The Dino
Welcome to the 23-24 school year!
Rey's Remarks
Hi Dino Community,
We are excited to welcome you and your students back to campus for the 2023-24 school year!
Our office opened last Monday, and it has been absolutely electrifying returning to campus, seeing teachers and staff, both old and new, on campus, preparing for our lil dinos to join us.
Everyone’s excited to have students back, and many teachers have been here early to set up their classroom and prepare for students. We’re lucky to have such a dedicated teaching staff, many of whom have been here on and off throughout the summer, preparing with their new teammates, beautifying the campus, and preparing their classrooms and curriculum.
We are starting the year fully hired for teachers(!), with two new classes and seven new teachers total to PHE. I am ecstatic about the teachers we hired (including a former PHE student!) - many have been at campus last week setting up their rooms (one teacher every day and until past 5pm two days) - and you can feel the love and care they bring with them. They are all teachers I would trust my own children with, a good thing too, as my daughter will be a kinder dino this year(!), riding to work with dad (Bike.PHE!).
As a school, we’re ready to build on our work from last year, to make PHE a more loving, caring, and inclusive community, where each student feels supported to be successful and challenged to learn at rigorous and meaningful levels. We hope for our students to feel empowered to take responsibility for themselves and for the communities that they are a part of; to provide them the skills and knowledge to learn independently and feel empowered to improve themselves and the communities that they’re a part of.
This year, we'll have a new partnership with Active Education (thanks to our incredible PTA), to provide weekly opportunities for teachers to collaborate to plan, review, and improve instruction for our dinos (not to mention structured PE activities for our students). We’ll be partnering with Soul Shoppe again (again thanks to our wonderful PTA), to provide social emotional skills to create a more welcoming and inclusive community. PTA is also funding Reading Lab & STEAM lab and a number of instructional assistants. Please consider joining if you haven't yet.
On campus, our head custodian, Mr Jeremiah, has been working tirelessly all summer (including some weekends) to get classrooms cleaned, waxed, and set for students. And let me tell you, there is nothing like a room set with a freshly waxed floor, ready for students, waiting for the coming energy.
I can’t wait to welcome you and your student(s) back to our incredible community at PHE. It is a beautiful place we have here. I’m glad for each of you to be a part of it.
If you’d like to be a bigger part of our community, we do have a few openings at PHE, including two noon supervisor positions and one Special Education Assistant (SEA) position. Noon supervisors support students during lunch, and get to see all of our students every day, which is a unique, fun, and energizing role. And without being fully staffed in noon sups, we’ll be sending out frequent - “Help urgently needed at lunch!” - parent square messages. So if you are able, or you know someone who might be, please reach out or share the links above.
The SEA role supports our Autism Benchmark Program, working alongside students in class to support their learning and social development individualized goals. Our kids are incredible and this role provides an unique opportunity to closely support a small number of students (~4 students).
We’re ready and excited to have students back on Thursday, August 10, though we also have a few events before then. See below for more information.
Looking forward to seeing you back on campus. Please let us know if you need anything or have questions.
Go Dinos!
Best,
Nick
Principal PHE
Important Events
Saturday, August 5 - Welcome Meet ‘n Greet hosted by our incomparable PTA!
1-1:30 TK/K families
1-3pm All new families welcome
Come to the big kid playground to meet new friends. RSVP here.
- Monday, August 7 - All-in-One Day 1-6pm
Submit required paperwork, receive your teacher assignment, sign up to volunteer,
and purchase Spirit Wear.
PTA Information: https://www.phepta.org/home/aiod
- Wednesday, August 9 - Kinder/TK Orientation
10-10:30 am Early Friends
10:30-11 am Late Friends
TK/K come to meet your new teacher and see your classroom
Thursday, August 10 - First day of school!
Wednesday, August 16 - 1st Principal Parent coffee at 8:10am on the black top
Thursday, August 24 - Back to School night 6-7:30pm
Saturday, September 23 - Make a Difference Day at PHE.
Drop by from 8am - 1pm A chance for the community to come together to continue improving our campus.
****Stay up-to-date with these and other important events by adding our PHE Public Calendar****
Drop-Off / Pick-Up Procedures
Students in 1st - 5th grade line up on the blacktop at 8am, by classroom number. At the end of school, students are released and can be picked up in front of the school (drive-through only) or on the blacktop (parking in the church lot).
In kinder and TK, students will go directly to their classroom and should be picked up from their classroom.
After school, we don't have supervision and Dianne Adair needs to use the playground, so we need to clear the blacktop by 3pm at the latest.
Attendance Information
If your child has to miss school, please notify the office by emailing PHEattend@mdusd.org.
CPHS Graduate Visit to PHE
Parking Lot Procedures
For families that are driving their student(s) to PHE, please follow these guidelines to help model safe behavior for our lil' dinos. There are a few options - 1) drive through, 2) parking and walking in, or 3) walking to campus.
- Drive-thru: the main PHE parking lot is for drive-through drop-offs & pick ups only. Please do not get out of your car, just pull up to the curb to let your student hop out/in. Please pull all the way forward to avoid creating a long line of cars behind you.
- Please do not park along the fence bordering Pleasant Hill Road and have your student walk across the line of cars: that puts our dinos at risk.
- Parking & walking: If you would like to walk your student to the blacktop (or their kindergarten class), please park in the church parking lot next door. The church parking lot is for park and walk only, so please do not do a drive through drop-off in that lot. Many students walk through the parking lot and it is a safety concern.
- Walking up Oak Park Blvd: Please do not cross Oak Park Blvd except in the cross walk. Students/families have been seen cutting across Oak Park in front of PHE at great risk to themselves as cars are pulling out of and into the parking lot. Please help model safe behavior by encouraging your students to use the cross walk when crossing the street.
Weekly Spirit Days at PHE
Friday - PHE Spirit Day
It Takes a Village...
The first and most important, please join our PTA (phepta.org/) - our PTA fund raises and pays for multiple positions at PHE (including STEAM and Garden lab) as well as assemblies and curriculum. There are ample opportunities to support this work and get involved.
If you're able to help out around campus, we can always use volunteers to assist in the classroom and on the blacktop. All volunteers need to be registered through the district (which can take a minute) and then attend a PHE volunteer training, so please get registered early. More information here: mdusd.org/volunteer
We're also in constant need of substitute teachers (to avoid having to pull special teachers (e.g. music or library) to cover classes). Please apply here.
Lastly, we still have openings! Please consider applying for our open noon supervisor position or our SEA (special education assistant position). Noon supervisor position - Special Education Assistant (SEA) position
Pleasant Hill Elementary
heltonl@mdusd.org (Office Manager);
bilyka@mduas.org (Secretary)
Website: phes.mdusd.org
Location: 2097 Oak Park Blvd, Pleasant Hill
Phone: (925) 934 - 3341