EC Hubs Family Newsletter
Winter #3, 2023
Check in with Cherek: It's a Great Time to Choose an SPPS School for Kindergarten!
Warm winter greetings to you all!
If you just joined our Early Childhood Community in January, Welcome to the EC Hubs!
Each quarter, you can expect to receive the EC Hubs Family Newsletter that is full of great information about what is going on at school and support for your family as you prepare for Kindergarten!
Our theme for rest of the year will be "Getting Ready for the Transition to Kindergarten" Our hope is that the information we share with you will help and support you through the next steps in deciding on a school for Kindergarten, and beyond!
No matter which program you are involved with at the EC Hubs, we are here to help and support you!
As always, don't hesitate to call/text/email us for anything you might need!
Ms. Cherek, Principal
651-249-6422
ENGLISH
Prefer a language other than English? You can open the newsletter link and click a button on the right (on a computer) or at the bottom (on a mobile device) to have it translated into many different languages. Please know that the translation function may be inaccurate or incomplete. If you have any questions, please call us at 651-293-6581.
KAREN
ကျိာ်ဂုၤဂၤတခါလၢနအဲၣ်ဒိးအီၤ လၢအတမ့ၢ် အဲကလံးကျိာ်န့ၣ်အိၣ်ဧါ. နအိးထီၣ်ကွၢ်လံာ်တၢ်ကစီၣ်ပှာ်ဘျးစဲ ဒီးစံၢ်လီၤဖဲ ပှာ်ဘျးစဲအဖီခိၣ်ဖဲစုထွဲတကပၤ(လၢခီၣ်ဖၠူထၢၣ်ဖီခိၣ်) မ့တမ့ၢ် စံၢ်လီၤဖဲတၢ်ဖီလာ် (လၢနလီတဲစိ ဖီခိၣ်) ဒ်သိး တၢ်ကကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤလၢကျိာ်အဂုၤအဂၤအဂီၢ်သ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. ဝံသးစူၤသ့ၣ်ညါလၢ လံာ်လၢ တၢ်ကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤန့ၣ် ကအိၣ်ဝဲဒီး တၢ်အကမၣ် မ့တမ့ၢ် တၢ်တလၢတပှဲၤသ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. နမ့ၢ်အိၣ်ဒီး တၢ်သံကွၢ်တဖၣ်န့ၣ်, ဝံသးစူၤကိးပှၤဖဲ 651-293-6581 န့ၣ်တက့ၢ်.
SOMALI
Ma waxaad doorbideysaa luuqad aan aheyn af-Ingiriis? Waxaad furi kartaa lifaaqa wargeysyada oo guji batoonka midigta (ee kumbiyuutarkaaga) ama xagga hoose (ee taleefankaaga gacanta) si aad wargeyska ugu tarjuntid luuqado badan oo kala duwan. Fadlan ogow in natiijada turjumaaddu ay noqon karto mid aan sax ahayn ama aan dhammaystirnayn. Haddii aad wax su'aalo ah qabtid, fadlan naga soo wac 651-293-6581.
HMONG
Puas xav tau ua lwm hom lus? Nej qhib txoj kab mus rau hauv daim ntawv xov xwm thiab nias lub pob ntawm sab xis hauv lub koos pis tawj, los sis yog lwm hom twj no ces nyob hauv qab, ces yuav muaj txhais ua ntau hom lus. Nco ntsoov tias cov lus txhais no yuav tsis raug txhua lo los sis txhais tiav tiav. Yog nej muaj lus nug, thov hu rau peb ntawm 651-293-6581.
SPANISH
¿Prefiere un idioma que no sea inglés? Puede abrir el enlace del boletín y hacer clic en el botón a la derecha (en una computadora) o en la parte inferior (en un dispositivo móvil) para traducirlo a muchos idiomas diferentes. Tenga en cuenta que la función de traducción puede ser inexacta o incompleta. Si tiene alguna pregunta, llámenos al 651-293-6581.
Kindergarten Applications DUE by February 23rd!
