McClatchey Messenger

Happy Monday, McClatchey families.......Welcome Back to Another Great Week of Learning!

We hope you had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the beautiful weather! As we kick off the week, please make sure you’ve logged into the BoosterThon website to support our ongoing fundraiser. Your participation is making a big difference!

A huge thanks to everyone who came out on Friday night for McClatchey Night at the Heritage game—it was great seeing so many familiar faces cheering on our Jaguars and the kiddos that sang the national anthem did an amazing job!

This week is a busy one! Fall pictures are on Thursday, so make sure those smiles are ready. On Friday, we’ll be celebrating with our Glow Run during ENCORE classes—it's sure to be a fun event for all!

Lastly, we're nearing the end of the grading period. Be sure to check Parent Access in Skyward to monitor your child’s progress and ensure all missing work is completed.

Let’s make this week an awesome one!

As always, thank you for your continued support of this campus and everything you do to contribute to our community.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

This week in Science, we discussed how parts make up a whole and we practiced this in many ways.

Hopefully, your kiddos came home excited about our fundraiser kick-off this past week. This is a great campus wide event that will help us to raise funds for various campus improvements. The fundraiser will culminate with our Glow Run during ENCORE classes on October 4th,

Your generosity in previous years has allowed us to add tetherball and a volleyball courts to the playground, provided much needed shades for the playground structures and allowed us to replace our antiquated audio visual equipment in our cafeteria. We cannot make these much needed updates without our community support and we cannot thank you enough!

Please keep an eye on our social media platforms and check your email for updates throughout the week as the fundraiser has daily and weekly challenges that your children may be talking about. Each teacher has their own class incentives for things like hats/pajamas/bring a stuffy, etc. so be sure you are checking your teacher's information throughout the week in case your child's class wins a daily challenge. If our campus hits our target donations, Mr. Pennington and I will be spending the day camping on the playground or we could get doused with rainbow paints by the winning class as well. Again, thanks for any support you can offer us. All monies will be poured back into your kids and improving the educational experience for them at DME.

All families are invited to attend on our Glow Run on Friday to cheer on your kiddos as they make their laps. This is a fun event of thumping music and cool glow in the dark FUN. Your kiddos will be running during their ENCORE class time (Encore schedules are further down in this Smore)

Another entire month of the 24-25 school year is in the books, McClatchey!

As we begin October, there is a tradition I have started at every school I've worked. Last year we did this just with the teachers, but this year, we'd love to involve everyone. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and on Wednesdays we will wear pink to honor the many people's lives who have been impacted by breast cancer. This is a cause that is close to my heart. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. The journey is scary, tiresome, and overwhelming. However, I am happy to say we are quickly approaching her 10-years cancer free milestone. We also have a member of our campus staff who is a breast cancer survivor. Mrs. Anita Certain, 5th Grade Rockstar, has been cancer free for over 17 years.

Let's celebrate those who have survived, honor those who have passed, and champion those currently on their breast cancer journey. I hope you will join us in wearing pink on Wednesdays this month!

-Mr. Pennington

We are blessed to have an outstanding custodial staff that keep DME sparkling clean! Mr. Arturo and Ms. Victoria interact with your kids daily in the cafeteria and in the hallways and I know they would appreciate a note or card to say "thanks" for all they do. If your kiddo has some time this week, please consider asking them to make a quick card/drawing to say thanks to this special crew of folks who do so much behind the scenes!

The district has been sending out reminders about the importance of regular school attendance. To support these district attendance efforts, we will be starting our "Attendance Rockstars" challenge. Each day that your child's homeroom has perfect attendance, they will be earning a letter on their "Rockstars" poster. When their class completes their poster, they will receive a popcorn party.

Regular school attendance is soooooo very important for all kids to succeed and we appreciate your assistance with getting your kids to school each day.

Do you have a staff member that you want to acknowledge for their efforts with your child? We have amazing teachers at McClatchey and they are doing great things with our kids each day. If you would like to acknowledge one of these amazing people, fill out this brief Google form and we will share the shout-outs with the staff each week. Nothing feels better than a positive affirmation, so feel free to shower our staff with your kind words!

https://forms.gle/H8BYETDz4qJ8hr589

Mrs. Rothermel is the kindest and most loving teacher. We have had such an amazing first grade year. She is attentive and loves her students! We are thankful for her!

Ms. Davidson goes above and beyond in her communication with me about my son’s educational growth. She takes time to ensure parents are aware of the information needed. She also sends communication to let you know about how your student is doing. She truly has a passion for education. She is absolutely amazing!

Speaking of affirmations, she has a job duty for kids to do this in the classroom. It was awesome to hear Maxwell come home and share about it. She has been all the blessings of kindness, structure and care for teaching that our family needed! We are extremely thankful for her.

Nurse Stinchcomb has been a true blessing. When my son first started at McClatchey last year, like many others, she was unfamiliar with his health condition. However, she took it upon herself to learn more, doing her own research and reaching out to me to ask questions and better understand his needs. She consistently goes above and beyond to ensure he is well cared for. Thanks to her dedication, I feel confident and at peace knowing he is in such capable and caring hands while at school.

