The Weekly Roar

Hello River Bend Families!

We rocked this week with our first staff meeting where staff learned about our new Social Emotional Learning Survey called Panorama. These surveys will provide us with trend data so we know where our strengths are and what growth areas we have for our students well-being and school climate. Dr. Schulte led our first student advisory team meeting. We also held our first round of data team meetings. These are grade level meetings where we look at NWEA data and set goals for our tier one instruction. Tier 1 instruction is what all students receive. We then address needs of remediation and acceleration through our multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS).

During our data team meetings, we had rich discussion around some skills on which students are not performing favorably. In years' past, we have focused on writing, but more on content, craft, and elaboration. What we've come to recognize is that students are not strong in grammar and mechanics. We are hitting that hard now: Spelling, Capitalization, Punctuation, Etc. Please don't be alarmed if you notice your child is receiving lower scores on end of unit assessments in writing because of those grammatical and mechanical errors. We are working on it!

I want to give a shout out to PTO for all of their excitement and promotion of the Read-a-thon and helping us out with picture day.

Attendance is a crucial component for student success. The state criteria is that we have 90% of students at school 90% of the time. In the upcoming week I will be sending letters home with students who are falling below the desired threshold. Please know that I recognize some students have had circumstances which have prevented them from being at school. It is the district's new practice that principals communicate with families about their attendance. I just wanted to give you a heads up about it.

NWEA Family Reports are going to be available for viewing on Tuesday, October 1st. You will receive an email from "Parkway Assessment." In that email you will find instructions on how to access your child's information.

Lastly, you will see a new flier below regarding our River Bend tradition of hosting Veterans for a very special morning of honor, appreciation, songs, and more. We want to get a preliminary number so we can adequately and safely plan our celebration and assembly. If you could take just a brief moment to let us know if your family will have a Veteran and guest attend on Friday, November 8th we would appreciate it! River Bend Veteran's Day Attendance Planning

That's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Each child as my own,

Jaime

Mrs. Saravia-Rojas is new to River Bend this year and a wonderful addition to our kindergarten team and asset to our school community. She has graciously offered to share about her culture and childhood. Check it out!

My family is from Nicaragua and I lived there in my childhood for a few years before moving to the United States. One of the holidays we celebrated each year was called La Purisima.

La Purisima is a traditional religious holiday celebrated in Nicaragua on December 7th each year! It’s a holiday whose focus is on giving back and receiving gifts. Similar to trick-or-treating, children go house to house and ask “what is the cause of so much joy?” The home owner responds by saying “The conception of Mary” and gives a gift, food or candy to the kids.

There is also a large focus on giving back to the less fortunate during this holiday celebration. December 7th is one of the only days in the year that everyone has off from work, including nannies, house cleaners and other jobs that typically live in the home and work 24/7!

The featured photo is me in a traditional Nicaraguan dress!

We respect the views, values, and cultures of each child at River Bend. Some of our students

and families will celebrate Rosh Hashanah this weekend. It is the Jewish New Year. Rosh

Hashanah is translated from Hebrew to mean the “head” of the year. It’s commemorated with

special prayers, foods, gatherings and more. Some Jewish people eat apples and honey

together to represent a sweet new year. People may also eat challah, a braided bread, in a

round loaf to represent a cycle of the year.

Monday, October 7th (6:30 PM) - PTO Meeting

Tuesday, October 8th - Raising Canes PTO Fundraiser Night

Wednesday, October 9th (7:00 PM) - Parkway Board of Education Meeting

Thursday, October 10th - Early Release Day, 2:00 PM Dismissal

Friday, October 11th - Monday, October 14th -- FALL BREAK

Flu Clinic for Students

When: October 25, 2024

Time: 9-11 am

Return form with copy of insurance card to the nurse.

To ensure each student a safe and rigorous learning environment where they feel a sense of belonging, and can grow and lead with a global lens of kindness, responsibility, integrity, and empathy.

Website: https://www.parkwayschools.net/riverbend
Location: 224 River Valley Drive, Chesterfield, MO, USA
Phone: (314)-415-6650
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RiverBendParkway