Skokie Home Scoop
January 6, 2025
Dear Families:
Happy New Year! We hope you enjoyed a wonderful and restful break with your families. We are excited to be back and were happy to welcome your children into Skokie today. As we return, we will continue to check in on our school and classroom charters. Our charter represents feelings that were collaboratively identified by our students and staff as the feelings we want to experience at Skokie. As we build and sustain charters, we identify behaviors that lead us to experience these feelings.
Upcoming Dates
January 6th-24th: Winter Benchmark Testing
AimsWeb Math and Reading
January 15th: MAP Reading in the morning
January 16th: MAP Math in the morning
January 22nd: Student SSIS during morning advisory
January 20th: No School - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
February 14th: Valentine’s Day Parties in advisory classrooms from 2:30-3:30 pm
Cold Weather Process
We plan to go outside whenever possible for recess. That said, the weather is getting colder and we ask for families to partner with us to ensure students are prepared to go outside. Our ask is that you take a look at the weather in the morning and send students with the gear needed to head outside even in the colder weather. Below are resources we use as guidance for our district to determine if we are outside or staying inside for recess.
When is it too cold to go outside for recess?
Only in the event of very cold days will we not be going outside for recess. We closely monitor the temperature and if the “feels like” temperature is 10 degrees or colder we will plan for indoor recess. That said, if the day is sunny and students have winter gear we may head outside for a few minutes of fresh air. Please check with your teacher or administrator if you have questions.
How do we monitor the weather?
We will use the Weather Channel to monitor the weather. This gives us our “feels like” temperature.
We use the ISBE windchill guide for guidance.
Skokie and Washburne Families - Now that 2025 is here, it is time to save the date for our annual dance marathon benefiting Lurie Children’s Hospital! The event will take place on Friday, March 14th from 3:30-5:30. There are plenty of ways for parents to volunteer, so look out for information about that from the PTO. For now please save the date and encourage your child to start fundraising. If we raise funds at the rate we have been since 2019, we should easily pass $250,000 cumulatively raised! Yes, a quarter of a million dollars! Unbelievable!
This link provides information about how the money we raise helps LCH. LCH Ways to Help
PTO Contacts: Lauren Osborn and Melisa Twomey
Washburne Contacts: Rachel Hirsh, DeAnna SeLander, Tracy Silverman, and Melissa Yeoman
Skokie Contacts: Rachel Falender and Gina Wild
Here are many of our DM Student Steering Committee members!
Online Safety - Parent Program
We will be holding a parent program on Tuesday, February 11th at 6:30pm in the Skokie Auditorium on the topic of online safety and digital citizenship. During the school day, students at both Skokie and Washburne will have an assembly focusing on these issues, and there will be a program in the evening available for all parents in the district. Parents can learn more about our guest speaker, Ben Tracy, by clicking HERE. Please be on the lookout for more information in the coming weeks.
Exploring Skokie
6th Grade Spanish: As trimester two begins, 6th graders are honing their speaking and writing skills through a series of interactive warmups, descriptive conversations, and short interactions entirely in Spanish. They’ve finished their trimester 1 culminating story, El Empleado Malo (The Bad Employee,) which finds our main characters at a local coffee shop. During this story, students acted out scenes alongside el bebé malo (the bad baby), our protagonist from a previous class story who is a central character in this new story. Together the class provided details, acted, read, wrote an essay about, and illustrated some captions for the story. Our current story focuses on an apprehensive Andean pack animal that answers the question: Why did the llama cross the road? Students showed comprehension by “crossing” a road in various ways, including hopping, looking to the left, slowly, and flying.
Our classes are so unique and adopt research-backed methods of teaching that we sometimes have the opportunity to showcase our approach to language learning. The last few weeks we had some visiting teachers from Missouri, Mount Carmel High School, and a neighboring district. When teachers across the nation hear that in District 36, 11-year-olds engage in self-led reading and can comprehend stories entirely in Spanish, seeing is believing.
5th Grade Spanish: Fifth graders have found their stride, developing their ability to read and comprehend a written story of over 100 words! To get to this milestone, students engaged in our cumulative Trimester 1 story, Litterbug, about a man who litters on the beach and is shown the error of his ways by none other than Poseidon.
