Principal's Message Feb 6 - 10

Dear Peabody and Watkins Community,

Even though we launched black history month in a celebratory spirit at both schools, this week was a tough one as we lost a long-term community member in Barbara Percival. Barbara was a Watkins caregiver and also an integral part of her granddaughter's class through the FoodPrints program. She was a relentless volunteer and Master Gardener who tended the Watkins garden since at least 1995.

This morning, I met with Barbara's husband, daughter, and other family members. They shared that plans are in the works to celebrate her life with our community in March. I hope to find an enduring way to remember Barbara at our school by talking with those closest to her, including PTA and FoodPrints leaders. Our community can look forward to those opportunities to celebrate Barbara's lifetime of service and love for our school.

Link to our cluster calendar!

Quick look ahead:

At Watkins, our Black History Month celebrations and learning experiences are underway! Watkins students learned about alumni from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and we're learning about a new school each day. On Feb 28 (see below) all classes will present on the school and alumni their class is studying.

At Peabody, all students engaged in our monthly Rock the Red school-wide morning meeting, and we launched Black History month. Ms. Syquia's class performed a song that taught students about Dr. King's life and legacy. Throughout the month, PK3 will be studying Rosa Parks, Mae Jamison, Ruby Bridges and Garrett Morgan. In PK4 students will do a research project to learn more in-depth about a particular individual of interest to them, which they can then share about back at school. Our kindergarten students will also choose a historical African American figure to learn about and perform highlights from that person's life.

Congratulations to our first equity dialogue group for completing our first mini-dialogue sessions of the year! These caregivers and staff members met for 90 minutes five nights virtually to engaged in conversations about race, identity and more. It's a major commitment and accomplishment for this team! And I heard the group wants to continue their conversations even more! And they will, as part of our larger, comprehensive Equity Team that's almost 40 people! Welcome!

Our 2nd mini-dialogue group is almost full and will start soon! If you are interested in joining the 2nd or 3rd group, please reach out to Maggie Adams at maggiemaeadams@gmail.com for more information. You can also check out our updated equity and inclusion page on our website.

All students and all school-based staff — including partner staff, school-based service providers, and Early Stages team members — will be expected to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test before returning to school on February 27 by uploading results to the centralized database. All schools will receive another delivery of test kits to support this endeavor.

All families and staff will receive district-wide communications. This information will be included on the DCPS Strong website.

Our 8-week 8,000 book Winter Zoo-tastic Reading Challenge is well under way! Keep up the great reading at home and send in those reading logs! Remember, you DON’T need to read about animals – that’s just a fun theme for our challenge and our logs! Want an option for an E-log? Click on this link and fill out the form: https://rb.gy/dwobom

The last two winter reading events will be on Thursday February 9 and, after February Break, Thursday March 2. Let’s go crazy reading together and log even more books for our zoo-tastic reading challenge. The link is here: https://bit.ly/3GfDq0k

Thanks to Ms. Slattery, PK3 teacher, you can now find early childhood literacy information as well as information on our latest events, including copies of all the reading logs on this new page: https://www.capitolhillclusterschool.org/peabodylibrary

Our team met recently to make some enhancements to the awards assembly and experience for students and families. We will have the same structure for the awards, but some awards will change.

Staying the same:

• Honor Roll (all 3s and above) and High Honor Roll (all 4s on report card)
• Each class will name two Upstanders for students who do what right, support a friend, and model kindness and responsibility.
• Specials awards for achievement in PE, Spanish, Music, and Art.
• Not all students will receive awards. Families of recipients will be notified by their homeroom teacher on or before February 6th.

Changing:

• Achievement in Math, Science, English Language Arts will be awarded for individual students' accomplishments in those subject areas. Homeroom teachers will tell students what it was that result in the award (it may be overcoming a challenge, earning great growth on an assessment, turning it around compared to term 1, or something else) but all that will be announced is, "achievement in math goes to [name]!"
• We will award students for each of the Panther PRIDE attributes: perseverance, respect, integrity, and dedication to excellence. Two awardees per homeroom per attribute will be recognized.

We heard feedback from term 1 and want to make sure this time everyone honored feels affirmed and students and caregivers have a clear idea how awards were determined.

Early arrivers can join Ms. Latney in her morning meditation sessions! Check out the mindfulness on these Panthers! Questions? alyssa.latney@k12.dc.gov

Please join me in congratulating our Watkins Executive Committee - Maggie Adams, Melissa Balazinski, Natasha Boley, Crystal Grey, Julia Irving, and Katy Thomas - for all of their work!

A million thank yous to Crystal Grey, who served as the Chair of the Breakfast! As well as to Katy Thomas for all her efforts this morning setting up the breakfast! And a special shout out to all our Watkins Artists who created posters of thanks and appreciation!

I hope that you and the Team had a wonderful day! It was an absolute joy to help make it a little brighter!

Families, basketball season is upon us. See schedule below for the schedule and come out to support our Panthers as they embark on a successful season!

The next couple weeks, Ms. Langley could use help around the library and shelving books. Sign up here.

Would you like to join your child's class in our gardens? Up to 4 caregivers can join each class on Wednesdays (Watkins only) and Fridays. Please sign up for your child's class only.

Peabody sign-ups

For the Watkins schedule, the 1st-3rd grade classes will go in the afternoon, so look for your child's afternoon teacher, not homeroom teacher on this schedule.

Waktins sign-ups

Email addresses are often entered into our systems with mistakes. If someone you know (partner, friend, neighbor) isn't getting school communication please have them email their names, their child's name, email addresses and phone numbers and any other information to either PeabodyESEnroll@k12.dc.gov or WatkinsESEnroll@k12.dc.gov. Our team will correct the errors asap.

If you somehow are unsubscribed from Blackboard, please email your appropriate school inbox above and Adia.Howard-Stroud@k12.dc.gov who will fix the issue on Blackboard.

Field Trips have resumed and we welcome parents to join as chaperones. Parents who would to volunteer/ chaperone on an ongoing basis, must complete the DCPS Clearance process beforehand.

Exceptions

Exceptions may be granted to the DCPS Clearance process in the following situations:

1. You are volunteering for a one-time, on-campus event, like Career Day or Field Day. Please email the Clearance Team at dcps.clearance@k12.dc.gov to confirm whether you qualify for a clearance exception.
2. You are a potential volunteer with an active secret or top-secret federal security clearance. Individuals in this group should complete the Federal Security Clearance Verification letter in lieu of being fingerprinted with DCPS. The original signed verification form and a copy of a state issued photo ID to dcps.clearance@k12.dc.gov