Maplewood Memo
August 30, 2023
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Good morning!
Our first two days of school have been terrific! Students have quickly settled into routines and teachers are enjoying getting to know their new students. As I walked around the school to say good morning to every class, I witnessed the magic of Maplewood… warm hearts and positive spirits could be found everywhere. We are truly so very lucky to have such a supportive and positive school. We somehow seem to be shielded at Maplewood from some of the many woes of public education. Thank you to everyone who plays a part in making our school so wonderful!
Since our last Maplewood Memo, we hosted the Kindergarten Carnival to welcome our newest Maplewood students to the school. We had bowling, face painting and an arts table for the students to enjoy. It was a beautiful day and we had a great turn out. Welcome to Maplewood, kinder families!!
Kindergarten isn’t the only place where we welcome new families to our community, we have a lot of new families joining us at every grade level. For those who are new to Maplewood, please mark your calendar with the new family orientation in the gym on September 5th at 8:00, after morning drop off.
Please reach out to me if you have any questions or feedback. It is important that you know I am available to you!
Thank you,
Kit Galloway
*"Please click view entire message to read the entire news memo"
SAVE THE DATE
September 5th
First full day for Kindergarten
September 5th
New Family Orientation 8:00 - 8:45a, after morning drop off.
September 14
Back to School Open House
Time to be determined
September 19
First PTA meeting of the year 6:30 in the library and also by zoom.
Volunteering at Maplewood
Maplewood is a very special place, but we would be this awesome if we didn’t have amazing volunteers. Please fill out THIS form to let us know what you may be interested in volunteering for this year. We have lots of options and some of them you can do from the comfort of your home.
Volunteer Orientation:
Please join us at our very first Maplewood Volunteer Orientation on September 20th at 6:00. HERE is our new volunteer handbook if you’re looking for a good read. : )
SCHOOL NEWS
SCHOOL SUPPLIES:
Please log into SchoolPay to pay for your child's school supplies. The cost this year is $50. (In our back to school letter we accidentally published it as $45.) If you need financial assistance, please reach out to our counselor, Kendall Cunningham (kcunninghamparm@pps.net) to let her know.
We can do hard things
“We can do hard things” at Maplewood:
Every year we have had a theme for our work. This year, our theme is, “We can do hard things!” The idea for this theme came from multiple data points; including the PPS Instructional Framework, the Successful Schools Survey, and our discipline data to name a few. Students who may struggle in school will continue to do so unless they learn to believe in themselves. To help support this theme at home, talk about the hard things you have done. How did you keep trying when it got really hard? There may be something hard you are currently working on, talk about your inner dialogue to your child. This will help build their skills to do hard things too!
Health in School:
Please see the Family Guide: Preventing Illness and Contagious Disease in School - 2023-24 so you are aware of what individual- and school-level preventive measures can be taken to keep students healthy and in school.
Lunch at Maplewood:
Did you know? In Oregon, a family of 4 may be eligible if they make $90,000 gross per year or less? Please encourage your families to apply for meal benefits this school year. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HkLGRH8ztcKN-pM606IrdeezByWLstkNdRcShjH8GCk/edit
Maplewood Homework Guidelines:
Maplewood Homework Guidelines:
No new content / Extra practice only
Independent work only- with daily checklist, reading log, choice board, skill review packets, thinking homework, handwriting…
Curriculum letters will be sent to parents
Nightly Reading Expectations:
K-1: 15 min
2-3: 20 min
4-5: 30 min
Attendance:
We continue to work on getting every student to school every day. Maplewood’s chronic attendance issues are at 17%! Of course there are days when students are sick and those absences are excused and understood. However, we do not support taking vacations during the school year. Please limit your vacations to long weekends and holidays. I have directed our teachers to not provide extra practice if your family has decided to take a vacation during a school day. Our teachers already plan for your child and they are expected to attend during school days to receive those lessons.
Our goal is to reduce our chronic absentee rate by 5% this year. Please help us by getting your child to school on school days.
Thank you!
Please sees the distinct calendar:
Back to School Night
Please mark your calendars with Back to School Night on September 14th in the evening. (Exact times TBD.) This will be a chance for you to visit your child’s classroom for a presentation by the teacher followed by a school picnic on the field. PTA will have food trucks and a mariachi band to kick off Hispanic Heritage month.
PARENTVUE RACE UPDATE
As we look at our school assessment data, we noticed that there are many students whose race is not correctly recorded in our system. Please be sure to update this information asap so our data reflects our true demographics.
Click on “Yearly Verification”
Click “Verify Online”
Follow the prompts to update your information.
