Important Parent Reminders
District 11 Board of Education Policy
states: “In order to help ensure that no
unauthorized persons enter buildings with wrongful intent, all visitors to the
schools will report to the school office when entering to receive authorization
before visiting elsewhere in the building.
The principal has final authority to authorize a visitor. This policy only applies during school
hours.” Therefore, all visitors must
report to the office and sign in before visiting
or volunteering in the school.
Reminder
notices were sent home the week of September 17th with students who
have not returned their Student Emergency Information card, Emergency Dismissal
Information/Inclement Weather Plan form, and/or the Generic Permission
Slip. Please return these forms to the
office as soon as possible. It is very
important that we have these forms on file should your student become injured
or ill at school or if we have an emergency or early dismissal. Please remember to keep your contact
information up-to-date.
Please check the Lost & Found whenever you are in the building for
items that may belong to your children.
By checking on a regular basis we may be able to keep our Lost &
Found closet from overflowing.
School Lunches
If
you have questions about your child’s lunch account, please call the lunchroom
manager, Mrs. Alirez-Mimm, at 328-4732 and leave a message. She will return your call as soon as she
can. District 11 Food and Nutrition
Services has a website containing healthy recipes, nutrition tidbits, fun food
facts and healthy lifestyle web sites that may be interesting for both students
and parents. Visit this web site at www.cssd11.k12.co.us/fns/nutrition_tidbits.htm.
Partnership Agreement for Scout Groups
Space is still available for
scouting groups to meet after school on alternating Tuesdays. In order to use these rooms, scout groups
must complete a new District 11 Facility Use Partnership Agreement. Reservations are on a first come, first serve
basis and the forms are available in the office.
Entertainment & Gold C Book Sale
Thank you for supporting our annual
Entertainment/Gold C Book sale. There
are still some books left for sale in the office. Drop by anytime before Tuesday, October 3rd, if you would still like to
purchase an Entertainment or Cold C Book.
Proceeds from this sale will go toward funding our annual Pancake
Breakfast, as well as other activities throughout the school year. Once again, thank you for supporting our school.
Safeway Stores 10% Back to Schools
Safeway stores are once
again offering 10% back to schools for purchases of participating products made
between July 18th and
September 4th, when using your Safeway Club Card. Ask the cashier for your reward receipt
anytime between now and October 11th, and turn them into the
office. All redemption code receipts
must be turned in by October 11th,
for crediting to our school account. For
more information visit www.back2schools.eScrip.com
King Soopers/Safeway Certificates
The office now has King
Soopers and Safeway grocery gift cards in the office. Cards may be purchased at face value and Steele
earns five percent of the total sales.
Buying and using these cards is a great way to help our school at no
additional cost to you. Purchases may be
made anytime during the school day.
Box Tops for Education
Once again we will be
collecting box tops as part of our school fundraising efforts. Thank you, to Mrs. Christine Brett, for
collecting and organizing all those box tops, and to the entire Steele
community for continuing to save and donate. Collecting box tops is an easy way to earn cash for
our school at no additional cost to you.
Please continue to send in your box tops; a collection bag is located in
the hallway next to the office.
Parent Sounding Board
Dr.
Terry Bishop will meet with District 11 parents on the second Thursday of each
month from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Tesla
Educational Opportunity
Center. All District 11 parents are welcome
to bring issues, general concerns, questions and good things happening in
District 11 schools to Dr. Bishop’s attention.
In turn, Dr. Bishop will share with parents the latest information about
programs and projects in D-11. Concerns
about individual students are not appropriate for the sounding board and are
better addressed by the student's school or the Division of Instruction.
Dr. Bishop’s first parent meeting is on October 11th, from 5:00 to 6:30
p.m. at Tesla EOC, 2560
International Circle. Call 520-2005 for directions or more
information.
2007-2008 Reflections Program
This is the 3rd year the
Reflections Program is getting under way at Steele Elementary and we would like
Steele students to consider participating in this year’s program. The Reflections Program, an arts recognition
and achievement program, was established in 1969 by National PTA Board member
Mary Lou Anderson. This program is
intended to celebrate all children's gifts and talents, and to give children
who have never tried creating a work of art a chance to experiment. This program is an enhancement to our schools
art programs and also gives students a sense of achievement and recognition.
