Highland Happenings

Good Afternoon Highland Families,

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are having a happy new year. It was great to have all of our Huskies back at Highland this week as we kicked off 2025! This week we had a glow lunch to celebrate filling our Husky High Five tube and started our Winter MAP testing. The MAP testing schedule for next week can be found below. We are excited to begin our annual roller skating unit in PE next week, a big thank you to the Highland PTA and Mr. Winter for making this program possible! We are also excited for the Harlem Wizards to visit Highland next week and hope you can join us at the Harlem Wizards game next weekend! If you have any questions or need any assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at 630-719-5835. Take care and have a great weekend!

My Best,

Zac Craft

Principal, Highland School

• 01/13/25: Roller Skating in P.E. begins
• 01/14/25: PTA Meeting at 7:00 P.M. in the Highland Library
• 01/17/25: Fun Lunch - Chicken Quesadilla

• 01/20/25: No School - Martin Luther King Jr Day
• 01/21/25: 5th Grade Intramurals
• 01/22/25: Student Council Meeting
• 01/23/25: Highland Scoop Meeting
• 01/24/25: Pizza Lunch
• 01/24/25: January All-School Meeting

The District 58 Science Fair has a new location: O'Neill Middle School. The Science Fair will still take place on Saturday, Jan. 25, as scheduled. Due to construction, parking will be tight. We will send Science Fair participants instructions on parking and other Science Fair details when the event gets closer.

Dear Highland Elementary School Families,

Let the games begin, Heart Heroes! Kids Heart Challenge is here and it’s better than ever! Sign up TODAY to get started on Finn’s Mission - refresh your Hands-Only CPR skills and learn the warning signs of a stroke. Every student who completes Finn’s Mission will earn their very own Heart Hero Cape!

Help Save Lives with These Simple Steps:

Download the FREE AHA Schools App for Apple or Android and click on “Register Now” then scroll down to join your school's team. OR click HERE and choose “Sign Up” to get started.

Thank you for being an essential part of the Kids Heart Challenge, supporting our school and the American Heart Association. Every step you take helps save lives. Let’s make a powerful positive impact together!

Please check out our Highland Parent Letter for more details and special incentives this year!!

As part of our new Student Library Card Program, District 58 invited families to sign up their child to receive a free library card during school registration last year. The Downers Grove Public Library recently finished preparing the library cards and delivered them to District 58 schools. Students will receive and learn about their library cards during their Highland Library time.

Students who signed up and already have a library card will receive an envelope with information about the program. In addition, participating students who live in Woodridge should have received their library card by mail last month. Library cards may not yet be ready for students who transferred to District 58 mid-school year. If you did not sign up your child for a library card but would like one, please contact the school office. We will partner with the library for a second issuance of library cards later this year.

Learn more about the Student Library Card Program.

Winter parent-teacher conference signups will be open from Thursday, Jan. 23 at 11 a.m. through Friday, Jan. 31 at 11 a.m. Families can sign up using the PowerPTC system.

Conferences will take place the evenings of Feb. 4 and Feb. 6.

View conference signup instructions here. (para Español: Registro para las reuniones de padres y maestros).

We value communication with parents and guardians, but we have received feedback that as a result of strong and ongoing communication between home and school a winter conference may not be necessary for all families. You can simply choose not to sign up. Regardless, please know that you can request a conference with your child’s teacher at any time throughout the year. Additionally, your child’s teacher(s) may contact you at any time if they feel a conference would be helpful.

Our Winter MAP benchmark testing continues next week. This is an exciting opportunity for our students to demonstrate their knowledge, as well as for our teachers to collect data to inform their instruction. Below is the MAP testing schedule. We would appreciate it if you remind your student to try their best on the test, get a good night sleep before the test, (and everyday), and eat healthy breakfast!

llnesses such as flu, RSV and COVID-19 are spreading in the community. District 58's Health Services website has great resources on preventing these illnesses, and steps to take if you get sick.

In addition, winter break is a great time to clean your child's coats, winterwear, book bag, lunch box and anything else your child takes to school to help fight the spread of germs!