FACE OF MAPLEWOOD
A big thank you to Katie Unger for taking on the role of FACE for Maplewood. HERE is more information about Face. In a nutshell, it is "FACE is a great opportunity for family members, parents, and caregivers to participate in conversations about PPS' educational program. Each PPS school has the opportunity to select one family member to represent their community. We recommend that this person is selected from your School Site Council, but they can also be a family member from the broader school community. Participation is a one year commitment."TARDY
The morning bell rings at 7:50am and the tardy bell rings at 8:00am. If your child arrives after the 8:00am bell, please be sure they enter the school through the front entrance doors. All doors will automatically lock at 8:00am. If your child is late they will need to get a tardy slip from the office to take to their teacher so they are not marked absent and parents do not received the automated call.Bus Tags
All kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students must be met at the bus stop at the end of the day. These students must wear a yellow bus tag all year long. The tag must have their bus stop and emergency contact information on one side, and information about who is meeting the child on the other side. (For example: Mom and Dad, Grandma Teri, get off with older brother Thomas on the bus, etc.) Drivers will be watching for yellow tags. If no one is at the stop to meet the child, they will be returned back to school. If a parent wants to opt out of this requirement, please have the child wear a white tag for the month of September, so the driver will know which stop they get off at.
All 1st – 3rd students are required to wear white bus tags for the first three full weeks of school. Tags are printed out of Synergy by the schools. Please contact our office if you have questions or concerns about bus tags.
STAFF NEWS
Art
Welcome Back Maplewood Artists! I’m so excited for year two being your students’ art teacher!
I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you over the years, but allow me to introduce myself: my name is Suzanne Smith and the students call me Ms. Smith. This is my second year teaching K-5 art, I taught 5th grade with Mr. Kaplan before that. I have been a part of the Maplewood community since 1995 when my oldest started kindergarten here - that is over 28 years ago! Where does the time go? I was first here as a parent to my 3 kids, a PTA board member, volunteer extraordinaire, and finally, a teacher. This is my 14th year of teaching and I strive to create a fun, safe and respectful learning environment that celebrates the unique contributions of our students.
Our art room is located at the end of the main hallway by the kindergarten rooms - come check us out!
Ms. Smith
Counseling
Welcome to a new year! Linked here is our welcome letter that explains what we do as school counselors. In addition, we wanted to highlight a few items:
* Are you experiencing financial challenges? We are able to waive school supply fees and other fees throughout the year, as well as provide a few vouchers and other items if you reach out to us (Kendall Cunningham, k-3rd grade school counselor, at kcunninghamparm@pps.net or Kate Knochel, 4th-5th grade school counselor, at kknochel@pps.net). This list is kept confidential between teacher and counselor.
* Do you want to donate some items to the school counseling program? We do not have a budget and we rely heavily on these donations. Here is our Amazon wishlist. Thank you!
* We have a small food pantry where we keep no-cook or heat and eat (think granola bars, nuts, fruit snacks, canned soups, etc,) to send home with students. If you'd like to donate any of these items, simply drop them off at the office for us to distribute.
* We are looking for a few volunteers to help us meet some basic student needs. First off, we are looking for a person who has an eye for fashion and can shop for students during the school day from time to time at the PTA Clothing Closet on the eastside. This person would need to work discreetly and have good availability on weekdays. We are also looking for people who are willing to be contacted from time to time to provide a specific item for a student in need. The person would be notified of a need (ie athletic shoes in mens size 5) and would then go out and get that item in the next 2 days. We would keep all items requested to under $100. If you'd like to provide these items and services, please reach out to Kate or Kendall.
Thank you so much for your support! We are honored to serve the Maplewood community!
Kendall Cunningham & Kate Knochel
Dear Maplewood Community,
Welcome to the fall of 2023 at Maplewood!! I am Kendall Cunningham (Ms. Cunningham to students) and I am Maplewood’s full-time K-3 school counselor. This is my tenth year serving the Maplewood community. Being a school counselor allows me to participate in the lively school environment and build relationships with students while supporting their personal/social/academic needs. I live in the neighborhood and I am a parent of two PPS students at Ida B Wells. Go Guardians! When I am not working, I enjoy gardening, singing, reading, and spending time with family and friends. You might see me jogging around Gabriel Park or in the Village- feel free to say hello!