This year’s theme is "I
can make a difference by". Each student
can enter in any of the five arts categories: literature, visual arts,
photography, music, and dance. If you
think your student would be interested in this program, please come to our
first meeting on Monday, October 15,
2007, at 2:45 pm, in the art room.
I am so excited to lead this
year’s Reflections Program. If any
parent would be interested in assisting me in this program, please call or
email me.
Cammie Collins 719-633-3778
arriscam@hotmail.com
Building Advisory Accountability Committee (BAAC)
GET BAAC!!!
I’m so happy to say that the September
meeting of the Building Advisory Accountability Committee (BAAC) was well
attended and very informative. Among
other discussions, Mrs. Barnes presented an overview of the new reading,
writing and math programs at Steele. She
also discussed our School Improvement Plan (SIP) and our goals for the first
quarter. All in all, it was a very
informative discussion of what is working for our kids at Steele. For a further
review of our business, you can access the minutes through the Steele website. Just go to our website, go to Community Zone,
go to BAAC, then click on the minutes for the month you want. I hope that more and more parents will
continue to be involved with BAAC, a good first step is just to see what we did
in September. Next month, Beth Graber
will talk in-depth about the math curriculum and how it will be integrated into
our SIP. Our intent is to have a teacher
each month explore our new curriculum in detail and what makes it work for our
kids.
I hope you will join us for the October
meeting. There is always good
discussion, lots of information, and the ability to affect our children’s
education. Our next meeting is October 16th, at 2:45 pm. If you would like to come but child care is a
problem, please contact either myself or Georgie Barnes. We have child care available, but we need to
know prior to the Tuesday meeting if you want to take advantage of it. As always, if you have any questions or
concerns, don’t hesitate to call me (471-4752) or catch me at school. Thanks for your support of our kids.
Dana Keys
BAAC
Chairperson
"Lost for Words: Literacy in America"
On October 16th, at 6:30 p.m., News First 5/30
(KOAA-TV/NBC), in partnership with CWK Network and the “Connect with Kids”
community initiative, will air "Lost for Words: Literacy in America". This television special focuses on how a
child’s struggle with literacy affects their life and looks at innovative ways
some parents and schools are using to help children improve their reading
skills. See the flyer attached to this
newsletter for the more information on this special.
School Pictures Retake Day
School picture retakes will
be taken on Wednesday, October, 17th. All students who were absent on picture day
will be photographed. Parents who were
not satisfied with their child’s photo, may return the entire package and their
child’s photo will be taken again. Watch
for flyers to come home in your student’s backpack.
Old North End Safety Day
The Old North End Safety Day
is scheduled for Saturday, October 20th. The events will take place
from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Corpus Christi
parish house and parking lot on the southeast corner of Cascade and Jackson (across from Penrose Hospital).
Four continuous activities
will occur throughout the day
·
Child
identification card station
·
Bike and trike
rodeo, and bike safety inspection
·
Child car seat
safety check
·
Identification
etching of bicycles and portable valuables
Workshops will be held on:
- Preventing home burglaries
- Electrical safety
- Personal safety
- Internet safety for teens and seniors
- Preventing identity theft
- Identifying and preventing child firestarting
behavior
- Halloween safety
- What Cheyenne Mountain Security does during their
patrols of the Old North End
All activities and workshops
are open to ONEN residents, Corpus Christi
parishioners and students' families, First
Lutheran Church
parishioners, Penrose patients' families and staff, Colorado College
students, faculty, and staff
We need volunteers to
help with logistics, refreshments, coordination of activities and parking
during the day. For more information, contact Donna Drialo .
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Parent
Teacher Conferences will be held on Thursday
and Friday, October 25th and 26th. Your child’s teacher should contact you with
the date and time for your conference.
Each conference will last 15 minutes.
