CMIT South Elementary School
Week of November 27, 2022
Dear CMIT South Elementary Tiger Family,
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I extend my warmest wishes to every one of you. I hope this season brings joy, and gratitude, for the blessings in your lives and cherished moments shared with loved ones.
Successful Open House
Our recent Open House on Thursday, November 16, was a tremendous success! Thank you to all the potential new and returning families placing another student in the Specialty School Program Lottery for PGCPS. We had over 30 attendees in our first of three open houses who joined us, engaged with teachers, and explored the wonderful initiatives happening here at CMIT South Elementary, and took a building tour. The next open houses are scheduled for Thursday, December 14, 2023, and Thursday, January 18, 2024. Please spread the news to any new families that may want to learn more about our school.
Celebrating Student Achievements:
On Friday, November 17, 2023, hard-copy report cards were sent home with students. You can also view your child’s report card on the SchoolMax Family portal. Logging in from the main PGCPS.org website. Let's applaud the incredible efforts of our students who excelled in the 1st quarter! Your dedication and hard work truly shine through, and we're immensely proud of your achievements.
Welcoming New Additions:
I am thrilled to announce the newest members of our school community, Ms. Sade Johnson, our new Physical Education teacher, and Ms. LaNessa Reese, who joins us as our Principal’s Secretary. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to them both as they become integral parts of our team. They have both been with us all year but are now serving in full capacities and we are grateful to have them as part of our Tiger Staff.
We also want to celebrate National Substitute Teacher Day thanking Dr. Victor Kennedy, Mr. James Mitchell, Mr. Calvin Jones, Mrs. Angela Matthews, and Mrs. Mawerdi Pinkard, our amazing substitute teachers who keep our school moving in the right direction and supporting staff and students each day.
Gratitude to Parent Volunteers:
A heartfelt thank you to all our dedicated parent volunteers who supported our classrooms, arrival, and lunch duties. Your involvement and commitment are invaluable to our school community.
Bathroom Expectations Reminder:
As a reminder, please take a moment to review bathroom expectations with your students. Reinforcing these guidelines helps maintain a respectful and hygienic environment for everyone. From proper toiletry use, hand washing, and behavior when entering, while in, and leaving the restroom. Student bathrooms can not be monitored by staff so students must able to utilize the facility on their own and do so according to our expectations. Thank you for your support as we want to make sure any not meeting of expectations is an isolated event.
Thanksgiving Break Reminder:
Next week, we will have school on Monday, November 20, and Tuesday, November 21. Following this, we will be out of school for the remainder of the week, November 22-24, for the Thanksgiving break. Classes will resume on Monday, November 27. If you have travel plans please communicate to your scholar's teacher you can utilize one mental health day per semester that allows your student an excused absence. Please work with your child’s teacher to do so.
Hazel Health Consent Form:
For those who haven't yet completed the Hazel Health consent form, kindly do so if you'd like your scholar to take advantage of telehealth screening. This form was shared with your student and emailed to all families.
As we embrace this holiday season, let's continue to foster a supportive and nurturing environment for our students. Your ongoing support and involvement in our school community make a significant difference.
Communication Loop Reminder:
Please make sure you are utilizing our staff to address concerns for timely responses and collaborative resolutions. Behavior, Attendance, and Grade concerns should all flow to your scholar's classroom teacher first. Our amazing staff of classroom teachers is extremely capable of providing clarity, plans, interventions, and opportunities for student improvement.
Technology hardware questions can be directed to Mr. Asim Demirel at operations@cmitsouthes.org,
Health questions or concerns can be directed to Nurse Sandra Aneke at saneke@cmitsouthes.org or nurse@cmitsouthes.org
Testing questions can be directed to Mr. Metin our school Program Coordinator and School Testing Coordinator at fmetin@cmitsouthes.org
For Special Education information our SPED Chair Ms Shannon Shepherd can be reached at sshepherd@cmitsouthes.org
For guidance and counseling information our Professional School Counselor, Ms Deirdra Chandler can be reached at dchandler@cmitsouthes.org
If you need additional support for your scholars in Kindergarten-2nd grade Assistant Principal Lesma Watkins can be reached at lwatkis@cmitsouthes.org
If you need additional support for your scholars in 3rd-5th grade Assistant Principal Tauheedah Lewis can be reached at tlewis@cmitsouthes.org
Wishing you all a joyful Thanksgiving filled with warmth, laughter, and cherished moments.