Students are very enthusiastic about our silent choice reading time in class called FVR (Free Voluntary Reading). This silent reading period allows the students to delve into our extensive library of level-appropriate books. Both Señora Pesa and Profe Rothwells have designed their reading nooks with comfortable chairs, plants galore, and shelves upon shelves of books.
Chess Enrichment Program Information: Sessions starting January 9th
Benchmark Assessments & Otus Access
Benchmark assessments are valuable tools that provide a snapshot of student progress at a point in time. These assessments help teachers to identify areas where students are excelling and where they may need additional support. They can also inform instructional decisions by providing data that can be used to tailor teaching to meet each student's unique needs and strengths. Benchmark assessments are an important component of progressive education, which recognizes that students learn in different ways and at different rates. By using benchmark assessments to inform instruction, teachers can provide a more individualized approach to learning that supports each student's academic growth and personal development.
Academic benchmark assessments for literacy and math will occur three times this year for students in grades K-8. The Winter Benchmark Assessments start on January 6th and conclude on January 24th. There are four platforms the district utilizes to gather student learning information; aimswebPlus, mCLASS, NWEA MAP, and SSIS. Benchmark data will be available in Otus beginning January 31, 2025. In order to allow for the data uploads to take place and to provide parents with consistent access to student data, please be aware that the Otus Parent Portal will be inaccessible January 6-January 30.
Building Data Team meetings to review the Winter Benchmarking data will occur February 3-14.
January Winnetka Parents Institute Schedule
The District offers regular sessions for families to learn more about a variety of topics. View the entire 2024/2025 schedule here.
Up Next:
Acceleration Applications Overview with Assistant Superintendent of Innovation, Teaching and Learning Dr. Becky Mathison
January 15, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Location: Carleton Washburne School RC
Attend this session to understand accelerated programming options for students entered grades 3-8 during the 2025/26 school year. Time will be provided for attendees to begin the application for this process.
Preschool/Kindergarten Family Information Night (with Winnetka Administration and Sue Stolzer, Early Childhood Assessment Team Lead from TrueNorth)
January 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Location: Greeley School
This informational session is intended for Winnetka parents of preschool students who will be attending The Winnetka Public Schools. Parents will learn more about the support and services that the District provides to current preschool students attending local preschool programming as well as what is available within our schools once a student enters kindergarten. Families will receive a preview of:
The transition-to-Kindergarten process by Crow Island, Greeley and Hubbard Woods Principals,
The resources available to families of current preschool students from the Department of Student Services, Equity and Inclusion
Details on “Kindergarten Connection” which will take place in Summer 2024
Highlights of a typical kindergarten day in The Winnetka Public Schools
We look forward to meeting new families at this event!
Registration for incoming kindergarteners and students NEW to the District (beginning fall 2025) is now open.
Kindergarten enrollment: Children who will be five-years-old on or before September 1, 2025, are eligible to enroll for Kindergarten.
School Admissions and age requirements are addressed in School Board Policy 7:50 School Admissions and student Transfers to and from Non-District Schools.
2-Step Process to complete registration:
Step 1: Click here to begin the online new student registration process.
Step 2: Contact Maria Perez via email marizperez@winnetka36.org or phone 847-446-9400 to schedule a time to drop-in with final verification documents.
Complete BOTH steps of new student registration BEFORE January 17, 2025 and receive a $40.00 discount applied to your child’s 2025/2026 student fees.
Stay & Play Registration
Kindergarten students who are not currently enrolled in Stay & Play will have the opportunity to register for the 2nd half of the year after 8:00 am January 6th through this link. Please note that the registration period ends January 31, 2025 and will remain closed for the remainder of the year. The rates are prorated below. If you attempt to register before the 6th, you will receive an Item Unavailable message. After purchasing Kindergarten Stay & Play registration, your child will be able to begin their attendance in the program the following Monday so the schools can plan accordingly.
Sincerely,
Michelle Cooney and Larry Joynt
Principal and Assistant Principal
The Skokie School