This is a time for your child’s teacher to discuss your child’s progress
with you and a time for you to discuss any concerns that you might have. If you think that you might need longer than
15 minutes, please schedule a conference for a different day, as we value each
person’s time and hope to stay on schedule!
School Choice Window
The
choice enrollment window for District 11 will begin on Thursday, November 1, 2007, and close Friday, February 1, 2008.
If your child is currently a student on permit at Steele and will be
attending Steele next school year, please stop by the office as soon as
possible on or after November 1st, to fill out a permit for the
2008-2009 school year. All Steele
neighborhood children are guaranteed enrollment at Steele. Large classes do not benefit any child so
class sizes are limited. If you have
friends who are interested in attending Steele, please tell them that they may
come to the school office on or after November 1st to fill out a
permit request and have their child’s name put on a waiting list. We are proud of the fact that Steele
Elementary is a great place for children to learn!
Notes from GT
Battle of the Books is up and running. We have a large group
of enthusiastic fifth graders who are working on reading (and remembering)
forty books by April. We are looking for
a couple of parents who would be willing to read the forty books and help with
the judging at the Battle. If you are interested please contact either
Mr. Herr, herrma@d11.org
, or Mrs. Hays, haysta@d11.org
.
Parents, teachers, and/or
students who wish to nominate a student to be considered for Gifted and
Talented services, may complete a nomination and rating form. The forms at Steele are located in the front
office. Upon receiving the completed
nomination and rating form, the building Gifted Resource Teacher will examine
and share past test results with the nominator and determine the next steps.
Third grade CoGAT testing is
finished! Thank you, third grade teachers.
The results will not be ready until December.
Library News
Thanks to a three-year grant from the
Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust, an additional $84,828 will be spent improving
Steele’s Library. The goal of the grant
is to improve student achievement by:
· Providing instructional
material and technology tools to support Spanish instruction in grades K-5.
Materials include bi-lingual books, games, music, videos, and technology
resources.
·
Providing
resources to support weekly and monthly community activities that will include;
after school and evening bi-lingual programs, Cross Cultural School Activities,
monthly family activities, and collaborative lessons with Crista McAuliffe,
Steele’s sister school.
· Providing additional library books and leveled books,
reference resources, library furniture and additional technology tools (i.e.
wireless laptop computers and flat screen monitors) to facilitate the
collaborative teaching model between classroom teachers and the teacher librarian
and to provide additional resources for the Spanish and community programs.
I’m super excited about the opportunities
this grant provides the Steele community and so appreciative of the Russell
Grinnell Memorial Trust for their continued financial support. By the way, I’m always looking for book
recommendations. Feel free to email me a
book author or title or better yet bring by the book
Help!
In order to facilitate a teaching model in the library, I need parents
to support students checking in/out books and to shelve books. If you can commit 1‑2 hours a week,
please let me know or contact Tina Horwitch, PTA Volunteer Coordinator.
Parents can also check books out of the
library. See Mr. Herr for an account
number.
Parent Connection: Parents can access data about their children
concerning: contact information, attendance, transcripts, grades, and
more. Please see Mr. Herr for login
information.
The school calendar is a great place to
find out what’s going on at Steele. It
can be found at: www.d11.org/steele. Click on the Calendar icon.
Mike Herr-Teacher Librarian
herrma@d11.org
328-4724
Music Notes
I
would like to thank the Steele Star Band students and the Steele General Music
students for an excellent start to the school year in music! We have been reviewing our reading, writing
and playing skills as well as learning a new version of our school's song,
"We Go For the Gold". We will
be performing our song at the annual Track and Field Day this Thursday, Sept.
27th at 8:30 am at Colorado
College's stadium. We have melody, harmony and solo/descant
sections performing and it sounds glorious! We hope to see you there!
The
following is information discussed at the first Steele Stars Band Parent
Meeting which was held Sept. 10:
*Students should be practicing a minimum
of 15 min. 5 times a week for 4th grade beginners and a minimum of 30 minutes 5
times a week for 5th grade intermediate musicians. I'm not seeing as much progress as we should
be making so I know we need to improve our practicing habits. We will begin using a practice card each week
beginning Tues., October 2nd
for record keeping which will need to be signed off each time your child
presents it to you for verification that you heard them practice the required
time. Points will be given each week
towards their quarterly grade.
