Heritage Elementary News
December 4, 2023
Principal's Message
School Improvement - Regular Attendance
It's hard to believe already December. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like this school year is really flying by!
As 2023 comes to a close, it's a good time to pause and to reflect on where we started the year, what our school improvement goals are, and where we are so far. We have three school improvement goals this year:
- Improve students' overall reading achievement (focused on students in the lowest 20%), particularly in reading vocabulary
- Improve students' overall attendance (by 1.5%), particularly kindergarten students and chronically absent students (by 3%)
- Improve student and family engagement (to 80% overall attendance in at least 3 of 5 targeted home-school connections and activities)
This week, we're checking in on overall student attendance! Remember, we focus on attendance because we know that every day of school is important. When students miss a lot of school, they miss out on building important social skills. It's also much harder for frequently absent students to catch up with their classmates academically because they've missed so much previous instruction.
We have an active Community Attendance Team of parents and staff members who meets twice a month. The team is focused on strategies we can use to help improve overall student attendance. Thanks to their planning, and the community's overall effort, we've increased student and staff awareness of attendance (for example, with attendance "dials" posted in classrooms) and we've increased rewards for regular attendance with individual and class incentives (for example, with good attendance tickets and certificates, and class prizes).
I'm happy to share that, so far, we're still on target to achieve our school improvement goal in attendance! Every month this year so far, overall student attendance has been better in 2023 than it was in 2022, and attendance is up almost 2% overall (see the chart below for more specifics). We know that parent and family effort and involvement is SO important to student attendance, especially in the elementary grades; so we we want to thank ALL of our parents and families for all that you do to make sure students get to school regularly and on time. Every day matters; keep up the good work, everyone!
Are you a parent or family member who's seeing this newsletter on Facebook or ClassDojo? Do you want to be added to our Smore email list? contact me at srawson@woodburnsd.org to have your email address added to our mailing list. You can write to me in English, Spanish, or Russian, and I'll still be able to read it and respond!
Parent Teacher Organization 12/6
The PTO has their meetings on the first Wednesday of the month. Your support is valuable and we would love to see you there! Any questions? Our next meeting is this Wednesday, Dec. 6th at 5:00. Feel free to email us at heritagepto23@gmail.com.
Important Dates
Mark your calendars!
- Wednesday, 12/6 - Community engagement team, care and connection team, PBIS team, 2:35-3:15
- Wednesday, 12/6 - PTO meeting, 5:00-6:00
- Wednesday, 12/13 - Choir field trip to Silver Creek Senior Living, 9:00am
- Wednesday, 12/13 - Attendance team and wellness team, 2:35-3:15
- Friday, 12/15 - Winter Singalong, 1:00pm
Winter Break for students begins as soon as school is out at the end of the regular school day on December 15th. The first day back at school for students after winter break is Wednesday, January 3rd.
Here's What We've Been Up To Lately!
OBOB preparation begins
This week, library/media specialist Michelle Barnes continued her support for student participation in the Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB). Interested students gathered in the library during lunch recess to select and read OBOB books, enthusiastically preparing themselves for the statewide competition!
English enrichment and Mystery Science
Rep. Cramer visits Heritage
And finally...
Meet Chris Patton, our nutrition services manager!
Greetings from the Heritage/ Valor Kitchen. My name is Christine Patton and I have just finished up my first year in this kitchen. I have worked for the school district for 15 years and have served as a kitchen lead at the high school and Washington Elementary. I have 8 wonderful staff that help me to serve your children at Heritage/Valor. I have worked in Food Service for 25 years and I enjoy making things for people to eat.
My husband Scott and I have been married for 39 years and we have 2 grown children, Ryan and Kaitlyn who are WHS graduates. I have an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration and Human Resources. Lucky, my fur baby cat, insists on laying or perching on my shoulder every time I sit down and I am looking forward to getting a dog once we fix our fence. In my spare time I love to read
and garden and hopefully I will have time to start oil painting again.
About Us
Email: srawson@woodburnsd.org
Website: https://heritage.woodburnsd.org/
Location: 440 Parr Road Northeast, Woodburn, OR, USA
Phone: 503-981-2600