![page background](https://cdn.smore.com/u/backgrounds/custom_bg-622223c7fe97180c6d34d6d1-c94aab584370.jpg)
Como Park Elementary
March/April 2024
A Note from Principal Ewald
Como Park Elementary Families-
We had an exciting month of March at Como. We were fortunate to have the following events:
- Joe Schmit came Como to read the book he wrote The Right Thing To Do: The Joe Mauer Story. Mr. Schmit brought along Mike Halley, a classmate of Joe Mauer's, and who was a main character in the book. Our 4th and 5th graders asked great questions to both Mr. Schmit and Mr. Halley. Bridget Paitich and the #forthekids organization helped coordinate this event and purchased a copy of the book for each of our fourth and fifth graders! KTSP was at the event and once we know when the story will be aired, we will send out more information.
- Bao Phi came to read his book, A Different Pond, to our third grade classrooms thanks to the Lillian Wright Authors in the Schools Endowment.
- The Murray Band came to play a concert for all of our students. It was wonderful to see some of the students who used to go to Como come back to play a few songs.
- Como High School students came over for Reading and Writing Buddies.
Jennifer Ewald, Principal
651-744-6055
Vote for Como Elementary
Use the following link, https://www.votemnbest.com/, to vote for Como Elementary for Minnesota's Best in the voting for the Star and Tribune. . Click on "Education" and then "Elementary". Find Como Park Elementary near the bottom.
A Note from AP Patel
Hello Como Families,
Indeed, the warm weather was wonderful yet our March winter came back yet again! I just wanted to say thank you to all who attended spring conferences, whether you connected with your child’s teacher in person, virtually, or over the phone. Each of the connections we make with our families matters because it impacts our students' growth and learning every day. If you missed conferences, please feel free to contact your child’s classroom teacher.
Thank you for attending spring conferences at Como Park Elementary.
Ms.Patel
Assistant Principal
Upcoming Events
- April 8-12 Spring Break
- Reading Grades 3-5 on 4/2-4/4/24
Math Grades 3-5 on 4/24-4/25/24
Science Grade 5 only on 4/30/24
Visitors
After 7:45 am, all visitors are required to sign in at the front office and wear a visitor badge while in the building. When you leave, we ask you stop by to drop off the badge and sign out. Staff will bring visitors back to the main office to get a badge if we do not see you wearing one. This is for the safety and security of everyone at Como Elementary.
Since our teachers are teaching all day, please arrange a time to talk or meet with your child's teacher or visit the classroom.
Free Swim Lessons with the City of St. Paul
Como Families. City of St. Paul is offering free swim lessons. First come first serve. Registration begins April 1st. Follow link to apply. https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-lifestyle/st-paul-to-provide-free-swimming-lessons-for-kids
EXCITING THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN OUR CLASSROOMS
Half-Day ECSE Classes - Ms. Natalie
We have wrapped up our “Helping” Area of Study and have moved into “Creating and Constructing In Our World.” Students are exploring different ways to build letters, interact with tools and even deconstruct a snow “mountain” using toy hammers.
PreK
Kindergarten
First Grade
Ms. Thomas’ first grade class has had a fantastic opportunity to partner with Como Park Senior High School. Each Wednesday, the high school students read books to their first grade buddies. Then, the first graders read to the high school students. We have had such a fabulous time with our buddies and look forward to each Wednesday afternoon.
Second Grade
This month 2nd graders had special lessons from Ms. Lee, our school counselor, to learn about race and culture. One of the activities we did was using M&Ms to understand we may be all different races and color, but we are all the same on the inside. The 2nd graders also meet with their Cardinal Connection classroom to do a spring drawing and coloring activity. They drew some really beautiful pictures!
Third Grade
March came and went so quickly for 3rd grade! We learned a lot and had some special opportunities.
In math we had our fractions unit and are now working on data collection and representation. In reading we have been focusing on nonfiction and learning about different techniques that authors use to write nonfiction books.
We also had Science From Scientists, where we learned about how bees protect their honey. Through the Lillian Wright Authors in the Schools Endowment, we also had the amazing author Bao Phi come in and read his book A Different Pond. We have been reinspired to share our own stories.
Fourth Grade
4th graders have been preparing for the Reading MCA. In math we are learning fractions and decimals. Students in Mr. W’s class researched different states and gave a presentation. Mr. Binn’s class has been working on poetry. 4th grade will be having a poetry recital in the spring.
Fifth Grade
We were very fortunate to attend Alice in Wonderland at the Children’s Theatre early in March. Our students had a wonderful time and were some of the best-behaved kids in the building!
We continue to work hard and are focusing on getting ready for transition to middle school. We will be having 5-6 lessons from our counselor to help us prepare. We will also be having a middle school practice day coming up in June! Details will be coming soon! You should have received information regarding what school your student is assigned to for next year, or if you selected a middle school you should have information from that school. Please let us know if you are unsure of what school your student will be attending.
Solar Eclipse
Please see the following link for information on the Solar Eclipse.
Counselor's Corner - Ms. Lee
Our March cardinal character word of the month was Perseverance. We focused on never giving up. Students thought about how to persevere when things are hard for them. The counselor lessons during quarter 2 revolved around careers. Students were introduced to many different careers. We discussed the importance of graduating from high school and the variety of postecondary options, such as 2 yr or 4 yr colleges, certificate programs, on-the-job training, and apprenticeships. Kids were encouraged to think about what they like to do and what they are good at. This could prepare them for choosing a career. We are hoping to be able to bring in more career speakers in the future here at Como. Coming to school to learn each day is their job and will help them get better at things so they have lots of choices when they grow up. Talk to your child about what they like to do and what they are good at now, They might want to share with you a career that they are interested in already! In April, our word of the month is citizenship and we will explore ways to be a good citizen at school, home, and in the community. For the last quarter of the school year, counselor lessons will focus on personal safety. Ask your child what they know about safety rules and encourage them to make good, safe choices during spring break. As always, please reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns.
