Panda Nation News

Last week with Fall Pictures, Unity Day and our House Teams & Ice Cream Reading Night was delightful! Be sure to check out the pictures below. We are thrilled that our House Teams and Ice Cream Reading Night was such a success! 100+ Panda Nation folks had fun, enjoyed ice cream with sprinkles and learned so much about:

• Using our PBIS MAGIC at home to create support & consistency
• Being a part of their child's House Team and supporting their regular school attendance
• Using reading games at home to increase decoding skills, and
• Taking home LOTS of books to read!

Get ready for another exciting week! Our Kindergarten & First Grade students go to the pumpkin farm; we celebrate our Pumpkin Book Character participants and winners, and then end the first marking period on Friday with a 2-hour early dismissal.

Panda Love to all!🐼❤

Mrs. Schou, Principal

Mr. Engel-Cope, Assistant Principal

Ms. Melissa Bean, Academic Dean

"UNITY. It starts with you! If not you, then who?"

In Mrs. Cooper's presentation families learned self-regulation strategies and experimented with some helpful tools. They also learned about our PBIS MAGIC DoJo points; how to use the MAGIC tools at home, and how our school will be recognizing & celebrating students' positive choices and behavior.

In the House Teams session with Mrs. Bean, families also learned about how fabulous it is to be a member of a House & how students & their families can earn points for their house in addition to coming to school each day, wearing house colors on Friday, demonstrating positive behaviors, exhibiting good work habits, working hard, showing academic growth, and being a good friend- just to name a few. Houses will earn quarterly recognitions and celebrate each other's accomplishments!

SMCPS receives federal grant funds to operate and maintain our schools for federally-connected students. To receive these federal funds, the United States Department of Education (USDE) requires the school system to survey each student.

Online Federal Impact Aid Forms are now available through your student’s Home Access Center (HAC). Once logged in, directions to access the online form can be found HERE. A video with instructions is available HERE. The deadline for the online submission of Federal Impact Aid Survey forms is November 14, 2023.

We are committed to partnering with you to make sure the sky is limit for our Panda Nation scholars! Our Family Engagement Plan outlines how we will do that, and our Family Engagement Calendar lets all of us know when we will come together to make our plan come alive. Please take a few minutes to review both the plan & the calendar!

Our Home/School Compact in both English & Spanish outlines our commitment to ensuring student success. Hopefully you received and signed a copy at the August 21st Open House & September 28th Back to School Night, but if you didn't get on yet, don't worry, your child's teacher will have one for you at the Family/Teacher Conferences on October 9th.

Thank you for working together with us to make this a PAWSitively Amazing Year!

The SMCPS Equity for All Website features updated monthly celebrations, best practices resources, and a newly added Community Resource page. The purpose of the Equity for All site is to provide resources and supports for promoting excellence and equity in St. Mary's County Public Schools.

Join SMCPS at the Maryland STEM Festival on Saturday, October 28th at the SMC Fair Grounds. This year's STEM-ertainment guarantees that a great time will be had by all who attend!

• Oct 1st: AUP Due for ALL students
• Oct. 9: Virtual Instruction-2 hr. Early Dismissal-Parent/Teacher Conferences
• Oct. 17: Picture Day
• Oct. 18: Unity Day
• Oct. 19: 4:30-6:00-Family Literacy & House Teams MAGIC Workshop
• Oct. 20: 2 hr. Early Dismissal
• Oct 25: 1st Gr. Pumpkin Patch Field Trip
• Oct 26: Kindergraten Pumpkin Patch Field Trip
• Oct. 27: 2 hr. Early Dismissal-End of First Marking Period
• Oct. 30: Red Ribbon Week Activities
• Oct. 31: 9:00: PreK-5 Fall Festival Costume Parade
• Oct. 31: 4:30: LPES Trunk or Treat Activity in our Bus Lot

Please update your contact information with the office. It is critical that we have the most recent information for contacting our families.

UPDATE MY INFORMATION

Volunteers are an essential component to our Panda Nation students' success!

Please apply and remember that volunteers must apply annually for approval.

To help you navigate all the new elements of the school year and keep you informed about upcoming programs & events, we will communicate information frequently and in several ways. They are listed below for your reference.

• Weekly Phone/Email & Schoology Message: At 6:00 on Sunday you will receive a phone message & email from us sharing information about the upcoming week.
• Class DoJo: Very soon your child’s teacher will invite you to join Class DoJo. We use this platform because it is secure/members only and allows us to share a wide variety of information with you. Please join our DoJo family!
• Our LPES Website and Twitter feed: The LPES website has a wide variety of information for you and is updated regularly. We love to share all the wonderful things our students & teachers are doing, so we tweet just about every day. Follow us on Twitter @lpes_smcps
• Technology Needs: if you are new to the school or need a device from SMCPS please complete the survey here.

Email: raschou@smcps.org
Website: https://schools.smcps.org/lpes/
Phone: (301)863-4085
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smcps.org/posts/971720426301468
Twitter: @lpes_smcps