Sincerely,
Ronald A. Miller, Jr
Principal
Chesapeake Math & IT Academy South Elementary
Please take a look at these November calendar reminders:
11/21/23 - 1st Qtr Report Card release (hard-copy)
11/22-24/23 - Thanksgiving Break – Schools and Offices Closed
12/01-07/23 - Parent 1st Qtr Grade Appeal Window
12/02/23 - Special Education Appreciation Day
12/04 -08/23- Annual Food Drive
12/13/23 - PTO Meeting 6:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m.
12/15/23 - Glow Party (K-2 students Only)
12/16/23 - Open House - 6:30 p.m. -8:00 p.m.
12/25-29/23 - Winter Break & Christmas – Schools and Offices Closed
Hazel Health Services Coming to CMIT South Elementary
What is Hazel Health?
Hazel Health has partnered with Prince George's County Public Schools to provide access to quality healthcare services for all students, at no cost to families, this school year. Students can be referred by the school counselor or their parent/guardian. A designated person at the school or a parent/guardian can initiate a video visit with a Hazel health care provider while your child is at school or at home to provide either physical or mental health services. Therapy sessions with Hazel Health are a safe space and are private and confidential.
How can your child receive services?
Waitlists for mental health services for children are sometimes long or sometimes as parents it's tough to find the time to take our children to appointments which makes it difficult for them to receive the immediate support they need. Hazel Health is geared to bridge that gap. Students are able to receive these services free, virtually and while in school. If you have any questions please feel free to visit their website https://www.hazel.co/ or reach out to me.
The “Lost and Found” collection bin is located in the cafeteria. Any found articles (coats, hats, gloves, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc.) are placed in the bin. Found small items (keys, glasses, jewelry) are stored in the Main Office. Students may check the “Lost and Found” for lost items before or after school, or during lunch. All items left unclaimed at the end of each academic quarter are donated to charities or are discarded. Parents are strongly encouraged to label all belongings with first and last names.
In November 2020, PGCPS launched an online volunteer application and approval process. Click here for more information on becoming a volunteer and to access the application.
Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation (CLF) is offering CMIT South ES scholars at-home Math tutoring by Carnegie Learning. This resource will help students excel in their math studies for students in grades 2-5. Scholars will access tutoring by logging into their PGCPS Clever, choosing the Littera Education tutoring app, and clicking Join Session at their chosen start time. Tutoring commenced in October 2023 and will continue until January 2024, spanning a total of 10 weeks.
Birthdays are so much fun to celebrate with classmates. However, during the school day, the health and safety of each student are important, especially students with food allergies. Students are ONLY permitted to bring in NON-FOOD items to distribute to classmates at the end of the school day. Birthday invitations will not be distributed.
Attendance in school each day is important. Let’s stay in school.
In order for an absence to be considered excused, a written note must accompany the student no later than three (3) days after return to school. The note should include:
- date(s) of absence
- scholar’s name
- Reason for absence
Late or make-up work will not be accepted unless the absence is an excused absence. Please review Administrative Procedure 5113 AP 5113 - Student Attendance, Absence and Truancy for further information.
Students who are absent for ten consecutive days will be withdrawn on the 11th day and will need to re-enroll.
Lawful Absences
Students enrolled in public schools are considered lawfully absent from school for any portion of the day, only under the following conditions:
- Death of a family member
- Illness of the student
- Court appearance
- Work approved or sponsored by a school
- Observance of a religious holiday
- State of emergency
- Suspension from school
- Mental Health (Students may receive as an excused absence one (1) day of absence
- in each semester of each school year for a student’s mental health needs.
