Upcoming Events
April 1: Yearbook Form Due
April 2: PTO Meeting at 5:00 p.m. in the Library
April 4: Summer School Registration begins at 4:00 p.m.
April 18: School in Session (was previously a day off)
April 19: No School
April 22: No School
April 2: PTO Meeting at 5:00 p.m. in the Library
April 4: Summer School Registration begins at 4:00 p.m.
April 18: School in Session (was previously a day off)
April 19: No School
April 22: No School
A Message from the Principal
I can’t believe we are in April already! This first year has flown by and I have seen great moments throughout this school year. We are blessed to have a phenomenal staff from top to bottom and I can’t wait to go to work every single day for your students. We are at the point in our year where standardized testing takes place and this brings up many feelings from educators and parents alike about the pros and cons of this form of assessment. While there are drawbacks to testing too often, there are also many benefits which include that standardized testing:
Many people feel that testing is too stressful to students and that the stakes are too high for students in third and fourth grade. To combat this issue at Rexford/Longfellow, we have incorporated test-specific prep that lowers stress in students by increasing confidence for exams. We also have students complete practice exams so they see the exact format of questions that will be presented on the assessment.
Accommodations and supports provided by the great staff of Rexford/Longfellow are intended to reduce or eliminate the effects of a student’s disability or level of language acquisition; they do not reduce learning expectations. Some of the many accommodations that we provide for our students include text to speech, separate small group settings and translator/interpreters.
Our goals in this preparation and the support that we give our staff and students is to improve scores, reduce teacher and student stress, increase student confidence and provide teacher training on the relevance of the data gathered by these assessment.
Standardized testing will not be given in vain. We at Rexford/Longfellow will use this knowledge gained from these mandated assessments to make data-informed decisions about the education that we are providing to your students. This will allow us to make decisions that are truly going to affect the learning of students in a positive manner.
Tom Burkhalter
Rexford/Longfellow Principal
- objectively compares student skill levels across schools
- is paired with standards to ensure mastery of grade-appropriate material
- can serve as motivation for students
- data drives instruction
- helps schools close achievement gaps
Many people feel that testing is too stressful to students and that the stakes are too high for students in third and fourth grade. To combat this issue at Rexford/Longfellow, we have incorporated test-specific prep that lowers stress in students by increasing confidence for exams. We also have students complete practice exams so they see the exact format of questions that will be presented on the assessment.
Accommodations and supports provided by the great staff of Rexford/Longfellow are intended to reduce or eliminate the effects of a student’s disability or level of language acquisition; they do not reduce learning expectations. Some of the many accommodations that we provide for our students include text to speech, separate small group settings and translator/interpreters.
Our goals in this preparation and the support that we give our staff and students is to improve scores, reduce teacher and student stress, increase student confidence and provide teacher training on the relevance of the data gathered by these assessment.
Standardized testing will not be given in vain. We at Rexford/Longfellow will use this knowledge gained from these mandated assessments to make data-informed decisions about the education that we are providing to your students. This will allow us to make decisions that are truly going to affect the learning of students in a positive manner.
Tom Burkhalter
Rexford/Longfellow Principal
Quarter 3 Celebration
We celebrated the end of the 3rd quarter with a "luau" for the students. There were decorations, leis, and even a DJ to play music for the kids to dance to. It was a great time, for both students and staff!
PTO News
We just wanted to take this opportunity to share what transpired at the March PTO (Parent/Teacher Organization) Meeting earlier this month. We were overjoyed to learn that we finally received an official EIN number and were able to get a bank account officially set up. We have approximately $500 in the account due to carryover from the Snowman Soup project as well as from the last Box Top collection. The remainder of the meeting was spent planning for the STEAM Family Night and what kind of activity we would run that would both foster engineering skills while also bringing families together. We opted to move ahead with the cup stacking challenge because we felt it did just that!
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 2nd beginning at 5:00 p.m. in the Rexford/Longfellow Library. THe main topics of discussion will be Teacher Appreciation Week and the End of the Year Picnic. Childcare will be available once again so feel free to bring your children along. Hope to see you there!
The PTO Leadership Council
Jodie Kautz, Ryan Joren, Drew Lundt, Sonya Parks, and Amy Zempel
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 2nd beginning at 5:00 p.m. in the Rexford/Longfellow Library. THe main topics of discussion will be Teacher Appreciation Week and the End of the Year Picnic. Childcare will be available once again so feel free to bring your children along. Hope to see you there!
