The Dolphin Newsletter
Home of the Extraordinary Dolphins: February 4, 2019
Principal's Corner: African American History Month!
Happy African American History Month!
Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month also commonly referred to as National African American History Month. We are excited to celebrate African American History Month.
This month, our theme is as follows: Turning Back the Hands of Time! Our students will engage in learning about notable African Americans whom have contributed to our history and made a difference in the world as we know it today.
Our students will engage in trivia, projects, and other activities throughout the month to celebrate African American History Month. Each grade level will have a mini-feature in our African American History Program. The program, developed by our Multicultural Committee, was created to showcase the learning of our students. The program will follow our timeline of history with brief showcases by each of the grade levels.
- Chorus: Song-Lift Every Voice and Sing
- Pre-Kindergarten: Pre-Slavery Transatlantic
- Kindergarten: Slavery
- First Grade: Underground Railroad
- Second Grade: Civil War
- Third Grade: Civil Rights (Desegregation)
- Fourth Grade: Civil Rights (Martin Luther King Jr.)
- Fifth Grade: Obama Era
- Dance Ensemble: African Dance Ensemble
We do encourage a plethora of teaching resources to deepen the understanding of our students, as the history of African Americans is impressive and vast. The following resource may be used by teachers to provide instruction and guidance on African American History Month.
https://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/
Please stay tuned for the exciting month ahead. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook to view the learning that will take place this month, and beyond.
Thanks for all that you do.
Freedom is never given; it is won.
Asa Philip Randolph
Mrs. Miley, Proud Principal of Asa Philip Randolph ES
Assistant Principal's Corner
Testing Corner:
IOWA Assessments
Third and Fifth grade students IOWA Assessment reports were sent home in the VIP folders, Thursday, January 24th. Please review the results and if you need any assistance interpreting the results, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher or Ms. Grubbs, Assistant Principal.
Georgia Milestones Growth Report
We are pleased to provide parents with your student’s Georgia Student Growth Model (GSGM) Report that provides information on your student’s academic progress during the 2017-2018 school year. Georgia’s growth model has been in place for several years and, as educators, we have been taking advantage of this information to improve your student’s educational experience. This report represents yet another way in which Georgia is seeking to improve the level of student achievement across our state. Only 5th grade students have Student Growth Reports (4th graders don’t get report because 3rd grade Milestones are not calculated). A letter, with links to the Georgia Department of Education for detailed analysis of the reports, will be provided. All reports will be sent home in your child’s VIP Folder Thursday, January 31st. Please contact your child’s teacher or Ms. Grubbs if you need assistance interpreting your students growth percentiles.
Curriculum Corner
Great News!!!!!
Randolph Pre-K and Kindergarten classrooms have been selected to participate in Fulton County’s Fine Arts Alliance Theatre Institute’s residencies, Georgia Wolf Trap Early Learning Through the Arts. Georgia Wolf Trap is a 16-session residency that includes 12 in-class sessions and 4 planning sessions with each classroom teacher. Georgia Wolf Trap Early Leaning program teaching artists work to enhance student’s literacy, STEM, and ELL skills through arts-integration. The program will also allow our Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers to receive job-embedded professional learning from one of the trained teaching artists in and outside of the classroom.
If you need further information on the events please contact Ms. Revels-Burston via email at revelst@fultonschools.org or (478)254-9938.
Literacy Corner: From Readers to Writers
I’m writing to tell you a bit about how important reading aloud is for children, and some things you can do while reading aloud.
Children learn a huge amount from being read to. They learn literary and academic vocabulary. From stories, they learn about how characters face trouble. From nonfiction, they learn about the world. What’s most important is, because they love you and love being with you, they learn to love reading. Reading aloud is one of the most important things we can do with children.
Read aloud can be with any book for any reason - picture books, nonfiction books, magazines, comic books, graphic novels. You can share familiar stories together, introduce unfamiliar tricky books to your child or even take turns reading a book aloud and talking about it. Children love to be read aloud to and this is a time to help your child learn to fall in love with reading by being a reading partner.
Here are some troubles that might arise, and how you can work through them:
- If your child gets up and moves around, don’t worry. Kids do that. Keep reading.
- If you are unsure of your language skills, don’t worry. You don’t have to be a perfect reader. Your voice, which your child loves, will be the most important gift to your child.
