HOOF BEATS: Aspire, Grow, Succeed
SWE NEWS FOR BIG HORSES: July 2017
Welcome!
To Our New Families!
Some important information and terms you might hear this year. We know learning a new school can be difficult. We want to help! Below is a quick reference to some of the terms and information you might find useful.
School times:
Doors open for children at 7:45
Tardy Bell rings at 8:15
Announcements begin at 8:16
Instructional Day begins after announcements
Dismissal is 3:00 for car riders and 3:10 for bus riders
ERPD:
ERPD days are days when children are dismissed at 12 noon and staff remains on campus for professional development.
Benchmark Test:
A benchmark test is a test that allows to take a look at what children have learned and to get an idea of where they are in the scope and sequence of the year's content. These tests are for our use only and do not count for any grades.
MClass:
MClass is the to we use to look at a child's literacy skills and progress in grades K-3.
Progress Monitoring:
Progress Monitoring is a quick drop in on a child's literacy skills on a regular basis.
Formative Assessment:
Formative assessments are quick checks to gauge the strength of a child's grasp of their learning on a specific topic. These are quick and are used by teachers to design lessons. These are not graded.
Summative Assessment:
Summative assessments look at learning over the course of a unit of study. These are most likely tests and may be graded tests but they may be projects, presentations, or classroom discussions.
Who Is My Child's Teacher?
Opportunities
Connect with Us!
Onslow County Schools APP (Android)
Onslow County Schools App (Apple)
Webpage Our web page will be transitioning to a new service over the next few months. This may result in some loss of reliability during the transition. We will continue to use our texting service to keep you informed.
Join Us!
Field Trips
We welcome parents to join their children on field trips! Some venues do not have space for families to join but those that do, we encourage our families to participate with their children in these learning extensions.
Classrooms
Classroom volunteers are a vital part of our school. We will offer volunteer training throughout the year. Each volunteer working with children will need to be fingerprinted. We will post the training dates, times, and the fingerprinting schedule on our webpage and via our texting service once they are available. Volunteer training takes about 20-30 minutes and fingerprinting is done at the school board at no charge.
School Planning Team
Our school planning team is the body of stakeholders who look at our areas of strength and our areas of need and design strategies to support our learners' and our teachers' growth. We meet on the first Wednesday of each month as needed. These meetings are open to all! Your parent representatives for the 2016-2017 school year are:
Erica Van Voorhis
Meghan Medina
Nicole Pierce
Every Day and Every Way
Not all of us can give time during the school day. Providing support to your child at home is one of the best ways to be a part of their education! 15 minutes a day to talk with them about their school work can make the difference between getting along and getting ahead.
The Greatest Teachers in the World
In the Home
You have the best opportunity to impact your child's success by sending your child to school ready to learn each day and reviewing with them each evening.
As a working mom of a 5th grader and a 7th grader, I do understand the struggles. When I leave school, I go to my second job as a mom, a housekeeper, a chef, and a dog parent (we have 4 nutty dogs). Many nights it is a struggle to choose to spend time on school work. No one is perfect and we aren't going to nail this every time! But as often as possible, talk to your child about what they did in school. While you are making dinner, or bathing the children, or running errands, or waiting for practice to start, ask your children what they learned at school and then ask them to explain it to you. If they can teach YOU what the learned, then they are solid on the topics.
Finally, let your child make mistakes! Giving your child the answers or doing their school work for them does not help your child. We want to see your child's mistakes on their homework. That lets us know where they need our help. Please let your child work on their own with only limited guidance from you.
In the Classroom
This coming year you will hear about Number Talks in our classroom and about Mentoring Minds Critical Thinking, our teaching resource for language arts and math. These are two of the ways we will be supporting exceptional learning at SWE. You can find information on both of these on the web.
Several of our classrooms will be Pen Pal School Partner Classrooms allowing them to collaborate globally on real world ideas that are important to children.
We truly want to be the very best teachers and role models we can be for our children.
With this in mind, we will be trying new ways to help keep you informed not only about your child's progress but also about what they are learning and how we are teaching it.
In Support
Calendar
Check on Our Webpage for Updates, Field Trips, and Other Events That May Not Yet Be Posted.
August 23: Kindergarten Orientation 5-7
August 24: Pre-K Orientation 8:30-10:30 and 12:30-2:30 in the media center
1st-5th Grade Orientation 5-7
August 28: First Day of School for Students
September 4: Holiday
September 6: School Planning Team Meeting 3:30-4:30
September 11: Kindergarten Bell Ringing Ceremony 9:45-10:15
September 13: 3rd Grade Beginning of Year Test
September 21: Early Release for Professional Development
September 28: Interim reports go home and Open House 5-7 pm
October 4: School Planning Team Meeting 3:30-4:30
October 9: Workday, no school for students
October 12: Fall School Pictures
October 19: Early Release for Professional Development
October 23-27: Grades 3-5 Benchmark Testing
October 26: Fall Festival
October 30-November 8: Booster-a-Thon Fun Run
October 31: Grade Close
November 1: School Planning Team 3:30-4:30
November 3: Fall Picture Make-Up Day
November 7: Report Cards go Home
November 9: Early Release for Professional Development
November 10: Holiday
Betsy Castle, Principal elizabeth.castle@onslow.k12.nc.us
Molly Stitz, Associate Principal molly.stitz@onslow.k12.nc.us