Friday, February 23rd is the priority deadline for submitting your application for Kindergarten SY24-25.
To apply for kindergarten in St. Paul Public Schools, visit the district’s enrollment site (www.spps.org/apply), and hit the red “Apply Now” button on the left.
Click here for information about ALL SPPS Winter Open House Information
If you have questions or need support with applying, please call the office or join us at the
EC Hubs Winter Open House on Jan 17th from 2:00-5:30pm!
We will have staff onsite to help with applications!
You may be wondering... do I need to apply for Kindergarten or not?
- If you WOULD like your Community School for Kindergarten, your child already has a reserved seat and you do not need to apply. You should have received a letter in the mail with that information.
- If you would like a school that is NOT your community school, you MUST APPLY for a seat in Kindergarten.
For Families in our HMong Immersion program at at EC Hub East
- If your child is currently in our HMong Immersion Language (HDL) Program and you are planning to continue with immersion for Kindergarten for SY24-25 at Txuj Ci Lower, YOU DO NOT NEED TO APPLY.
- If your child is currently in our HMong Immersion Language (HDL) Program and you DO NOT WANT TO continue HMong language immersion in Kindergarten at Txuj Ci Lower for SY24-25, you MUST APPLY for a seat in Kindergarten at a school of your choice (inlcuding Txuj Ci Lower non-immersion classrooms).
NEW: REMINDERS for Parent Pick Up & Safety "Tune Up"
Student safety is a top concern at the Early Childhood Hubs AND we also want all families to feel welcome in our school buildings.
We want to be sure that everyone at the EC Hubs knows the process for coming to school for a visit or to drop off/pick up your child at school.
1. For the safety of all children, all Families MUST go to the office to sign in/out your child and get a visitor badge before going to the classroom. PLEASE DO NOT GO TO THE CLASSROOM without checking in first.
2. If you need to change the way your child gets home, please call the office by 2:30pm to ensure clear communication with your child's teacher.
3. All families dropping off/picking up before/after school should follow the Parent Pick-up procedure for the building.
3. At the end of the school day, please do not come to the office to pick up your child between 3:45-4:00. Please go through the parent pick up line outside.
4. If you need to update your contact information or to add any other adults that are authorized to pick up your child, please call the office. We can't release your children to anyone that is not in our student information system.
EC Hub West: 651-293-5200
EC Hub East: 651-293-5461
Illness Guidelines & Cold Weather/Winter Clothes!
Illness guidelines
As we have colder weather and are spending more time indoors, kids and adults are sharing their germs!
Please monitor your child for signs of illness and keep them home if they have symptoms of COVID-19, a fever over 99, have vomited/diarrhea in the past 24 hours, and/or have a significant cough/runny nose.
Please call the office 651-293-6581 after 7:45am to report illnesses. If you can't leave a message, please feel free to call/text Principal Cherek, 651-249-6422.
Cold Weather/Winter Clothes
We follow the SPPS Winter Weather Guidelines at the EC Hubs. We DO go outside to play as per the SPPS Winter Weather Guidelines! Please send your child to school in winter weather clothing (ex. coat, snow-pants, boots, mittens, hat, etc...).
If you need winter clothing for your child, please reach out to your child's teacher. We have some extra items at the Hubs and/or can help to get you connected with resources for warm clothing.
If you have any gently used winter gear you don't need anymore, (sizes 4T to 6X), please send it into school and we will gladly share it with other kids!
NEW: Upcoming Winter/Spring Family Events!
Please see your child's Thursday Folder for information about Upcoming Family Events!
EC Hubs Winter Open House for the 2024-25 School Year on Tuesday, Jan 17th from 2:00 -5:30pm
- Families enrolling in Pre-K for SY24-25 can tour the buildings, ask questions, and see classrooms in action during the school day!
- Current EC Hubs Families enrolling in Kindergarten for SY24-25 will have access to SPPS Staff to assist with applying for Kindergarten.
National African American Parent Involvement Day (NAAPID) on Monday, February 12th, 3:00-3:45pm
- All EC Hubs families are invited to attend our NAAPID Family Day!