Our school theme for the year is “We can do hard things.” We will use this theme to build resilience as we encounter both academic and personal challenges. Maplewood continues to be a Caring Schools Community and will once again be using the Toolbox program (more at toolboxproject.com). Toolbox is designed to help develop student resilience by teaching kids tools/strategies that they can use in different situations. I lean heavily on Toolbox strategies in my K-3 lessons and reference these strategies frequently with the older students as well. Ask your student about their Toolbox tools and encourage them to use them with uncomfortable feelings and situations.
This year I am delighted to be working with Kate Knochel, a seasoned school counselor. Kate will be at Maplewood half-time and will be focusing on 4th and 5th grade. I will be focusing on K-3rd grade. I will be delivering lessons on a weekly basis with K-1 classrooms and will do 18 lessons (roughly half the year) with 2nd and 3rd grade.
What exactly does an elementary school counselor do? Very broadly, a school counselor supports students by working to remove barriers to school success. To this end, the school counselor collaborates with school staff, students, and families to help support all learners. In addition to doing classroom lessons that focus on emotional regulation and social emotional development, I work one-on-one with students and families, lead small groups, assist students with hard life transitions, help families connect with community resources, and mediate conflicts between students. These are just a few examples of the many things I do as a school counselor.
Finally, I want to acknowledge that these last few years have been very challenging for all of us. Whether your family has struggled with isolation, job loss, grief, learning loss due to distance learning, or parenting stress, we have all been carrying a lot. A lot. I’d like to be part of your team to support your K-3 student. You can call me at 503-916-6308, email me at kcunninghamparm@pps.net, or fill out this google form. The form is also linked in my email signature and on the school counseling website connected to Maplewood’s mainpage. Once again, I am excited to be serving the Maplewood community.
Turn over ro read more about our Maplewood student support team!
Kendall Cunningham
Maplewood K-3 School Counselor
(503) 916-6308
Monday to Friday 7:45-3:30
Hello Maplewood Community! My name is Kate Knochel (Ms. K to the students) and I am the new part time counselor at Maplewood. I am thrilled to be working at Maplewood this year.
This is my tenth year as a school counselor and fifteenth year in education, prior to school counseling I taught high school and middle school language arts. I was the school counselor at Jackson Middle School for eight years and then became the part time counselor at Markham Elementary for the 2022-2023 school year. I am a PPS parent as well. I have a first grader at Stephenson Elementary and a preschooler at West Hills Learning. I have always found it a blessing and an honor to serve the SW community where I live and am raising my own family. You may see me in the village, at Gabriel Park or anywhere else around SW with my husband, Brad, and my two kiddos. I am a parent just like all of you, doing the best I can to raise kind and thoughtful children.
One of my priorities as a school counselor, especially with the 4th and 5th graders is to build resiliency. The school’s theme for the year : “We can do hard things” fits perfectly with my ethos. When students have resilience they also develop a sense of self worth and are able to negotiate the middle school years with self-confidence.
I will be doing 18 lessons with each 4th and 5th grade class. Additionally, all 5th graders will participate in a 6 week Leadership group. This group will help with school wide activities, assemblies, school improvement and a variety of other tasks as needed for the good of the school. Another goal that Kendall and I have for this year is to run lunch groups for selected students. I will be doing the groups for grades 3-5. I am also available to work with students individually and collaborate with families as needed.
I look forward to supporting your 4th and 5th grade students. If your child is having any specific issues currently please reach out to me. You can call me at 503-916-6308 email me at kknochel@pps.net. , or fill out this google form. The form is also linked in my email signature and on the school counseling website connected to Maplewood’s mainpage. Let’s have a fabulous 2023-2024 school year!
Kate Knochel
Maplewood School Counselor
503-916-6308
Hours:
Tuesday 7:45 - 2:30
Wednesday 7:45 - 3:45
Thursday 7:45 - 1:00
Library & Technology
I am eager to welcome everyone back to the library and see good books going home!
Kindergarten adults-at-home -- be warned (in a great way) that your child will be bringing one book home after their first Maplewood library visit! You might keep the book in their backpack after reading it with them so books can easily be returned on or before the next library visit. Kindregarten students can have two books out at a time. If their books are overdue, I send magazines home (for quality reading) as a reminder for adults to help locate and put books into backpacks! Maplewood students love to read, please help our youngest readers return books.
First-Fifth Grade adults-at-home -- students familiar with Maplewood know the routine; return or renew books within two weeks: two books for first grade, then the same number as their grade level. Fifth graders have the privilege of taking as many books as they need. And, as always, students should ask me for a title they cannot locate -- I will find iit, put a hold on the title, purchase the book, or borrow the title from the public library.
Overdue books... take one last hard look around your homes and cars.
