School News

Happy New Year! We hope you had a joyful and restful holiday season filled with special moments with family and friends. As we welcome 2025, we are excited for all the opportunities this new year brings for our students, staff, and school community.

With a fresh start comes a renewed energy and commitment to learning. Our students have already made great strides, and we look forward to seeing their continued growth and success. This is a wonderful time to set new goals, embrace challenges, and celebrate achievements—big and small!

Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership. Together, we can continue our year of discovery, learning, and joy for all of our students. We have a lot of fun and interactive events in the coming weeks. There is literally something for everyone and we hope you will participate in all that you are able to.

Our daily school announcements are now viewable on our school website! Enjoy seeing the highlights of past events as well as the communications for upcoming fun each day. You may even be lucky enough to see your student, or your student's class, featured for a special event. Press the bar below to access the MJ NEWS!!

The winter months are the time of year when illnesses tend to increase. This is something that is often out of everyone’s control, and we truly appreciate your efforts to prioritize your child’s health, well-being, and weigh those with the benefits of attendance.

Attendance Updates

We know that balancing health and attendance can be challenging, and we appreciate your continued efforts to ensure students are at school when they are well enough to attend. Here are a few facts related to our overall student attendance thus far this year:

• School Attendance rates have been up each month this year from the same month last year with the exception of November.
• The most common day of the week for a student to be absent is on Friday.
• 9.1% of our student population is considered chronically truant. Chronic truancy involves absences without valid cause for 5% or more of the previous 180 school days.
• Valid (excused) reasons for absences include:
• Illness (fever, vomiting, diarrhea, communicable disease)

• Death in the immediate family
• Family emergency
• Religious holidays
• Mental or behavioral health reasons
• Situations beyond the student’s control
• Safety or health concerns

• An absence is unexcused if it could have been avoided and thus does not have a valid cause. Examples include:

• Missing the bus
• Oversleeping
• Vacations or trips
• Sporting events, practices, or tournaments.
• Family events or personal reasons that were within the family’s control
• Attendance is calculated in a cumulative manner. Miss one hour per day for 5 days and you have accumulated a full day absence. This really adds up when students routinely arrive late or leave early.

We’re proud of the effort our families have made to keep attendance strong, even during a challenging season. Let’s continue to work together to make this a successful school year for all students!

Tips to Promote Student Health

• Encourage frequent hand washing: Regular hand washing includes using soap and warm water, scrubbing for at least 20 seconds, and drying hands thoroughly. Singing the "Happy Birthday" song twice is a great way for younger children to time themselves!

• Stay home when sick: Use our district guide to help determine if your child can attend school or should stay home. If your child is showing symptoms of illness, such as a fever or persistent cough, please keep them at home until they are symptom-free for 24 hours.

• Healthy habits: Make sure your child gets enough sleep, eats nutritious meals, and stays hydrated.

Thank you for your partnership and support. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Marion Jordan will be among the many schools pushing the pause button on academic learning for part of the day on February 5, 2025. This date marks the 10th anniversary of Global School Play Day (GSPD). GSPD has been promoted by Psychology Today and is being celebrated at schools around the world. You can learn more about the benefits of unstructured play by visiting the official GSPD website: www.globalschoolplayday.com. We are inviting all of our students to bring in things to play with on this very special day. Here are some examples of things your child may bring in (be sure your child’s name is clearly marked on all items):

If you are missing items including jackets, sweatshirts, gloves, mittens, boots, water bottles, lunchboxes, and more, there is a good chance those items are in our overflowing Lost and Found. Please ask your child(ren) to take a minute to view the displayed items in the hallway near the gym. We'd love nothing more than to reunite lost items with their owners. Any unclaimed items will be donated to a local clothing closet as we get into Spring.

There has been a noted increase in the number of students bringing cell phones and other electronic devices, specifically cellular wrist devices, to school in recent months. These devices often have all of the capabilities of a cell phone, including accepting phone calls, texting and internet access. While at school, it is important the watches are in "school mode" where they essentially function as a timepiece. It is not necessary for students to communicate with each other or parents throughout the school day via these devices. If a student needs to get in touch with a parent or vice versa, those communications should be via email or phone call to the classroom teacher or the office staff. We appreciate your assistance with this as we strive to keep our elementary school culture focused on teaching and learning.

For your reference, I have included the language from the Parent/Student Handbook below:

Student possession and/or use of cell phones and other electronic devices while at school is governed by Board of Education Policy 7:190 Student Behavior. Here is the excerpt related to cell phones: School administration is authorized to discipline students for gross disobedience or misconduct including, but not limited to:

● Using or possessing a cellular phone, video recording device, or other electronic device in any manner that disrupts the educational environment or violates the rights of others, including using the device to take photographs in locker rooms or bathrooms, cheat, or otherwise violate student conduct rules. Prohibited conduct specifically includes, without limitation, creating, sending, sharing, viewing, receiving, or possessing an indecent visual depiction of oneself or another person through the use of a computer, electronic communication device, or cellular telephone.

