Panda Nation News

Wow! The month of September flew by and we are so proud of how beautifully our PAWSitively Amazing students have started this new school year! Students renewed friendships, made new friends, and welcomed over 100 new students to Panda Nation.

October promises to be a busy month filled with engaging learning activities, amazing field trips, and exciting events, so be sure to review our Important October Dates listed below & join us as we continue to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month!

Our Wellness theme for the month of October is Unity. Panda Nation embraces Inclusivity and Unity EVERY day, and this month allows us to deepen our focus and join hands with schools around the country to make sure every child and adult in our school feels like they belong and are important! Be sure to check out all we're doing to make our school and the world kinder and more inclusive!

• October is National Bullying Prevention month
• October 18th is Unity Day & we have LOTS of exciting things planned!

Panda Love to all!🐼❤

Mrs. Schou, Principal

Mr. Engel-Cope, Assistant Principal

Ms. Melissa Bean, Academic Dean

"UNITY. It starts with you. If not you, then who?"

Congratulations to all our PAWSitively Amazing Artists for having their works chosen to display at the St. Mary's County Fair! Bravo to everyone!!

Lexington Park Elementary is a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) School.Throughout these first weeks of school, our staff is teaching, modeling, and providing opportunities for our students to practice and bring their Panda MAGIC every day in all settings throughout our school. The poster below illustrates our five expectations.

To better support Panda Nation in building stronger and deeper connections throughout our school, we've established five cross grade level house teams. Our five house teams bring scholars and staff Pre-K to 5th grade together to create connections and build community. Last week each grade level came together to randomly divide students amongst the five houses. Everyone had a delightful time. See the pictures below and be sure to ask your child about their House Team!

Scholars earn points for their house each day they come to school, demonstrate positive behaviors, exhibit good work habits, work hard, show academic growth, and be a good friend- just to name a few. Houses will earn quarterly recognitions and celebrate each other's accomplishments!

Stay tuned to learn more about our School-wide Expectations & our House Teams!

We are committed to partnering with you to make sure the sky is limit for our Panda Nation scholars! Our Family Engagement Plan outlines how we will do that, and our Family Engagement Calendar lets all of us know when we will come together to make our plan come alive. Please take a few minutes to review both the plan & the calendar!

Our Home/School Compact in both English & Spanish outlines our commitment to ensuring student success. Hopefully you received and signed a copy at the August 21st Open House & September 28th Back to School Night, but if you didn't get on yet, don't worry, your child's teacher will have one for you at the Family/Teacher Conferences on October 10th.

Thank you for working together with us to make this a PAWSitively Amazing Year!

• Oct 1st: AUP Due for ALL students
• Oct. 9: Virtual Instruction-2 hr. Early Dismissal-Parent/Teacher Conferences
• Oct. 12: 4:30: Reading & PBIS Night
• Oct. 20: 2 hr. Early Dismissal
• Oct. 27: 2 hr. Early Dismissal-End of First Marking Period
• Oct. 31: 9:00: PreK-5 Fall Festival Costume Parade
• Oct. 31: 4:30: LPES Trunk or Treat Activity in our Bus Lot

Please update your contact information with the office. It is critical that we have the most recent information for contacting our families.

UPDATE MY INFORMATION

Volunteers are an essential component to our Panda Nation students' success!

Please apply and remember that volunteers must apply annually for approval.

To help you navigate all the new elements of the school year and keep you informed about upcoming programs & events, we will communicate information frequently and in several ways. They are listed below for your reference.

• Weekly Phone/Email & Schoology Message: At 6:00 on Sunday you will receive a phone message & email from us sharing information about the upcoming week.
• Class DoJo: Very soon your child’s teacher will invite you to join Class DoJo. We use this platform because it is secure/members only and allows us to share a wide variety of information with you. Please join our DoJo family!
• Our LPES Website and Twitter feed: The LPES website has a wide variety of information for you and is updated regularly. We love to share all the wonderful things our students & teachers are doing, so we tweet just about every day. Follow us on Twitter @lpes_smcps
• Technology Needs: if you are new to the school or need a device from SMCPS please complete the survey here.

Email: raschou@smcps.org
Website: https://schools.smcps.org/lpes/
Phone: (301)863-4085
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smcps.org/posts/971720426301468
Twitter: @lpes_smcps