Ms. Garza has been a true blessing to my daughter since last year. As her case manager, she went out of her way to communicate with me weekly, ensuring that I stayed informed and engaged with my daughter’s education. We truly worked as a team, and it made all the difference in my daughter’s progress. Even though she is not her case manager this year, Ms. Garza continues to go above and beyond, keeping me updated on her weekly goals and offering support for what I can do at home. Her passion for education shines through in everything she does, and I am deeply grateful for her dedication to helping my daughter thrive, even though she learns differently.

All ordering will be done through the Ivey website and the company will be sending out information directly to your emails so keep an eye out for their information. Ivey is a locally owned and operated Midlothian business, so you can always contact them directly if you have any specific questions. Their contact number is 972-723-2464.

I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone about our afternoon walker dismissal procedures. We have received several phone calls and emails from concerned parents and neighbors about the growing number of families using the streets in Shiloh Forest for student pick-up. Along with that, there are safety concerns regarding our children after they are reunited with their parents.

Please remember that the walker gate is intended for families who live close to the campus and do not qualify for bus transportation. Lately, we've noticed an increase in families using the walker gate to bypass the car rider line. Unfortunately, the streets in Shiloh Forest are not designed to handle such high traffic, leading to potentially dangerous situations. Some students have been seen walking down the middle of the street or darting between cars, often while playing with friends and siblings as parents gather and chat.

We kindly ask that you keep a close eye on your children as you meet them each afternoon to ensure their safety.

If you do not live in this neighborhood, we strongly encourage you to join the car line for pick-up. It has been moving much faster lately, and most days, we are finished by around 3:25 PM.

Your cooperation is greatly appreciated in keeping our kids safe and our dismissal process running smoothly!

Our Fall Party will be on October 31st. Costumes are welcome and guidelines will be coming soon. We will be sending out a Pre-Registration Google form soon so keep an eye out for that.

Room Moms: You will be allowed in to decorate on October 30th @4pm

A reminder that the NEW lunch visitors procedures will be starting this week.

Change #1 - the only people that will be allowed to eat lunch with your child in the cafeteria are people listed in our Skyward system. Please know that this policy is not new to MISD. It was brought to my attention very late last year that all other campuses were following this policy and that we should have been following it as well. I understand the reasoning behind the policy due to custody concerns and just general safety so that every parent knows exactly who has access to their child while they are in our care. I know this change is not going to be easy and it is almost impossible to think of all the people that may want to eat lunch with your child in order to add them into Skyward. This will prove especially problematic if you have someone who wants to just “drop in”. Please know that they will not be allowed to eat with your child if they are not listed in Skyward. I

Change #2 - not allowing friends to join you at the tall tables at lunch. Not allowing friends at the tables is a new MISD policy. As a district, there were parents who called and had concerns about their children coming home and talking about eating lunch with some random person that the parents did not know or children being given foods that their parents did not approve of, etc. This was a large enough concern at the district level to necessitate the need for a safety policy for all campuses. We want you to come and visit and have a great lunch with your kids, but their friends will not be allowed to join you at the tall tables.

Please know that I understand that these changes are going to be uncomfortable for a bit as we all adjust, but I appreciate your understanding of our need to follow safety protocols and keep all kids safe.

We understand that sometimes things come up and may require you to need to make changes to your child's daily transportation. We are utilizing last year's process for you to notify the campus of any transportation changes.

• There will be a permanent link to a Google Form on our DME web page. This link will be the ONLY way to notify the campus of your changes. https://forms.gle/z2UH8BixzjBnSY9o7
• We will stop checking the form for changes at 2:15 each day. Please know that dismissal is very hectic as we try to get 645+ kids home. It takes time to organize all the changes and get notifications to teachers, so we cannot be processing changes after the 2:15 deadline.
• We will NOT be utilizing the office emails this year for notifications. You are free to call to verify that your change from the Google Form was received, but we will not be accepting emails for dismissal changes.

Please assist us by having solid transportation plans for your child. It gets very confusing for your children and our staff if transportation changes occur too frequently.

Student enrollment and registration will be completed online only.

New Student Enrollment

Student Registration
All students, including returning students and newly enrolled students, must complete student registration every school year.

Visit https://bit.ly/3PaekmS to apply for the Free and Reduced Lunch Program today!

If your child plans on eating breakfast, lunch or purchasing cafeteria snacks, they need a My School Bucks account. Please visit this link to set up a lunch account for your child.

https://www.myschoolbucks.com/ver2/getmain.action?clientKey=&requestAction=home

Our PTO has compiled a list of Room Moms, Teacher's Favorite Things and PTO Board Members Contact Information.

https://dmeroomparent2425.glide.page/dl/d0a5f4

Website: https://mcclatchey.misd.gs/
Location: 6631 Shiloh Road, Midlothian, TX, USA
Phone: 469-856-6600
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/McclatcheyES/