Pontiac School News

October 4, 2018 Creating Joyful Leaders and Learners

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: SCHOOLWIDE CELEBRATIONS

Parents,

We are so proud of our students and their understanding and use of the 7 Habits!

Part of our schoolwide goals is to help students find their voices this year. We are doing that through our student leadership roles that we offer schoolwide. We are also trying to embed more schoolwide celebrations into our year.

We recently hosted grade level celebrations as classes were celebrating their ability to recite mission statements, completion of MAP, and other exciting goals!

Our first schoolwide celebration is coming up in November! We want to highlight students and their successes both in and out of school. Will you help us? Share your child's success with us! Tell their story! Help them share their story! Please include photos also so that when we celebrate your child, we have photos to capture this special experience for your child.

Please email these success stories to Katie Barber at kbarber@richland2.org and Julie Whitney at jwhitney@richland2.org.

PTO News

Thank you to everyone that donated to our No Fundraiser Fundraiser. It was a HUGE success!! We surpassed our goal of $5000 and raised over $5400 that will support Covey Clubs. 160 students participated in the Dance Party on Monday and our administrators looked wonderful as Parrots for the day on Tuesday! We truly appreciated the generosity of our Parrot families. We heard your feedback about how easy this fundraiser was and how you appreciated that 100% of the proceeds went to the students. We hope we can make this fundraiser an annual tradition.

We are excited for our Fall Fest on Friday, October 12 from 600-730pm. We will have games, bouncy houses, cake walk, and a DJ. The highlight of the evening has traditionally been our dunk booth and Pie in the Face of teachers! We will also be selling pizza, drink, and chips meals for $5. We hope to see you there!

Finally, we hope you will join us tonight, Thursday October 4th at 630pm in the media center for our monthly PTO meeting!

As always, please feel free to email us at PontiacPTO@gmail.com if you have any questions or suggestions for our PTO!

Happy Fall Y’all!

Sarah Venn

Pontiac PTO President

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Dunk Tank Challenge

Students are invited to vote for the six teachers who will be in the Dunk Tank at Fall Fest! Bring your spare change to the cafeteria during breakfast and lunch each day through next Thursday, October 11th, and drop your change into the jar of the teacher you would like to see dunked! The six teachers who raise the most money will be scheduled for the Dunk Tank. All proceeds go to the Pontiac PTO to assist with Fall Fest costs.

1 - Mrs. Avant

2 - Dr. Barber

3 - Mrs. Cook

4 - Miss Garrick

5 - Miss Lybrand

6 - Miss Rippetoe

7 - Mrs. Ryan

8 - Ms. Thompson

9 - Miss Washer

10 - Mrs. Whitney

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Woodcreek Farms

The Blake at Woodcreek Farms Retirement Home would like to invite Pontiac families to come "Trick or Treat" with their residents at 5:30pm on October 31st.

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Music Fundraiser

It is October and time for our 4th annual Music Fundraiser! Last year we raised enough money to buy 30 ukuleles which 5th graders are playing right now, and enough soprano recorders for every 3rd, 4th, 5th grader and Upper Montessori student to keep! Our goal this year is to purchase a recorder for every 3rd grader and any new student to Pontiac in grades 4-5, as well as some classroom rhythm instruments that need to be replaced.

Packets will go home with each student next Thursday, and the fundraiser will run the month of October. All orders are due to Ms. Rayner by Wednesday, October 31st. You do not need to return anything if you choose not to participate, simply recycle the catalogs. Details will be sent home in a letter with the packets next week. Thanks for supporting our music program at Pontiac!

Ms. Rayner

MAKE UP DAYS

In order to make-up days missed because of Hurricane Florence, Richland Two will now have school on:

October 18, 2018 (originally a student holiday/teacher inservice day)
October 19, 2018 (originally a student/teacher holiday)
December 21, 2018 (originally first day of winter break)

As you know, Governor Henry McMaster issued an order for all schools in Richland County to close from Tuesday, September 11, through Friday, September 14.

State law requires all districts to make up a minimum of three days missed. For any schools that are closed four to six days due to snow, extreme weather conditions, or other disruptions, S.C. Code Ann. §59-1-425 allows for the local school board of trustees, by a majority vote, to waive those missed days or to require the days to be made up. For any schools closed six to nine days due to snow, extreme weather conditions, or other disruptions, the local school board may request a waiver from the State Board of Education.

As also required by the state law, Richland Two includes make-up days in our school calendar in anticipation of inclement weather. Since we missed so many days at the beginning of the school year, district administrators felt it was important to consider additional options. Making up the missed days this way ensures that semesters will remain balanced, which is important for semester-long classes that students will complete in January. This solution also allows for minimal impact on instruction and family schedules around traditional holidays and breaks.

To help make the best decision possible, a survey of seven different options was sent to a group of 210 people that included our school principals, our faculty advisory committee and our parent advisory committee. We received responses from 132 people, for a response rate of around 63 percent.

The top choice of the seven options received 47 percent of the votes. The next highest option received approximately 17 percent of the votes. Additionally, the top overall choice was the most popular choice among principals, faculty, and parents. As a result, the district will use October 18 and 19, and December 21 to make up three of the days missed so far in the 2018-2019 school year. We would like to thank those who completed the survey and helped us to arrive at this decision.

Once a final decision has been made regarding the fourth missed day of school, we will be sure to communicate that with everyone. Thank you for your understanding of the necessary changes to the school calendar, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused by the closure last week. We look forward to continuing our journey this year on our pathway to Premier.