- Other emergencies
- Deployment-related absences
Unlawful Absences
Unlawful absence – any time a student does not attend school that does not qualify as the above-listed reasons for a lawful absence.
Tardy
Scholars will be officially tardy if they are not in the building at 8:10 a.m.
If your scholar enters the building after the 8:05 a.m. bell, a parent must escort them into the building and electronically sign them in the late arrival portal. Scholars will be given an orange tardy slip to be permitted to class.
Parents of students who have 10 or more tardies in a semester will be required to meet with the principal/designee to discuss the reasons for the tardies and to develop a plan for improvement.
Health Forms
Please be sure to submit all required health forms! Please note that ALL medications, cough drops included, cannot be administered or consumed without appropriate documentation.
You can access all health forms here for the 2023-2024 school year.
School Meals
2023-24 School Year Meal Prices
Elementary (Pre-K through Grade 5)
Breakfast: $1.60/day
Lunch: $2.75/day
How to Pay
MySchoolBucks, owned and operated by Heartland Payment Systems, is an online payment service that provides parents the ability to securely pay for meals, monitor student cafeteria purchases, make tuition payments for Before and After School Extended Learning programs, and receive email notifications for low-account balances. With MySchoolBucks, payments can be made 24/7 using a Visa, MasterCard, Discover, credit or debit card, and mobile app.
Free and Reduced-Price Meals
We encourage all families to consider applying for free and reduced-price meals! Visit www.myschoolapps.com/Home/PickDistrict to apply online today!
To apply, you will need:
- The name, school, and grade of your school-age children
- The name of all adults living in the home
- Income information for all adults living in the home
- Student ID Numbers for your school-age children
Applications will also be sent home with students the first week of school. Applications are available at all PGCPS schools and can be submitted at any time.
Grade Level Updates
HAPPY FALL BREAK!
We only have 2 days of school next week, so we will not be covering any new material. Students will be reviewing prior learned material and discussing the scientific method in closer detail. Please support your scholars in completing the homework packet and the monthly project, as we have extended the homework due date. We would suggest trying to complete the work both before and after the break so there is no need to be overwhelmed with all of the assignments after we return from the break.
We hope that each and every Kindergarten Family has a safe and relaxing fall break!
IMPORTANT KINDERGARTEN DATES-
NOVEMBER 22-24: Fall Break
DECEMBER 1: Homework packet due/Family Tree Project due
Grade Level Updates
Dear Families,
GRATITUDE is our trait for November. The first-grade team would like to thank you for your patience and support as we take each day's challenges and turn them into triumphs. Please know that academic and social support are our primary goals. With that said, when assigned teachers are away from school for personal and/or leave related to absences, a certified teacher/paraprofessional/substitute is assigned to support student learning. Students received a 1st grade list of words called: Sight Words. These are words that students should know before they leave 1st grade. It is just for practice; not spelling.
Reading Updates:
Essential Questions: How do living things grow and change?
Recognizing characteristics and structures of informational texts.
Students will use appropriate fluency, rate, accuracy, and prosody).
Decode words with inflectional endings-/ed/ /e/ /es/
Math Updates:
Count on to add using a number line
Ongoing practice for skills and strategies already taught/learned.
Science Updates:
How light interacts with different materials.
Vocabulary- matter, opaque, transparent, translucent, reflect
Here is a good video to practice
Social Studies Updates:
How do we choose leaders?
Vocabulary: vote, democracy, ballot
Health Updates:
Prepare a variety of healthy meals using pictures from food groups.
Vocabulary: fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, dairy
Grade Level Updates
We are pushing right along through 2nd grade! Let's keep up the great work!
Reading Updates:
We are now in Unit 2 Nature Wonders in reading! Your scholar is working through informational text and realistic fiction. When reading at home be sure to look for text features and ask comprehension questions to your scholar.
Our spelling words will focus on the vowel team ie.
Math Updates:
Your scholar has now tested for Topic 3 and will begin Topic 4- Fluently adding within 100. Please ask your homeroom teacher about additional resources like the optional homework packet and CANVAS site.
