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News and events
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April 7, 2023
A message from the principal
Oxbow Creek Families,
This month, we are focusing on the character trait: COURAGE. Courage is defined as choosing what is helpful, right and kind - even when it's hard or scary. We have all shown courage in our lives. Showing courage takes practice and should be encouraged. Who have you seen demonstrate courage and how? How did it inspire you? Share these stories with your children and highlight opportunities they have to show courage. How do you see your child(ren) showing courage at home? How can you encourage your child(ren) to show courage?
Practice using these prompts: How have you shown courage today? I show courage when I ______.
Highlighting how courage has impacted you and others in your life can be very powerful and help students to show courage during a scary time.
Missy Monson - Oxbow Creek Principal
Items to Note
- If your child's "going home" plans change this spring, please notify the office. If they typically ride the bus home, and now will walk or bike, we need to know about it. Also, all bikers need to wear helmets.
- We are committed to helping families in need of assistance with food, clothing, household items and some basic services. Please contact Oxbow Creek's Social Workers if your family is in need. All communication is confidential.
Ann Parisian (Grades 1, 4, 5) 763-506-3825 or ann.parisian@ahschools.us
Gina Newlander (Grades K, 2, 3) 763-506-8384 or gina.newlander@ahschools.us
- We will have yearbooks this year, please stay tuned.
Calendar Updates
- Friday April 7th, No School - Staff Development
- Thursday April 13th, Kindergarten Welcome Night, A-K at 5PM, L-Z at 6PM
- Friday April14th, Wear a Number! - Marvelous Math Month!
- Online Silent Auction - April 23-27
- Thursday April 27th - Family Fun Night!
Upcoming events
Online Silent Auction to Benefit Oxbow Creek:
April 23-27
Our PTO will host an online Silent Auction beginning Sunday, April 23 thru Thursday, April 27. All silent auction proceeds will benefit student learning opportunities here at Oxbow Creek, including field trip subsidies, grade level lyceums, playground structure improvements and teacher mini grants.
We would love to highlight your family-owned business in our silent auction! Contact our silent auction coordinator, Mara, at mlniedermayer@gmail.com or 651-431-0195 to make a donation.
You can preview the silent auction at https://www.32auctions.com/oxbowcreekelementary beginning the week of April 10. New items will be added daily. If you would like to participate and bid on items in the auction, create a user account on the auction website. Bidding will open on Sunday, April 23 at 6:00pm and close on Thursday, April 27 at 8:15pm!
Marvelous Math Month
In April we will be celebrating Marvelous Math Month with weekly estimation challenges. Ask your child about Shadow's Estimation Challenge during the month of April!
Student Placement
Student Placement for Next Year
One of the biggest challenges we face each year is creating next year's class lists. Our goal, as always, is to create balanced lists that work well for all -- teachers, students, and parents. The bad news is -- it's extremely difficult to do this when you consider everything that can influence a classroom’s make-up and you’re dealing with almost 1100 students! The good news, though, is we have an excellent staff who know your kids well, and every year, we seem to come up with classrooms that work well for the vast majority of kids and families.
We will continue to use our electronic program to create class lists this year. The system is very thorough and will use multiple pieces of information to place children into classrooms for next fall. All of our teachers, including those who teach our specialist subjects, will be providing information within this system. If you feel strongly that you have information that we should know about your child that we might not already know, you are welcome to share that with us. We are collecting that information online, so please send an email to kristin.schommer@ahschools.us if you’d like to request the link. We are not allowing teacher requests unless you have previous experience with an older child and want to continue that positive relationship. Any information that comes in after May 1st most likely will not be able to be considered, as class lists will have been preliminarily formed.
Health Services
FYI: Just a friendly reminder, if your student borrows clothes from the health office, please be sure they are washed and returned back to the health office. Thank you.
Volunteer news
If you haven’t already, please fill out these forms to join our team of volunteers at Oxbow: Volunteer application and Background Check Form.
Filling out these forms is the best way to hear about all the fun ways to volunteer at school! Fill out your volunteer forms before signing up for any of the volunteer opportunities listed below.
Volunteer Hours to date:
Volunteer Opportunities
National Volunteer Appreciation Week is April 16-23! I’m not sure we can say enough how much we love and appreciate all of our volunteers at Oxbow Creek! If you volunteer one hour or 50, please know we appreciate every minute you spend supporting our students, staff and Oxbow families. Oxbow is a great place and our volunteers are a large part of that! We’ll have fun treats in our office and giveaways throughout this week. Anyone that has volunteered this year will have their name entered into a drawing for prizes. This weeklong celebration will take the place of our volunteer appreciation breakfast that was scheduled for May 19th. Thank you volunteers!
Field Trips: We have a number of upcoming field trips. If you’re interested in helping chaperone, you need to fill out your volunteer application and background check online forms as soon as possible. Teachers will share information for those grades that have field trips. Email Haley.Belongia@ahschools.us if you have any questions about your forms!
Family Fun Night: Family Fun Night is right around the corner on Friday, April 22nd. Join us for Silent Auction Prep, or volunteer the night of the event: Family Fun Night 4/27/23
Art Hanging: Our annual Art of Spring event is coming up quickly! Volunteers are needed to hang art in the hallways as well as help support our art teachers the night of the event. Please sign up here: Art of Spring
Music Ushers: On Thursday, May 4th our 4th graders will have their music program. We will need volunteers to help usher, look for a sign up soon!
Yearbook: Please share photos you have taken with the yearbook staff! Email them to oxbowyearbook@gmail.com. Include any information available such as grade, classroom and event.
Bookfair: Thank you to our book fair volunteers for all your hard work this year. This event takes a lot of planning and a lot of hours to cover the fair while it’s open! Our amazing volunteers logged 216.5 hours on this event this year, helping our school receive over $7000 in books! Amazing!
Arts & Academics Expo: The Expo was a great success this year - thanks to all the help from our volunteers! Collectively, Expo volunteers put in 152 hours this year! THANK YOU!
Haley Belongia
Volunteer Services Coordinator
Oxbow Creek Elementary
763-506-3830
This e-newsletter is published by Oxbow Creek Elementary School. Questions, comments or concerns about the school e-newsletter? Contact us.