OUR GRAY HAWK FAMILY works together to help students feel safe, loved, and inspired so they can be empowered learners and engaged citizens.

• Please register your students for the Fall of 2022! Go to your Skyward Family account and go to the Returning Student/Family Enrollment tab to register. Please check to make sure all information is correct. We appreciate you doing this as soon as possible so we can make plans for next year.

• Statements are being sent home today for those that have outstanding balances. Please check with your student for these envelopes. You may also login to your Skyward Family account and check your balance. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the GHES office. Thank you!

MAP testing started this week and will continue through next week. Please do your best to not schedule any outside appointments around these testing times. Please check out the schedule below.

OUR First Annual Field Day is scheduled for Friday May 13 and we would love to have parent volunteers to help with a variety of things. Field Day for K-2 will be in the morning while 3-5 will be in the afternoon. Please check out the available slots on the Sign Up Genius and volunteer where you can. Thank you! The Rain Date is May 20.

Thursday, May 19 will be a special evening at Gray Hawk! Families are invited to Gray Hawk for an evening of fun and community togetherness. We will have games set up to play and different activities around the school for all to enjoy. This event is FREE for all families.

We will be selling drinks and food with the proceeds going towards purchasing a gaga ball pit for OUR playground next year. Additionally, we have had a family donate a dunk tank. People will have the chance to dunk staff members for $1 for 2 chances. Again, the money raised from the dunk tank will also go towards OUR gaga pit.

We could really use some help! If you are available to help, please sign up at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4FAFA92BA3F4CF8-summer There are a few different options to help make this event a rousing success!

Be there to celebrate UNITY in the COMMUNITY!

OUR PTO is planning a week of celebration for OUR ENTIRE STAFF May 2 - May 6. There are still some items that PTO is asking for to complete this celebration. Please check out the link below if you would like to contribute.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4eaaac2aa5fdc07-staff

This week we are focusing on Native American stories that we have purchased using funds from OUR BLEF grant.

Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker’s Story by Joseph Bruchac

“As a young Navajo boy, Chester Nez had to leave the reservation and attend boarding school, where he was taught that his native language and culture were useless. But Chester refused to give up his heritage. Years later, during World War II, Chester―and other Navajo men like him―was recruited by the US Marines to use the Navajo language to create an unbreakable military code. Suddenly the language he had been told to forget was needed to fight a war.” Amazon

Each week we will provide clues to the identity of someone from throughout history that has made an important impact on our world. We provide these clues each morning and then reveal the person to OUR GRAY HAWKS on Friday morning with a brief video. Here are the clues from this past week.

I was born on December 25, 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts. My father was a farmer and my mother taught me that all people should be treated equally. I was the youngest of five children.

When I was 11 years old, my brother David fell off the roof of a barn and became very sick. I spent the next two years taking care of him. Doctors thought he was not going to survive the fall, but with my help he survived. This was where I learned that I had a passion for taking care of others.

When I was 17 years old, I started working as a teacher. When they hired me to teacher, they were going to pay me less than men teachers. I said that I would not work the same job as a man and get paid less money. Eventually they paid me the same as the men. I soon started working to open a free public school and soon had over 600 students.

During the Civil War, I found out that soldiers did not really have what they needed to take care of their wounds. I traveled from battle to battle doing everything I could to nurse the soldiers back to health, just like I did when my brother fell off the roof. I became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield”. I even was friends with President Abraham Lincoln.

I created the American Red Cross on May 21, 1881. Since that time, the American Red Cross has helped people recover from all sorts of disasters. I died April 12, 1912 in Maryland.

On Thursday evening, Mrs. Penfield hosted a Kindergarten "Inform-ance" event where OUR Kindergarten families could come in and see what it was like to experience music class. There were multiple stations and it was a huge success. It really reminded me of the important role that music plays in cognitive development of our students as well as increasing the social and emotional skills needed to be amazing! Check out this article from Edutopia.

Email: dspringer@usd458.org
Website: http://ghes.usd458.org/
Location: 16000 Garden Parkway, Basehor, KS, USA
Phone: (913) 662-7170
Twitter: @drspringer12301