Be sure your scholar is answering at least 10 Boddle questions daily as part of their homework.
Science Updates:
We will be transitioning back into our SAVVAS curriculum for Topic 2- Changing Matter. Please continue to work through your STEM Fair project and work through the steps of the scientific method.
STEM Fair - All beginning parts of the STEM Fair project should be submitted by now, with feedback from your homeroom teacher. The final video and presentation will be due January 17, 2024.
Social Studies Updates:
We are working through Topic 2 - People, Places and Nature. Focusing on the Big Question of : What is the world like?
Health Updates:
The focus for the month of November is “Let’s Eat” where we will focus on the importance of healthy eating habits.
Grade Level Updates
Reading Updates:
This week we continued our informational story “Living in the Desert” and examined some text features like; Chapter Titles and subtitles, maps and captions, and also how the glossy and index are used. We brainstormed some ideas for our upcoming Personal Narrative story. In our brainstorming, we were able to discuss our ideas with one another to see if our topics were suitable to write about.
Math Updates:
Fleet/Lewis: We have officially finished Topic 4. Students will be taking their Topic 4 assessment on Monday, November 20th.
Science Updates:
We are nearing the end of Topic 3 studying Weather. We will spend next week reviewing. Please be prepared to take the Topic 3 assessment on Tuesday, November 28th when we return from Thanksgiving break.
STEM Fair: Students should have submitted their questions, hypotheses, materials, procedures, and variables at this point. Please be on the lookout for feedback on these components from your child’s teacher. Students should also begin working on their research papers. Reminder that research paper drafts are due November 29th. The final paper is due December 13th. Final projects are due on January 17th. Happy experimenting!
Social Studies Updates:
In social studies, we talked about Economic Choices and how they are made in relation to goods and services. We analyzed the cost and benefits of winter items we may need to understand how people may make economic choices in relation to spending and budgeting.
Health Updates:
The focus for November is “Let’s Eat” where we will focus on the importance of healthy eating habits.
Grade Level Updates
We have finished our tremendous twelfth week of school! We would like to say thank you to all our families for the partnerships that have been shown thus far this year. We hope you have a truly thankful holiday and enjoy this time with family and friends. As a reminder, there will not be school Wednesday, November 22- Friday, November 24 as we all enjoy the Thanksgiving Break. Please check your scholar’s agenda book nightly for updates on homework and notes from the teachers. Finally please label all of your scholar’s belongings in case something is misplaced throughout the day.
Fourth Grade Reminders:
As the weather changes, students must come to school prepared for outdoor recess or outdoor P.E. A suggestion would be to dress scholars in layers so they can remove outer layers as they get warmer.
Scholars should come to school each day with a fully charged Chromebook. As a STEM school technology is utilized in all classes and students are completing assignments digitally. It is difficult to charge Chromebooks during class.
Scholars must have a reusable water bottle. We do not have water bottles to provide to students nor do we have cups to provide water. Water bottles must have a resealable cap to prevent spillage if dropped or knocked over! Scholars can refill their water bottles at one of the filtered water fountains that are provided around the school.
Please check Schoolmax weekly to see the scholar’s updated grades. Canvas is a Learning Management System that scholars utilize to complete assignments and get access to materials. The grades provided in Schoolmax are those that will be used to calculate progress reports and report cards.
If your scholar is absent, please share a note with the homeroom teacher within 3 days of your scholar returning to school. For students to receive make-up work you must provide a note stating; the student’s name, the date of absence, and the reason for absence. Work is provided to students upon their return to school with an absence note.
Each week we suggest checking your scholar's browser history and YouTube history. This is to make sure that your scholar isn’t going to a site or watching videos that you would not approve of. Teachers are limited to only seeing activity on your scholar’s screen when they are in class. We utilize a system called Hapara that allows us to prevent access to certain sites. We are asking that you check your scholar's computer history weekly.