Be Well,
Stephanie Lee (school counselor)
651-744-3600
From Nurse Morgan
This month the health office wanted to send a reminder to families about food, snacks and beverages sent from home. Here are a few quotes from the SPPS Wellness Policy: “The District encourages parents/guardians who pack lunches and snacks to refrain from including foods and beverages without nutritional value.” “convey to students the potential health risks of sharing food or beverages, including to individuals with life-threatening allergies.” Also, are some questions to consider when your child is ill: If your child has a fever of 100°F or more, keep them home for 24 hours after their temperature returns to normal without using fever- reducing medication If your child has vomited one or more times, keep them home for 24 hours following the last episode If your child has diarrhea, is uncomfortable due to abdominal cramping, and needs to use the bathroom frequently, keep them home for 24 hours following the last episode If your child has a rash from an unknown or infectious cause, check with a health care provider before sending them to school
Technology Tips
We know that it is a challenge to manage your chid's cell phone.
- If your child brings their phone to school, please ask them to give it to their teacher to hold for the day. Students in elementary school do not need to use their phones during the school day.
- Please click on the following link to read the article "How to Help Kids Balance Phones and Screens with Sleep: Tips for managing TV, tablets, phones, and tech so your kids can get a good night's sleep".
From Ms. McConley
MCA Testing Season is Here
MCA testing is starting in April for students in grades three thru five. Here are some help hints to help your child do their best.
Make sure your child gets a good night’s sleep. 8-10 hours is ideal.
Have students eat a healthy breakfast. Breakfast is free at school for everyone.
Please help your child arrive on time. Testing starts right away in the morning, and being here at 7:30 helps ease them into the day.
Encourage your child to try their best and take their time while taking the test.
We appreciate your support and partnership in educating our children.
More Info on MCA/MTAS
Each spring, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) or the Minnesota Test of
Academic Skills (MTAS) are provided to students in mathematics (grades 3-8 and 11), reading
(grades 3-8 and 10), and science (grades 5, 8 and in high school upon completing biology).
Most students take the MCA; however, some students who receive special education services
and meet eligibility requirements take the MTAS. Both tests provide a snapshot of student
learning of the Minnesota Academic Standards. The MCA and MTAS are used to meet federal
and state legislative requirements. The Minnesota Department of Education and SPPS can use
results to look across student groups, schools and districts to evaluate equitable learning
opportunities for all students.
Assessments are designed to provide information about student learning, but there is no single
assessment that can provide the full perspective of what a student has learned. These
assessments provide one data point that should be considered in the context of additional
evidence of student learning.
Students will take the MCA or MTAS between April 2 - May 3, 2024. If you have questions about
your student’s participation in statewide assessments, reach out to your school’s school
assessment coordinator.
For more information on the MCA and MTAS please go to:
● SPPS MCA/MTAS Family Testing Information website: spps.org/Page/46393
● MDE Family Testing Information website: education.mn.gov/MDE/fam/tests/
Como Park Elementary’s Testing Dates are:
Reading Grades 3-5 on 4/2-4/4/24
Math Grades 3-5 on 4/24-4/25/24
Science Grade 5 only on 4/30/24
For this information in other languages, please click on the following documents.go to: Family Letters
For more information about MCAs, go to: https://education.mn.gov/MDE/fam/tests/
Student Pick Up
Our new student pick up system is going very smoothly! If you regularly pick up your child from school, please remember:
- You must have your number with you.
- If you do not have your number, we will ask you to go to the office to show ID. This is for the safety of our students.
- If you need another number, please let someone at pick up know so we can get one made for you.
- If you walk up to get your student, the line now forms on the sidewalk. Please do not stand in front of the door in the parking lot.
- Please pick your student up before 2:10. After 2:10, students will be waiting in the office to be picked up.
Quick Links
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 651-293-8820.
KAREN
ကျိာ်ဂုၤဂၤတခါလၢနအဲၣ်ဒိးအီၤ လၢအတမ့ၢ် အဲကလံးကျိာ်န့ၣ်အိၣ်ဧါ. နအိးထီၣ်ကွၢ်လံာ်တၢ်ကစီၣ်ပှာ်ဘျးစဲ ဒီးစံၢ်လီၤဖဲ ပှာ်ဘျးစဲအဖီခိၣ်ဖဲစုထွဲတကပၤ(လၢခီၣ်ဖၠူထၢၣ်ဖီခိၣ်) မ့တမ့ၢ် စံၢ်လီၤဖဲတၢ်ဖီလာ် (လၢနလီတဲစိ ဖီခိၣ်) ဒ်သိး တၢ်ကကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤလၢကျိာ်အဂုၤအဂၤအဂီၢ်သ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. ဝံသးစူၤသ့ၣ်ညါလၢ လံာ်လၢ တၢ်ကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤန့ၣ် ကအိၣ်ဝဲဒီး တၢ်အကမၣ် မ့တမ့ၢ် တၢ်တလၢတပှဲၤသ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. နမ့ၢ်အိၣ်ဒီး တၢ်သံကွၢ်တဖၣ်န့ၣ်, ဝံသးစူၤကိးပှၤဖဲ 651-293-8820 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 651-293-8820.
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 651-293-8820.
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 651-293-8820.
Como Park Elementary School
Website: https://www.spps.org/comoel
Location: 780 West Wheelock Parkway, Saint Paul, MN, USA
Phone: 651-293-8820
Twitter: @ComoElementary
Translations of required school-related communications can be made available upon request. Our school can also provide translators. Please contact the office or your student’s teacher if you are in need of these services.