Belinder Elementary School

August 1, 2018

Hello! We want to welcome everyone to the start of another outstanding year at Belinder Elementary! We hope everyone had a fantastic, restful summer break, and you're excited to get back to school.

There are several ways you can stay connected to happenings at Belinder Elementary, this newsletter being one. It typically is sent out on Sundays and has in it important reminders, updates, celebrations, and a calendar of upcoming events.

Here are some important dates for you as you're thinking about next week and the start of school:

8/8
New Family Welcome 3:30
School Box Drop 4:00 - 5:00
Ice Cream Social 4:00 - 6:00

8/10
First day for grades 1 thru 6 / dismissal at 12:30

8/13
Kindergarten conferences.

8/14
1st day for kindergarten students. Coffee social for K parents at 8:15 in the MPR (multi-purpose room)

8/21
Back to school night Grades 1 thru 6
1st session 6:30 - 7:10
2nd session 7:20 - 8:00

We are so excited for another great year at Belinder Elementary and hope you are too!

Mr. Steve Yeoman

Principal

Our outstanding volunteers will be hard and work and will have school supplies ready for pick up at the school by Tuesday, August 7.

Last year the Belinder Leadership Team, along with the help of the building Site Council, revised our Vision and Value Statements we will be using to guide our school improvement efforts this year. I believe it's important to post these in our newsletters for the community to see.

Belinder Vision Statement:

To be a place where children love to learn and teachers love to work.

Belinder Value Statement:

We believe the following attributes are critical to the success of our organization:

• Learning
• Parent partnerships
• Transparent communication
• High expectations
• Collaboration
• Perseverance
• Celebration
• Engagement
• Hospitality
• Diversity
• Inclusivity
• Safety (Physical and Emotional)
• Personal growth and development

Please welcome the following new staff to the Belinder family!

Stacey Bell -- 1/2 time Counselor

Nancy Abraham -- 2nd grade

Erica Rohr -- 5th grade

Amy Ruby -- 6th grade

Wendy Oviatt -- Library

Shannon Johnson -- Special Education

Tammy Moore -- 1/2 time Special Education

We are also excited for Ariana Sherk who will be moving from the 6th grade classroom to be our new Innovation Specialist and will work with students in the Belinder STEM lab.

The SMSD has update all school webpages. We are hopeful that these new webpages will be another place the community can get information about the great things happening in our school. Please be patient as we continue to learn all of the ways this new format can help us with communication. In the meantime, please visit us at:

https://belinder.smsd.org/

We also use Twitter to share information and celebrations. If you are a Twitter user, please follow us @belinder_prin.

Belinder is excited to announce we will be hosting an after school chess club this year. Please see the attached flyer for more information!

More information to come on this, but wanted to share that we are required to practice the following as per state mandate:

4 fire drills -- 1 per quarter

3 tornado drills -- 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters

9 crisis drills -- 1 per month

Again more details to be shared about this expectation in the newsletter and upcoming parent nights.

We would be remiss not give a tremendous and public thank-you to Jimmy and Becky Rogers for all of their incredible work maintaining and improving the Belinder garden and landscaping. The school has never looked so good at the start of the year! You are amazing!