The PTO Leadership Council
Jodie Kautz, Ryan Joren, Drew Lundt, Sonya Parks, and Amy Zempel
STEAM Family Night
We hosted our first Family Night for all Rexford/Longfellow families on March 14th from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. There were math games, projects on display, demonstrations, and cookies homemade by our very own food service staff. Thank you to everyone who was able to attend. If you have any feedback you would like to provide or have ideas on how we could make these nights even better, please feel free to reach out to Associate Principal, Vanessa Moran, at [email protected].
Collection Help Needed
We are continuing to collect Box Tops for Education, Econo receipts, bag strips, and Our Family UPC symbols. If your student(s) bring in a sandwich bag full of any combination of the above, their name(s) get put into a drawing that will happen in May. Please write the name(s) of the student(s) and grade level on the bag. If you have more than one student, you can put each of their names on the bag so they are all entered into the drawing.
The winners from the last drawing received a Friday snack "punch card" with 10 punches, each one good for a free snack on Friday. It is so sweet how so many of these students have shared their winnings with their siblings or peers, often at times using a punch to get them a snack, too. |
School Office News
Please make note that any items left in the Lost and Found at the end of the school year will be donated, so be sure to stop and by and check it out if your child is missing anything. Students are regularly encouraged to look for items they are missing there, but their efforts aren't always successful. There is everything from hats and gloves, to snow pants, boots, shoes, lunch boxes, water bottles, and more!
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The Trucker Way Minute
Pictured below are all the students who were nominated last month for the "Terrific Trucker" award. Each month, all students who are nominated are recognized at our monthly assembly, with one student from each grade level randomly chosen to take a ride on fire truck around town.
We are so proud of each one of these students for their positive contribution to our school community!
We are so proud of each one of these students for their positive contribution to our school community!
Helpful Tips from the Health Office: Media Exposure
In February’s health article we discussed different media ratings, what the ratings mean and how parents can use this information to ensure their child is viewing appropriate content. Today’s children experience screen violence on many different platforms, increasingly media researchers and pediatricians refer to children’s “media diets” as a way of monitoring the amount and type of media that is consumed (Christakis, 2016). The American Academy of Pediatrics cites American children between 2 and 18 years of age spend an average of 6 hours and 32 minutes each day using media (television, commercial or self-recorded video, movies, video games, print, radio, recorded music, computer and the Internet). This is more time than they spend on any other activity with the exception of sleeping (Committee on Public Education, 2001). With multiple ways available for children to view media there are more opportunities for media to have access and time to shape a young person’s attitude and actions than do parents or teachers. Media might replace these important people in your child’s environment and become the educator, role model and a primary source of information about the world and how one behaves in it (Committee on Public Education, 2001).
With high exposure time to media, parents may be wondering how can media really influence my child’s behavior in a negative way. Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares and fear of being harmed (Committee on Public Education, 2001). Children learn by observing, imitating and making behaviors their own. Aggressive attitudes and behaviors are learned by imitating observed models and research shows that the strongest single correlation with violent behavior is previous exposure to violence. Media creators are developing ways to target both young and old into viewing violent, negative programs.
Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is a downloadable survival horror video game that has gained popularity over the past few years. It’s not particularly bloody or gross but FNAF has been engineered to scare the living daylights out of players and was specifically designed to engage a young audience (Dingman, 2018). The toy making industry has brought more attention and draw to their targeted young audience by making and selling FNAF character merchandise. Todd McFarlane of McFarlane Toys talks about the creators behind FNAF and how their product has become so successful, “He brought all the stuff that you and I would call scary and creepy and horror and put it in a format that was palatable to parents. It’s not Freddy Kreuger, it’s these cute little fuzzies.” (Dingman, 2018).
Parents have the ability to monitor and control their child’s “media diet” just as they would monitor their child’s nutritional intake. Here are a few suggested steps from pediatrician, David Hill, MD, FAAP (Hill, 2016):
Resources:
With high exposure time to media, parents may be wondering how can media really influence my child’s behavior in a negative way. Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares and fear of being harmed (Committee on Public Education, 2001). Children learn by observing, imitating and making behaviors their own. Aggressive attitudes and behaviors are learned by imitating observed models and research shows that the strongest single correlation with violent behavior is previous exposure to violence. Media creators are developing ways to target both young and old into viewing violent, negative programs.
Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is a downloadable survival horror video game that has gained popularity over the past few years. It’s not particularly bloody or gross but FNAF has been engineered to scare the living daylights out of players and was specifically designed to engage a young audience (Dingman, 2018). The toy making industry has brought more attention and draw to their targeted young audience by making and selling FNAF character merchandise. Todd McFarlane of McFarlane Toys talks about the creators behind FNAF and how their product has become so successful, “He brought all the stuff that you and I would call scary and creepy and horror and put it in a format that was palatable to parents. It’s not Freddy Kreuger, it’s these cute little fuzzies.” (Dingman, 2018).
Parents have the ability to monitor and control their child’s “media diet” just as they would monitor their child’s nutritional intake. Here are a few suggested steps from pediatrician, David Hill, MD, FAAP (Hill, 2016):
- For children under the age of 6 do your best to eliminate violent media content from their “media diet”. Even cartoon violence alters how they understand the world.
- Learn as much as you can about the media your children use. Refer to ratings and remember the “all my friends are allowed to watch it” remains the weakest argument in the kid book.
- Sit down and view or play with your children. You will gain a deeper understanding of a really important aspect of their lives, you’ll have the opportunity to offer an adult perspective on what they are seeing.
- Assess your children’s shows and games with an eye toward what they’re teaching.
- Feel empowered to restrict your children from playing games that reward shooting, killing, or harming other people. Video games are powerful teachers to children.
Resources:
- Christakis, Dimitri. (2016). Virtual Violence. American Academy of Pediatrics, 138(1), DOI: 10.1542/peds.2016-1298
- Committee on Public Education. (2001). Media Violence. American Academy of Pediatrics, 108, 1222. DOI: 10.1542/peds.108.5.1222
- Dingman, Shane. (2018). The newest toy-video game sensation is a parent’s worst nightmare: How Five Nights at Freddy’s became a hit. Retrieved from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/article-the-newest-toy-video-game-sensation-is-a-parents-worst-nightmare-how
- Hill, David. (2016). How Virtual Violence Impacts Children’s Behavior: Steps for Parents. Retrieved from: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Media/Pages/Virtual-Violence-Impacts-Childrens-Behavior.aspx
News from Trucker U
This spring we will have the opportunity of having some furry visitors again. We plan on having our local 4H visit us to share about what they do and the opportunities they have in 4H. They will also be bringing a variety of animals they raise and even sometimes show at competitions and fairs. If your student has any allergies relating to animals, please call or send a note to make us aware. We look forward to having our friends from the 4H visit!
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Trucker U Important Dates
April 3: No Trucker U April 15 - 19: No Trucker U |
P.E. Happenings
If you haven't already, please take a moment to check out Mrs. Petermann's Physical Education newsletter. There is a plethora of great information contained there so please take a moment to check it out if you haven't already. These are also sent home on a monthly basis in hard copy format, so please watch for your child to come home with them.
Summer School Sign Up
Summer School will run from Monday, June 17 through Thursday, July 25, 2019 and will run Monday thru Thursday beginning at 8:30 a.m. and ending at 11:40 a.m. Free breakfast and lunch will be offered to anyone 18 and under, even if not registered for summer school. Breakfast begins at 7:50 a.m. and lunch begins at 11:30 a.m.
ONLINE registration begins on Thursday, April 4th at 4:00 p.m. and closes Thursday, April 11th at 4:00 p.m. - any registrations after that need to be done at Dellwood between 7:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. For more information, please visit the summer school website here |
Counselor's Corner
Daily routine charts are effective at teaching kids organizational skills. Chores and routines are also important for teaching responsibility. Here are a few I found online as well as links to some free printable charts:
https://www.pricelessparenting.com/chart-for-kids https://carrotsareorange.com/chore-charts/ https://www.organizedmom.net/12-free-printable-chore-charts-kids/ If you have any questions or if I can be of assistance in any way, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. Enjoy! Jennifer Bachman School Counselor |
April Lunch Menu
Swimming Lessons at the CHS Rec Center
Your Opinion Matters
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this newsletter. It is our hope that your found it helpful and informative. If you have any suggestions on how it can be improved or other types of information you would like to see included, please e-mail Associate Principal, Vanessa Moran, at [email protected] to let her know.
The feedback that has been shared so far has been overwhelmingly positive and is very much appreciated. Please continue to share your thoughts with Mrs. Moran so this can continue to be a resource for you and your family. |