If your family has moved in the past year, or if your student’s address information has changed in any way, please contact Lori at lblahous@dg58.org or call 630-719-5835 and provide your updated information prior to winter break. In addition, if you rent a property, please make sure that your school has a copy of your most recent lease. You may email a copy of your lease to lblahous@dg58.org or drop off a copy at our school office.

District 58 will open 2025-26 student registration in February 2025. As part of the student registration process, District 58 works with a third-party vendor to verify that all students live within the District’s boundaries. After winter break, District 58 will begin the student address verification process. By starting this process earlier, we hope student registration will go more smoothly and more efficiently.

If our third-party vendor, Thomson Reuters CLEAR, cannot confirm that a student lives at their registered address, they will flag that student. District 58 will contact the student’s family and request additional documentation to confirm their address. A family will not be able to register their student for the 2025-26 school year until their residency is confirmed.

Keeping your child’s address information up-to-date will help make the registration process go more smoothly and ensure your child’s registration is completed without delay. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter! District 58 will share more information about 2025-26 student registration after winter break.

Do you have young children at home? Do you have friends or neighbors with little ones? Please share this information!

District 58 offers free preschool and developmental screenings designed to identify young children, ages 0-5, who might have developmental delays and who would benefit from special education prior to beginning kindergarten.

Each week, a member of the Highland staff will be highlighted in the Highland Happenings! This is a great opportunity for our Highland community to learn more about our staff members and all of the information featured in the Happenings can be found in the staff directory on our website. This week we are highlighting Mrs. Costello.

Yearbook

2024-25 Yearbook Cover Contest - "H.O.W.L. with Pride!”

All students are invited to get creative and show us how you "H.O.W.L. with Pride" for a chance to have their drawing printed on one of the covers of the 2024-25 Highland School yearbook!

• The 2024-25 Yearbook Cover Contest flier and submission form was sent out last week.

• If you misplace your form, you can download one here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bqAn1V5bYKyGVUER5Y2cL2O_ZQLLZjvn/view?usp=sharing

• Submissions are due by Friday, January 17, 2025. (Sorry, no late submissions will be accepted).

• Artwork will NOT be returned to the student.

• Students may team up to design a cover, but no more than two students per entry.

Please contact Christina Zycinski at clzycinski@gmail.com with any questions.

Dining 4 Dollars

Our next event is at Lantern Pizza on January 18-19 - that's right A WEEKEND! While most local restaurants will not do dineout events on weekends, we were able to convince Lantern to let us give it a shot. As several people requested weekend events in the survey, please eat at Lantern and mention the PTA sent you! :)

In-School Roller Skating

Let’s roll! Beginning next week, January 13, 3rd-6th grade students who have returned completed permission slips will participate in in-school roller skating during their gym class. Please make sure they have socks to wear with their rental skates!

PTA Meeting

We can’t wait to see all of you at our next PTA meeting! It will be on Tuesday January 14th, 7pm, at Highland.

Item's that can be found in every edition of the Highland Happenings, such as the Highland Playbook and our student attendance form can be found below. We want to ensure that these resources are always available to our families while also making each week's Happenings as reader-friendly as possible!

The Highlanad Playbook is your place to find important information about Highland including a staff directory, arrival/dismissal procedures, informaion about social-emotional learning, and much more. Click the image to the right to access the 2024-2025 Highland Playbook.

It is amazing how far technology has come over the last decade and continues to advance. We recognize the value technology has not just in education, but our world. However, we hope that we can work together to remind students that during the school day, personal electronic devices should be turned off or silenced and out of sight. This includes wearable devices if they become distracting to the learning environment. Students should not be using phones, Apple Watches, or other devices to send or receive text messages or phone calls during the school day.

Email: zcraft@dg58.org
Website: DG58.org/HG
Location: 3935 Highland Avenue, Downers Grove, IL, USA
Phone: (630)-719-5835
Facebook: facebook.com/HGHuskies
Twitter: @HGHuskies