Principal of Barack Obama Elementary School

February 1, 2025

Greetings Obama family!

Next month is Read Across America week. Read Across America Week is celebrated from March 2 to 6 — it begins on the birthday of the author, Dr. Seuss. The entire month of March, in fact, is dedicated to reading. The National Education Association (N.E.A.) aims to encourage reading and educate people about its benefits, especially among children and young adults. As we prepare for Read Across America, here are some tips.

Parent Reading Tips:

• Read aloud- Reading aloud helps children bring words to life. You can also have your children read to you.

• Practice Fluency- Have your child practice reading the same lists of words, phrases, or short passages several times.

• Promote positive attitudes- Encourage your child to have positive attitudes about reading and writing.

Please make sure that your contact information is up to date. You can do this by completing Final Forms. Make sure to sign digitally at the end to submit.

https://mapleheights-oh.finalforms.com/

Dismissal: To ensure a safe and efficient dismissal process, please follow these procedures: Car Riders: All car riders must be picked up in the back shared loop. Students should enter and exit cars on the curbside for safety reasons. Also, please be mindful of your speed when using the passing lane.

Buses & Day Care Providers: Buses and daycare providers will use the front loop in front of the building. This helps maintain a smooth transition and keeps buses on schedule. Students cross the parking lot to board their vans, and unauthorized cars in the bus loop create a potential safety hazard. To prevent incidents, please avoid using the front loop for car rider pick up.

Staff & Security: School staff and security personnel will be present to direct traffic and ensure students get to their designated pick up areas safely.

Visitors & Guests: We would like to welcome you to Barack Obama Elementary school. The procedures for our guests and visitors to the building are to arrive at the main entrance of the building (Glenwood Ave.), visitors will press the buzzer to gain entrance into the main office. Guests/visitors who visit classrooms or provide services will have their IDs scanned to create a visitors pass. All of this is to ensure the safety of our students and staff. As a reminder, photo IDs are required when signing students out for the day before 2:45 p.m.

Meetings: We understand that your time is valuable, to ensure that we are able to meet your family’s needs, schedule a meeting with Dr. Hughley (Principal) or Mrs. McCrystal (Assistant Principal) 24 hours in advance. We will make every effort to meet and/or return calls between 24 to 48 hours.

School Counselor

Americans have recognized black history annually since 1926, first as “Negro History Week” and later as “Black History Month.” Black history had barely begun to be studied-or even documented-when the tradition originated. Although Blacks have been in America at least as far back as colonial times, it was not until the 20th century that they gained a respectable presence in the history books.

We owe the celebration of Black History Month, and more importantly, the study of black history, to Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Born to parents who were former slaves, he spent his childhood in the Kentucky coal mines and enrolled in high school at age twenty. He graduated within two years and later went on to earn a Ph.D from Harvard. He was disturbed to find that history books largely ignored the black American population –and when blacks were mentioned, it was generally in ways that reflected the social position they were assigned at the time.

Woodson decided to take on the challenge of writing black Americans into the nation’s history. He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History) in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History. In 1926, he launched Negro History Week as an initiative to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history.

Woodson chose the second week of February for Negro History Week because it marks the birthdays of two men who greatly influenced the black American population, Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

Copied from: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs144p2_024376.pdf

INFORMATION STATION

OhioKan Kinship & Adoption Navigator

If you are parents that have adopted a child or if you are a grandparent or someone that has guardianship of a relative’s child, there may be resources available to assist through organizations that are not income-based. OhioKan can direct you to such resources and help walk you through the paperwork. You may reach a representative at 1-844-OHIO-KAN.

Military Families

If you are a military family please let us know. We would like to help you access available resources as well. We also thank you for your sacrifice as a family to serve our country.

Barack Obama’s Parent Advisory Group (BOPAG)

Parents interested in participating as part of Barack Obama’s Parent Advisory Group (BOPAG), the next meeting will be held Monday February 24th, 5:30 PM in Obama’s cafeteria. Please come in through the Dunham Road parking lot entrance. As part of BOPAG, you will represent parents of Obama as we all strive to create a safe environment that is both nurturing and respectful in which all students have the ability to be productive members of society.

Hello Obama Parents,

Our winter fundraiser is fast approaching. Obama students will be selling Mrs. Fields Cookies beginning February 3, 2025 through February 25, 2025. Order forms will be sent home with the students on Monday the 3rd at the end of the day.

Assistant Principal

Student Wellness Coordinator

CASEL and SEL at Obama

CASEL is an organization that works to bring high quality standards to social and emotional learning. The organization has identified 5 major focuses of SEL instruction: self-management, responsible decision making, relationship skills, social-awareness, and self-awareness. Many of the activities and lessons that students receive include many of these focuses in one lesson.

Self-Management

Self-management, often referred to as "self-control" or "self-regulation," is the ability to effectively regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in various situations. Students may learn about this by learning, practicing, and using stress-management and calm down strategies. Self-awareness also focuses on organizational skills, goal setting, self-motivation.

Additional Resources:

Some easy ways to build self-management skills include practicing coping strategies, discussing pros and cons when problem solving, organizing goals, and using positive self talk to encourage yourself when things get hard!

If you’d like to know more about the work that the Wellness & PBIS team and its partners are doing, you can check out our website here. You will find information and details about all the wellness initiatives occurring both at the district level and here at Barack Obama Elementary! If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me (juliana.wilder@mapleschools.com)!

Student Support Coordinator