I want to personally welcome you back to the 2022-2023 school year. Last school year, we focused on overcoming all obstacles as a community. We truly lived up to our theme of "Stronger Together."

This year, our theme is "Born Swimmin'." When sharks are born, they come out into the world swimming. They are born with all they need to navigate the ocean. We want our students to know the same thing. They already have all they need to be successful. Our job as a community to help them to see that. We have a plan in place that will do just that!

In this published newsletter, we will be sharing our plan with hopes that it provides you with ways you can encourage your student and even re-enforce concepts at home.

We want to thank you for all you have done in these difficult times and thank you in advance for all your support this year. We believe that at the end of this year, we will have ALL grown in confidence.

-Ms. Sanchez

Principal

Every morning, our classroom teachers hold a morning meeting. During this time, we are collectively focusing on building student emotional self-awareness and equipping them with tools to self-regulate when they feel "big" emotions. This year, we have begun using Zones of Regulation, a curriculum that simplifies how children think and manage their own emotions. The Zones of Regulation creates a systematic approach to teach regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete colored zones.

The first four weeks of school, we are teaching our students the four colors, their own triggers that put them into a certain zone, as well as strategies for coping when our emotional colors switch from green to another colored zone.

We encourage all families to print out our zones poster and use it at home. If your child experiences "big" emotions, help them self-regulate by asking them:

1. What color zone are you feeling?

2. What caused you to go into that zone?

3. What strategy could we use to go back to green?

We hope this helps you at home as well!

PBIS is our system that we use to create a physically, emotional, and mentally safe learning environment. This system lays out three main school rules: Be Safe, Be Respectful, and Be Responsible. The system set up in a way to teach, model, and acknowledge the behaviors we desire at school.

In the first six weeks of school, we are intentionally teaching these expectations. We have been working on being safe, respectful, and responsible in our classrooms, hallways, cafeteria, and while playing soccer and basketball. We encourage our families to watch our playground expectation videos at home and discuss with students how they can follow our 3 Be's.

Students who are "caught" following expecations can be awarded Shark Bucks. Students can use these to purchase fun items at our student store each week.