library makerspaces and Innovation Labs! Any donations can be sent in with your child or dropped off to the North vestibule, where collection bins are available. Thank you!
CHECKLIST OF HELPFUL MAKERSPACE & INNOVATION LAB MATERIALS
We are so grateful for these repurposable donations all year! Thank you so much for your support!
Recyclables
aluminum foil
bags (paper & plastic)
bubble wrap
cups (paper & plastic)
egg cartons
empty tissue boxes
foam
small disposable containers
sticks (e.g., chopsticks, coffee stirrers, small dowels)
straws
tubes (e.g., toilet paper, paper towel)
Unused Craft Supplies
beads
buttons
clips & clothespins
cotton balls
fabric & lace
felt
googly eyes
pipe cleaners
pom poms
popsicle sticks
ribbon
stickers
string (e.g., twine, embroidery thread, old shoelaces, yarn)
Everyday Extras
glue, all kinds
kid-safe scissors
paper, all kinds
rubber bands
tape, all kinds
Unused Toys & Trinkets
LEGOs
old board game & puzzle pieces
marbles
non-working items to take apart (e.g., mouse, watch, telephone)
small toy cars & figures
wooden blocks
For Your Calendar
10/14-No School-NEOEA Day
10/17-No School for Students, Professional Development Day for Teachers
10/19-PRIDE Day-Respect
10/19-Boosters Meeting
10/25-3rd Grade ELA OST-Part 1
10/26-3rd Grade ELA OST-Part 2
10/27-Heritage Boosters Halloween Happenings
10/31-Heritage Costume Day-Optional
2022-2023 Calendar
Contact Information
35575 Detroit Road
Avon, OH 44011
440-937-9660
Maura Neville-Principal
Stefanie Ericksen-Lowery-Assistant Principal
Gary Vojtush-Assistant Principal