Reading Updates:
This week: Students began Unit 2 Adaptations. In this unit, students will read various stories about how living things adapt to the environment. Our first text we began reading is an informational text called “Feathers: Not Just for Flying.” In this text, students discovered the different ways that birds use their feathers for survival and not just for flying. Students monitored their inner conversations while they were reading. We also determined the main idea of the text and supported it with details and examples provided from the text. Finally, students had a chance to determine the meaning of unknown words that appear in the text. Students have also been given their new spelling words (regular plural nouns).
Next week: Students will continue to read closely the text “Feathers: Not Just for Flying,” to become an expert in the text. We will continue to discover how the author organizes the information by exploring the text structure. We will also have a chance to complete a Thanksgiving activity that has the students work on the skill of summarizing a text.
Math Updates:
This week we worked our way through sub-topic 2-7 “Subtracting Across Zeros” and 2-8 “Reasoning/ Problem Solving” concluding our exploration of Topic 2. Students have also begun reviewing all the topics and skills from Topic 2 in preparation for the Topic 2 Test on Monday, November 20, 2023.
Please check Schoolmax and Canvas with your scholar to ensure completion of assignments.
Science Updates:
In Science this week and the following, students will explore how energy moves through Electric Circuits! We will be using models to describe how electric currents flow in circuits. This will be our last lesson in Topic 1 before we have our topic test and begin our next topic, Human Use of Energy.
STEM Fair Reminder:
All students were given a hard copy of the STEM FAIR Packet, and a downloadable copy was also added to Canvas. STEM FAIR Questions and Hypothesis was Due Wednesday, October 25, 2023. STEM FAIR Research Paper Drafts are due November 29, 2023 STEM FAIR Projects are due Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Social Studies Updates:
This week: Students began reading Chapter 2: Americans and Their History and described how the first Americans lived, and identified European explorers and colonies, and their impact on the country.
Next week: Students will begin reading Lesson 2: A New Nation and explain how the United States grew out of the English colonies and became an independent nation.
Health Updates:
Students have begun their unit exploring the mouth and teeth.
Grade Level Updates
Hi everyone!
We are moving right along in quarter 2 in 5th grade! Please check the assignment calendar on our Google site to see what upcoming assignments students may have. We have been having tests, quizzes, and homework, so we want to make sure students are keeping up with their work. Students should click on their homeroom teacher’s name to see their assignments. Here is the link to the 5th-grade website for those who need it: https://sites.google.com/pgcps.org/5thgradeclasssite/home
Just a heads-up, physical copies of report cards will be sent home later in November!
A reminder that we are happy to have volunteers come in to assist us with different things throughout the year, so if you are interested, please make sure your volunteer requirements are completed. We would love it if people wanted to come in and volunteer during lunch times for students, so let us know if you are interested.
We are in November focusing on our character trait, gratitude! We want to show gratitude in any way we can!
We also have only 2 days of school next week due to Thanksgiving break! School is closed Wednesday-Friday!
Reading Updates:
We are moving along into unit 2 which is about observations. We are finishing our story which is an informational text called “From Far From Shore.” We also took our spelling test on words that follow the V/CV and VC/V patterns.
Math Updates:
Students are in the third unit of Math which is about multiplying multi-digit whole numbers. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!
Science Updates:
Students are finishing the first unit of Science, about the properties of matter. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!
Social Studies Updates:
We’re onto chapter 3 about settling the colonies in North America and we finished up section 1 this week about Spanish colonies!
Health Updates:
Students are in the first unit of Health which is about first aid.
CHESAPEAKE MATH AND IT SOUTH ELEMENTARY
• Hours: 8:00 a.m to 2:25 p.m
• Grades: K-5
• Uniform: Yes
• Before After School Enrichment: Yes
http://clfmd.org/enrichment-2/
• School Colors: Hunter Green, Navy Blue
• School Mascot: Tigers
• School Website: http://www.cmitsouthes.org
For more information
CMITs offer high tech, STEAM education to all our Prince George’s County students grades K-5!
In partnership with students, parents and the community, CMIT Elementary School will attain educational excellence by providing a rigorous and technology-integrated education for elementary school students with an emphasis on mathematics, science, and information technologies.