- If your family speaks languages other than English, know that it’s great (more than great, it’s important) to read to your children in any language.
Counseling Corner
5 Steps to Managing Big Emotions
(Source: https://childhood101.com/helping-children-manage-big-emotions/)
Being prepared with a strategy for helping children through those times when they are experiencing big or overwhelming emotions such as anger, frustration, jealousy or embarrassment, is one way to help both you and them to work through those emotions more effectively.
Christie Burnett the Editor of Child 101 recommends developing a ‘Calm Down Plan’ with your child (or children) so that they have a plan to work through when they do feel upset or out of control, and think the following five steps provide a great place to start.
1. ~ Remind myself that it is never okay to hurt others.
2. ~ Take 3 deep breaths or count slowly to 10.
3. ~Use my words to say how I feel and what I wish would happen.
4. ~ Ask for help to solve the problem.
5. ~ Take the time I need to calm down.
The full article, as well as a printable poster with the tips are available at the following website: https://childhood101.com/helping-children-manage-big-emotions/
Kathleen Scott - Counselor
Dolphin of the Month
Learner Profile: Balanced
We strive to develop healthy minds and bodies. We understand the importance of our relationships with other people and the world.
Media & Technology Corner
Greetings Dolphin Families!
Our students have an Awesome opportunity to win a bicycle and helmet just by reading and earning points from participating in our Accelerated Reader program! Each student from K-5th grades will be eligible to win. One student from each grade level with the highest earned Accelerated Reader points will win a bike and helmet at the end of the school year! Our AR bike campaign has started, so please encourage your children to READ, READ, READ, so they can RIDE, RIDE, RIDE this summer!!! More information to follow.
Happy Reading!
Media and Educational Technology Instructor
PBIS Corner: Let's Talk Positive Interventions!
Discipline Dynamics
How we... Show Respect, Work hard, Include Kindness and Make Responsible Choices"
Bathroom Expectations
Hallway Expectations
Cafeteria Expectations
Classroom Expectations
Playground Expectations
Recess Expectations
Assembly Expectations Bus Expectations
January: Winter Tips for Behavior Management
Positive Peer Reports: Changing Negative Behaviors by Rewarding Students Compliments:
Schoolwide Classroom Management (Supporting PBIS):
Some students thrive on peer attention-and will do whatever they have to in order to get it. These students may even attempt intentionally to irritate their classmates in an attempt to be noticed. When students bother others to get attention, though, they often find themselves socially isolated and without friends. In addition, teachers may discover that they must surrender valuable instructional time to mediate conflicts that were triggered by students seeking negative peer attention.
Positive Peer Reporting is a clever class wide intervention strategy that was designed to address the socially rejected child who disrupts the class by seeking negative attention. Classmates earn points toward rewards for praising the problem student. The intervention appears to work because it gives the rejected student an incentive to act appropriately for positive attention and also encourages other students to note the target student's good behaviors rather than simply focusing on negative actions.
Another useful side effect of positive peer reporting is that it gives all children in the classroom a chance to praise others-a useful skill for them to master! The Positive Peer Reporting strategy presented here is adapted from Ervin, Miller, & Friman (1996).
Kathleen Scott & Myana Solomon
PBIS Coach/ Discipline Support
RTI/ SST Chair
Corner of Exploration: IB Primary Years Programme
Your Child & IB
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It’s hard to believe its February already! Our wonderful global kids are hard at work focusing on the attributes of thinker, inquirer and communicator. As a staff, we are helping our students make reasoned decisions and act responsibly. Randolph is focused on creating opportunities for students to conduct inquiries and research. Children are also learning to express themselves confidently and creatively. This month's learner profile is "Communicator".
IB defines a communicator as "We express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups." Communication among our students, staff and families here at Randolph is extremely important because it helps everyone have better understanding of what is happening in and around the school at all times. Good communication requires multiple methods of sending and receiving messages in a timely and efficient manner. Being a good communicator means that you are good at expressing yourself to others and that you are also a good listener. Some of our biggest problems and issues arise when there is confusion surrounding what another person said or failed to say during communication. If we are not able to articulate exactly what we mean to say to others the results can be very frustrating if not outright disastrous.