● All electronic devices (i.e., cell phones, earbuds, headphones, cellular wrist devices, etc.) must be kept powered-off and kept in the locker during the regular school day unless: (a) use of the device is provided in a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP); or (b) it is needed in an emergency that threatens the safety of students, staff, or other individuals.

School administration is authorized to discipline students for gross disobedience or misconduct including, but not limited to:

● Using or possessing a cellular phone, video recording device, or other electronic device in any manner that disrupts the educational environment or violates the rights of others, including using the device to take photographs in locker rooms or bathrooms, cheat, or otherwise violate student conduct rules. Prohibited conduct specifically includes, without limitation, creating, sending, sharing, viewing, receiving, or possessing an indecent visual depiction of oneself or another person through the use of a computer, electronic communication device, or cellular telephone.

● All electronic devices (i.e., cell phones, earbuds, headphones, cellular wrist devices, etc.) must be kept powered-off and kept in the locker during the regular school day unless: (a) use of the device is provided in a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP); or (b) it is needed in an emergency that threatens the safety of students, staff, or other individuals.

Congratulations to all the D15 students whose Reflections art projects will be advancing to the Northwest Cook Region! A special congratulations to MJ students Hudson G. and Harper G. for their submissions and advancement to the Northwest Cook Region.

Outside is not the only place we are seeing white these days. Our beloved caught being good tokens, our Blue Jays, have lost their blue coloring and are currently being called Ice Jays. The Ice Jays are being given out to students who are demonstrating respect, responsibility and/or safety in targeted areas of the school. After a review of our pre-winter break data, we noticed that many of the minors/majors have been issued during less structured times and areas of the school. The noon hour, the hallways, and the bathrooms are a few places identified as areas where students need some reminding and reteaching about how they can demonstrate our 3 B's in these areas. We are addressing an area each week to highlight on our morning announcements and then reinforcing with our Ice Jays. Once collected, the Ice Jays are being put into large cubes in our library to create blocks to build the framework of an igloo. Once all the blocks are filled, we will celebrate our sucess as a school with a fun school-wide "Penguin Popper" event. We are extremely proud of the efforts our students put in to make a positive contribution to our positive school climate.

Congratulations to 5th Grader Caleb S. for winning the Marion Jordan School Spelling Bee competition. Caleb went up against worthy opponents from each of our 4th and 5th grade classes to earn this title. We are so proud of all of the participants in the classroom and school bee and wish Caleb all of the best as he competes in the District level Spelling Bee at 7pm on Monday, February 3, 2025 at Sundling Middle School.

We will celebrate Valentine's Day at Marion Jordan Elementary on Friday, February 14th. Classroom parties will be hosted and run by amazing volunteers organized by our dedicated room parents. Parties will run from 12:45-1:45pm with clean up and volunteer departure from 1:45-2pm. We appreciate everyone adhering to this schedule as closely as possible to allow for time and room for our buses and parent pick up cars to get into the parking lot without a battle for the space. As a reminder, all of our school celebrations are food free and this includes not attaching candy to any Valentine's your child would like to deliver to classmates. We strive for inclusivity for all, and therefore kindly ask that if your child plans to bring Valentine's to share, they should include one for each student in his/her class. You can reach out to the room parent(s) for your child's classroom or Mrs. Grosch in the office with any questions.

Monday, February 3 - District 15 Spelling Bee @7PM Sundling Middle School

Wednesday, February 5 - Global School Play Day

Thursday, February 6 - Band Concert @ TJMS at 7PM

Friday, February 7 - MJ Fun Fair 5:30-8:30pm

Friday, February 14 - Valentine's Day Parties - 12:45-1:45PM

Monday, February 17 - President's Day/Teacher Plan Day - No School

Thursday, February 27 - Winter Choir Concert @6PM

Friday, March 7 - End of Trimester 2

Friday, March 7 - MJ Talent Show

Tuesday, March 11 - Half Day Student Attendance - Teacher Institute Day

March 24-28 - Spring Break - No School

Heading out to recess daily for a breath of fresh air is refreshing for our students. As a reminder, they need to have boots and snow pants to play out in the field. Thank you for ensuring your student has the necessary outerwear to be able to join the fun.

District 15 SEL Website

Welcome to Marion Jordan Elementary School, Home of the Blue Jays!

We are located at 100 N. Harrison Ave. Palatine, IL 60067

Our main office phone number is 847-963-5500. Our Absence Line is 847-963-5501.

Principal: Mrs. Jennifer Grosch 847-963-5505 groschj@ccsd15.net

Assistant Principal: Mrs. Hillary Pruc 847-963-5504 pruch@ccsd15.net

School Office Staff: Ms. Jess Veltri 847-963-5580 veltrij@ccsd15.net and Mrs. Kelly Wallin 847-963-5503 wallink@ccsd15.net

School Nurse: Mrs. Brooke Buczkiewicz 847-963-5502 buczkieb@ccsd15.net