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9-8-19

Welcome to McKinley Elementary

Hi everyone, we welcomed back our 2019-20 school year with a bang! With adding changes it inadvertently made things that we are adjusting, until we find just the right tuning. A goal I have this year is to increase home connections and communications. Our theme this year, is "Stronger Together", and we believe we will help the students when we work together, focusing on our strengths, our students strengths, our families strengths, and lifting each other up!!

I will be sending out a monthly newsletter, such as this one, and it will be full of resources, happenings, and insights to what your children are learning and engaging in.

I’d love your feedback and insights to help make this connection the best for you! Thank you for sharing your children with us, as we love them very much!!

Mrs. Arehart

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Leader In Me

We are a Leader In Me school and work on the 7 Habits of Highly Successful people. Every Wednesday we have DEAL time, where our teachers work with their classes on one of the 7 habits, doing lessons, activities, and so much more. We believe students are leaders of themselves, and we work on teaching them these concepts. Our students have binders where their tracking their own goals, their celebrations, and leadership roles. Every classroom has a leadership role as well, where the students are responsible for various structures in the classroom, and help it to function as a team. In a little while we will begin offering other opportunities for our students to have leadership responsibilities in the school. For example; we have morning greeters, playground ball cart crew, carpool leaders, etc. We will also open up our clubs for our students to engage in learning new skills, crafts, activities, and opportunities to “sharpen the saw”. A new club we offered last year was the Disc Frisbee club. The kids loved it!

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Breakfast In The Classroom

We are participating in Breakfast In the Classroom this year. We have spent the first 2 weeks, adjusting and streamlining the process for the students. We have practiced, and then adjusted based on making it smoother for them. They are doing great! We have an average serve time of 4 minutes to serve grade 2-5th. The first grade classes are getting into their rhythm and process, and have their serving time to 6 minutes, then the students are eating in the classrooms while they begin their daily schedules. Many teachers are using this time to have a quiet, calming start to the day and reading out loud to the students while they eat. Not all students eat, and that is ok. Breakfast is free for all teachers, staff who help serve, and all students. Teachers have noticed students are more focused, less whiney, and are eating every day. Good things are happening here, and it takes a team to do it! A big thank you to our kitchen staff for enduring this new concept in our school and their patience while we get into a "new" normal process.

At 8:20 the bell rings to go to the doorway where their classes are, they pick up their breakfast, and head to class. We stop serving breakfast in the hallways at 8:30. Please have your child to school on time to get their breakfast. We do have a items from the share bags, in the classrooms, that a teacher can help a child get some items to eat if they are after 8:30, but not all the entree items. So, it would be best to have them there on time to enjoy this opportunity.

Door open at 8:00

Breakfast begins at 8:20

School start time is 8:25

Serving Breakfast ends at 8:30

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Activities and Attendance

Good attendance is one of the best predictors of how a student will perform in school. We appreciate your efforts to get your "new normal routine" down pat these last 2 weeks. The students were on time and ready!! School opens at 8:00, they go to the gym, and at 8:10 they can go outside if they choose to. They can stay inside if they choose as well, this is to help our students make the choice for themselves, and our breathing fragile, or students with a cold, can stay inside if they need to. If there are problems with getting them to school or anything like that, please let their teacher, Mrs. Garrison, or myself know so we can be of support to them and you.

We had some fun activities, that we did together, at the end of everyday the first week of school, from a glow stick dance party to popsicles on the lawn.... Each month a different grade level will engage us in a whole school activity to help celebrate learning. This will be a whole school Sharpen the Saw activity. We don't want our kids to miss out on all the fun and learning "stuff" for the year, please let me know if you are having difficulties getting your child to school.

We also have our "Attendance dance" time the last 5 minutes of the school day while students are cleaning up their classrooms, if a grade level has 92% or higher attendance for the day- then the kids have a little dance party, and the student leadership team picks the songs to play over our loud speakers. We dedicate the dance to that grade level, how great would it be to dedicate it to all of them!!