Things to Do at Home
Practice taking turns at the dinner table listening and communicating with each other. When one person speaks, everyone at the tables gives that person their full and undivided attention without interruption. This allows that person to be fully heard and affirmed about what they are saying and that it does indeed matter. When the person speaking is addressing the table they should use confident voice with clarity and expression. Non-verbal’s such as eye contact and facial expressions are also very important when trying to relay one's point across. Communication practices such as these will go a long way in helping your student be able to express themselves to others and also learn to appreciate other people's perspectives and feelings.
School Liaison's Corner: Parent Resources
PTA Connected with LifeLock: The Smart Talk
Did you know? More than half of 12 year-olds have smartphones!
Increased connectivity offers many opportunities and advantages, but we know it also creates new challenges such as:
· How to determine who should “friend” or “follow” your account?
· When to share photos or videos online?
· How to respond to negative comments or posts on social media?
· Whether to use location-based services on apps?
· How much screen time is appropriate?
When kids start becoming even more tech savvy than the adults in their lives, it can become a daunting task to stay one step ahead of them and ensure that they are staying safe online.
Digital Safety Ground Rules
National PTA’s solution to help families with digital safety is the Smart Talk exercise which walks families through a series of guided questions to establish a digital safety conversation, which then creates a personalized agreement based on your answers. Once your agreement is complete, you can print it off, sign it, and hang it on the fridge so everyone remembers the ground rules. Click below to access the digital safety agreement!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Dr. Catherine Foster Rowell, Title 1 School Liaison @ 470-254-9945.
Georgia Parent Survey
The Georgia Parent Survey is modeled after the student survey and contains 24 questions. Parents, you may complete the survey using your personal computer, smartphone, or tablet.
If you do not have access to the Internet, you can come stop by the Parent Resource Center when school resumes to complete the Georgia Parent Survey.
All parents are encouraged to participate in the Georgia Parent Survey because the data will be used as part of the calculation of the School Climate Star Rating. Survey responses are anonymous and will be submitted directly to the Georgia Department of Education for analysis. The Georgia Parent Survey is also available in Spanish.
Parents, you may select the Spanish version within the survey if needed.
The Georgia Parent Survey link is posted below.
The Clinician's Corner
Resources to protect students and families this flu season
Across the country, doctors’ offices, urgent care centers and hospitals are seeing an increase in respiratory-related illnesses. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is currently experiencing high patient volumes at our Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Centers. Four out of five children who have received a flu diagnosis have not been fully immunized against the virus.
Share these flu fighting tips with students, parents, teachers and staff:
- Everyone older than 6 months of age should receive a seasonal flu immunization. It’s never too late to get immunized. The flu vaccine protects against multiple flu strains that circulate at different times. The flu vaccine decreases the severity of a flu infection.
- Practice good hand hygiene.
- Teachers and students with fever should remain at home until they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications.
If a student that you think may have the flu visits your office, encourage the parents to visit their family’s pediatrician first. If their pediatrician is unavailable, visit a Children’s Urgent Care Center before coming to the Emergency Department. Consider driving and wait times when deciding which location to visit, as the closest location may have longer wait times.
In case of an urgent concern or emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department right away.
If your school requires a written note to return to class, advise parents to request this document from their pediatrician during their visit in lieu of requesting a note in an emergency department or urgent care center.
The clinic is still accepting the following donations/items: underwear all sizes for boys and girls, socks, and belts.
Very Important Information & Reminders
School Uniforms: Remember we are a uniformed school!
During the 2016-17 school year, the School Governance Council approved the School Uniform Policy. Our students wear school uniforms Monday-Thursday. Friday remains our spirit day/free dress. We are pleased to align our expectations with our feeder Middle School: Sandtown Middle School, as both councils have voted to support the School Uniform Policy.
The original uniform policy was initiated in 1994. The uniform policy creates an environment of uniformity and discipline, and encourage the students of A. Philip Randolph to feel pride in their school and focus solely on academics in an unformed environment.
Our School Uniforms consist of:
• Top: Yellow, White, or Blue • Bottom: Khaki or Blue
Preferred Vendors
*Vendors offer logo patch services
- Prestige Apparel
- Get School Uniforms for Less
- 3D Printing and Accessories, LLC