I have the best job at Maplewood watching our students grow over six years, providing students with high-quality, high-interest books (thanks to the PTA and Ms. Galloway), and knowing what they like to read. Here we go! Any questions? Do not hesitate to contact me: kordahl@pps.net
Ms. Kordahl
PE
Welcome back to school and I hope you had an active summer! We are starting the year working on PE and Recess expectations along with learning new (and old!) recess games! This week we are learning to play Ultimate Kickball and Watch your Back Tag. This year I am helping with recess games as well. We are creating an area between the 3rd and 4th grade portables for students to do some imaginary play in the garden. Kids used to make fairy and other imaginative play under the trees, but we are hoping the move will help students to have a dedicated space. If you have anything to donate to this space such as acorn hats, peddles, small sticks, pine cones, large leaves, etc. please have your child leave them in that area. Yay!
Nutrition & Cafeteria News
The Free & Reduced cut off is much higher this year because the state of Oregon has expanded the limits. You may qualify. Here is the chart to see if you do: https://www.oregon.gov/ode/students-and-family/childnutrition/SNP/Documents/Oregon%20EIG%20incl%20Federal%20Income%20Guidelines.pdf
At the end of the school year, all student account balances (positive and negative) automatically rollover to the following school year. If a PPS student transfers or transitions to another PPS school, for example, from 5th grade to middle school, or 8th grade to high school, families do not need to contact PPS Nutrition Services to transfer the funds. The funds are linked to the student's 6-digit student ID#, not the school they attend.
Families have the following options to pay for school meals:
- Pay as you go: Bring cash or check (payable to Portland Public Schools) directly to the cafeteria*
- Prepay for meals with cash or check (payable to Portland Public Schools) in the cafeteria*. Funds will be deposited into the student meal account. Purchases will be deducted from the account balance.
- Pay with a debit/credit card using SchoolCafe, a secure online meal payment system. NOTE: There is a minimum payment of $15 and a 5% fee per online transaction.
*Payments can be dropped off at the school office. Please put the payment in an envelope labeled 'cafeteria'. Checks can also be mailed to PPS Nutrition Services, 501 N Dixon St, Portland, OR 97227.
The menu calendar may be updated, so check it frequently. It will say on bottom when it has been updated. You can find the menus here: https://www.pps.net/Page/214
Feel free to call, email or stop by if you have questions or concerns. Here's to a great school year!
Ms. Amy
Lunch Lady
NUTRITION SERVICES
PK-12 MEAL BENEFITS, MEAL PAYMENTS AND BACK TO SCHOOL EVENTS
Families are encouraged to apply for free and reduced price meals when attending a non-CEP school. Updated federal income guidelines and Oregon expanded income guidelines are available. Families must apply every year. Information is included about how to apply funds to student meal accounts. To assist families, the NS team would love to participate in your back to school events.
Whitney Ellersick, Senior Director, Nutrition Services, wellersick@pps.net
PTA
Our first PTA meeting of the year will be 9/19/23 at 6:30 in the library and also by zoom.
FOUNDATION
Greetings Maplewood! Your Foundation Team is excited to kick off the year at the back-to-school night on September 14th. Look out for our table to learn more about our first fundraiser of the year, what the Foundation is, why it is important we have one, and how you can become a sponsor or otherwise help support and if interested plan for the adult-only auction in the spring! For those not familiar with Foundation, we are a parent-led, non-profit fundraising group benefiting Maplewood Elementary. It is a part of the non-profit The Fund for Portland Public Schools. Money raised by the Foundation is used to provide enrichment teachers and educational support staff at Maplewood. This year we funded two Educational Assistants for our school! To learn more about the Maplewood Foundation please visit our website at http://www.maplewoodfoundation.com/ or email us at maplewoodfoundation@gmail.com. Do you love a good party? Then this is for YOU! NEW this year: You choose the THEME of your AUCTION! We need your vote and creative ideas! The Maplewood Foundation team requests YOUR help choosing the theme of this year's auction! Please comment on the Maplewood Facebook page or email us at maplewoodfoundation@gmail.com your best ideas and we will add the most popular/liked ideas to the voting form!! **Voting will be at the Maplewood Foundation table at the back-to-school night on September 14th!** Want to help throw a spectacular shindig? The Foundation Team is excited to see everyone back at school and see the fruits of your fundraising gifts from last year! To expand upon the success we saw at last year's auction, we want to hit the ground running on this year's preparations. If you love a good party, like we do, we could use your help making this auction a success. If you are interested in being a part of the Foundation team, email maplewoodfoundation@gmail.com.
With gratitude,
You Maplewood Foundation Team