Our partnership is crucial for their success, and I'm here to be of any type of support!! :)

Preschool

We have welcomed the preschool to our school, we added 3 classes of preschool students. Our classes meet the needs of students with specialized services under an Individualized Educational Program or IEP, we also serve our general population of preschool students. Those that have an interest in having your child be a part of our preschool, the cost is $70 and it is 2 days a week, you provide the transportation. Each class has a certificated teacher and Paraprofessionals, to meet the needs of all the children. We have a preschool core, and meet weekly to go over our students needs, extensions and interventions to give our students the best start to school. If interested please call 435-744-2468.

Organized Recess - https://www.playworks.org - Check It out....

A team of staff had an opportunity to attend a 2 day training in June on organized recess. We learned many new things that we could bring back to McKinley students. One thing we learned, is often when rules to a game are changed, it’s because the student doesn't want to get out, but then frustration and fighting sets in when others don’t think it’s fair. So, we have created the "McKinley Way" for the rules for many of our students activities. As I played 4 square with a group of students last week, I asked them what they thought so far of the organized recess. They noted they like it, they feel included now, and can play the games without someone changing the rules. We taught them ro-sham-bo, (rock paper scissors), to solve most conflicts, and they are doing it! We have already noticed more kids being included, less students fighting, and students are trying new things! We have zones on the playground. Once the game is taught to the students, the zone is opened. For example, 3 line basketball is coming up for them in gym this week, so then the week after that, the zone will be opened for the school year. The zones we have open right now include, friendship zone, (where they can hang out, read books, color, and just visit), we are going to put in benches and tables for the students in this zone to give them a place to hang out under the shade trees. This is a goal by the end of the year, once we can secure funding or donations for this zone. We have the soccer zone, football zone (with flag football), game of the week zone, tag zone, beginning soccer zone, play yard zone, and free zone open. The free zone is where students can create and imagine a new game, as long as they are following the playground rules, they have equipment for just that zone area too. It has been a process to train a new structure for our students, but the payoff has been great! When we line up to go inside, we have included a transition time, teachers lead the students in a calm down chant, breathing exercise, etc., to help them transition into the learning zone. I encourage you to ask your children what activity or chant did they learn at recess today?

Carpool and pickup's/ drop off's

We have sent home maps and directions for carpool for A.m. Kindergarten and preschool. Thank you for helping us make this process safe and smooth for our students.

For all Kindergarten A.m. pick up and P.m. drop off, please pull into the east parking lot. Please don't park on the road and then come in to get your child. The car pool line moves quickly. Pick up and drop off will be along the grass curb and front curb of the school. We can fit approx. 5-6 cars at a time along the curbing, when the line moves, please pull all the way forward and we will help load or unload the next 6 cars and so on.

Preschool, please park in the West parking lot and go to the middle front doors to hand pick up your child. We know preschool children will have different car seats and need that direct help and attention from their parents, so we ask that you park in the West parking lot, or on the curb just in front of that parking lot.

All the preschool buses will park in the carved out section in front of the school. We will have 4-5 buses M,T,TH,F.

We do not have preschool on Wednesday's, however to keep things consistent for the children, please still pull into the parking lot and be in the carpool line.

For general carpool after school hours please have all carpool take place in the carpool line in front of the school. It goes very quickly and if we all follow the structures, we will keep kids safe. No carpool is allowed in the back of the school, and we highly recommend that you do not ask your child to cross the street down at the corners and then pick them up, we have had reports of students almost getting hit. All carpool should take place in the carpool lane. We are trying to keep all kids safe, especially yours!! When the cars move out of the carpool line, please pull all the way forward toward the bike racks, and then we will help load the the next group of students. Please do not park on the curbing in front of the school during carpool times, this confuses parents who are picking up, and holds the line up, they think the car is part of the carpool line, and then it hold's it up. If you park on the South side of the street, you must come over to get your child. Again this is not recommended, as a parent and child were almost hit last year. If you have to do this, please use the cross walk.

Please remember both parking lots are closed from 2:45-2:55 for walkers to cross the sidewalks in front of the parking lots. Please do not park there, as you will not get out until carpool is over. If you choose to park there, please know you have to stay there until walkers are safely headed home, approx. 2:55.

We will have city Police presence to help us monitor this and help keep everyone safe.

The road in front of the school is a school zone 20 mph. One way- East to West.