- Please watch your child's Thursday folder for a flyer with more information about the activities that are planned in your child's classroom!
INFORMATION: Safety Drills at the EC Hubs
This year, (and every year), students and staff practice safety drills in school. We practice so we all know what to do in case there is an emergency at school.
In SPPS, all schools are required to do Fire, Severe Weather, Secure, and Lockdown drills.
So far this year, we have practiced fire and secure drills at both Hub buildings. We will practice severe weather (tornado) drills in April during severe weather awareness month. Teachers practiced a lockdown drill before students came to school back in September.
Please read below to learn about the difference between a Secure and a Lockdown, as defined by SPPS:
Secure: There is something (potentially) unsafe happening outside of school. Some examples of when we call a Secure might be police activity in the neighborhood or a wild animal on the school grounds. In a Secure situation, no one goes in/goes out of the school. Activities inside the school carry on as usual.
Lockdown: There is something unsafe happening inside of the school building. An example of this might be an unauthorized person is in the building. In this scenario, all students and staff move to a safe space within the building (usually in the classroom). Unfortunately, in the day and age that we live in, we have to have a plan for what to do in case of this type of emergency.
As a parent myself, I recognize that these scenarios may be distressing for you and/or for your child. It's hard to talk about these topics. And, in light of recent tragic events in our St Paul Community, we want to encourage you to talk with your children about safety and what to do in an emergency at home or at school, but in a way that works for your family!
REPEAT: Wilder Foundation School Based Mental Health Services at EC Hub East!
We are thrilled to share that the EC Hub East is partnering with The Wilder Foundation to offer school-based mental health services to our students!
School-based mental health means that a highly qualified and experienced mental health therapist, who specializes in working with early childhood-aged children, will be in our building every week to work with students who are struggling with social, emotional, or behavioral concerns.
School-based mental health services will only be provided with parent or guardian permission, and require parent or guardian involvement, especially in the early stages.
Payment for these services is through your health insurance or a sliding scale. If you think your child would benefit from school-based mental health but are worried about the cost, please reach out - most families will pay absolutely nothing for this service.
If you are interested in learning more, or if you would like your child to receive school-based mental health services, please contact your student's teacher, or the school social worker Crystal Barrera at 651-293-8710 or crystal.barrera@spps.org
REPEAT: Volunteering at EC Hubs!
We would LOVE to have you help at school and visit the classroom to see all of the awesome things your kids do at school!
And, SPPS policy requires that all adults that would like to volunteer at the EC Hubs (or any SPPS school) must complete a background check. This must be completed so that you can be in the classroom, go on a field trip, etc…
Please click this link to sign up to volunteer.
Once you've given us some basic information on the form above, you will receive an email with a link to fill out the background check from SPPS HR. After we hear back from SPPS Human Resources, we will contact you to come in for a short volunteering orientation before you begin working in the classroom.
REPEAT: Food & Celebrations at School
St Paul Public Schools (SPPS) schools are sweets-free schools to promote student health & wellness. SPPS serves whole-grain and healthy proteins for breakfast & lunch each day. We serve water and milk at school for children at meals. At EC Hubs East & West, we follow the SPPS policies and encourage families to support our sweets-free school!
We encourage families to send healthy foods and a labeled water bottle to school with children each day. If you do send food to school with your child, please send heathy & individual sized food/snacks (not large bags).
Please do not send the following high-sugar food items with your child: cookies, candy, chips, juice boxes/pouches, soda/Gatorade/Powerade, or baby bottles, etc…, or any nuts/nut butters.
Holidays/Treats:
SPPS serves all students & families with rich & diverse beliefs/backgrounds. Therefore, SPPS schools do not celebrate holidays at school. As a school, we will have some fun celebrations that are not holiday-related. Please click here for some fun ways to rethink celebrations!
+++ Please do not send holiday treats/bags/cards to school with your children. Students cannot pass or receive treats for holidays +++
If you have questions, please contact Ms. Cherek, call/text 651-249-6422 or elizabeth.cherek@spps.org