*The Band will be presenting to
performances at Steele; one in December and one in early May. Dates will be decided soon and information
will follow. Attendance at the school
performances is required, and their performance will be graded. No student can be replaced at the last moment
so please help make sure your child attends and performs well.
*Discussion was held regarding creating
a uniform for our Steele Star Band Students. The general consensus that night was to look
the best we can suggesting we wear black pants, a white button up shirt (tucked
in), a cummerbund and matching bow tie; or, black pants, a white button up
shirt (tucked in), a fun music tie all with black shoes and dark socks or hose.
Another informal suggestion was black
pants with a polo shirt with a music logo. I will send a flyer home and you can vote. We'll go with the majority and I'll need a parent
to volunteer organizing the uniform ordering, payments, and distribution.
*District 11 offers a Band festival
performance at the high school we feed into. The other elementary and middle schools that
feed into the high school would also perform.
The concert is usually in the spring and I will send more information as
I receive it from the high school band director. This performance allows students and parents
a chance to see how a musician progresses and what the upper levels offer in
music.
*Any Steele Star Band member who would
like to perform at a Solo/Ensemble Festival in March at Wasson High School may
do so when they pay the entry fee, select a piece to polish and then rehearse
with me, before or after school, to prepare for the competition. CHSAA provides ratings of I (Superior Performance) and II (Excellent
Performance) with a very nice ribbon and medal to each child who earns either
rating. My suggestion is Steele E.S.
helps pay for the cost of the medals or we fund raise to pay for them. More discussion will be held on this topic at
our next Band parent meeting (date to be decided).
*The deadline for turning in Band
membership permission slips, instrument loan agreement forms and the district
band fee is Oct. 8, 2007. I will be calling families of any student who
has not turned everything in by Tues., Oct. 2nd. Thank you to everyone who has taken care of
these items already.
*The last item is an interesting request
- I would like to know if there are any family musicians of our Steele Star
Band Members who would be willing to fill in on any instrument part we need for
our concerts. The music would be given
in advance to any family member willing to practice and perform with us. The 5th grade intermediate band needs more
Flutes, Oboes, Trumpets, Trombones, and Percussion. If you are willing to help fill in the
instrumentation, please call me at 328-4755 (my voice mail is working now!) and
let me know you're volunteering. I think
it would be a fun way to enjoy making art come alive with family and friends at
the Steele Band Concerts! I will hold
one evening rehearsal so that we all can practice before the concerts.
I
will be offering an after school choir for any interested 3rd, 4th,
or 5th grade students who would like to learn choral literature and
perform at Steele and in our community. Consistent
attendance and quality work during rehearsals are extremely important to the success
of this performing group. The choir will
be singing in two and three part harmony and opportunities will occur for anyone
interested in solo work. The Steele
Rising Stars Choir will hold rehearsals every Thursday beginning Oct. 4th, in the music room
from 2:45-3:45 pm. There will be two
school performances - one in December and one in May as well as performances
within the community. I look forward to
any 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade student joining our
Rising Stars Choir. If your child is
interested, please have them attend our first meeting on Oct. 4th, and more information will be sent
home. Once I know who the members of our
choir are, I will hold a parent meeting and we can discuss a uniform look and
goals for the year. This should be a fun
and rewarding experience!
Coming in November:
November 1: Choice
Permit Window Opens
November 4: Daylight
Saving Time Ends
November 5: Health
Screening
November 6: Election
Day – PTA Bake Sale
November 9: Kindergarten Field Trip – 9:30
November 12: Veterans’ Day Observed – No School November
14: Health Re-Screening
November 14: PTA
Meeting – 2:45 pm
November 15: Skate City
– 6-8 pm
November 20: BAAC
– 2:45 pm
November 21-23 Thanksgiving
Break – No School
