November Newsletter

Dear Families,

As we head into the holiday season, it is important to pause and reflect for all we are grateful for at New Market Elementary. Our school is buzzing each day with excitement and curiosity for learning.This is due to the coordinated efforts and dedication of all of YOU! We are grateful for your part in making NMES a thriving school community.

Thank you, NMES Students, for the commitment and dedication you demonstrate each day. We are proud of each of you and the way you attack each day with enthusiasm.

Thank you, NMES Staff, for providing a top-notch educational experience for our students. Your commitment to every student, every day is seen in many ways including strong instruction, caring interactions and thoughtful feedback to move each student forward.

Thank you, NMES Parents/Guardians, for partnering with us to ensure your children's success. We are grateful for your support and collaboration.

Thank you, NMES PTA, for planning wonderful activities for our students, providing grant opportunities for our teachers, organizing fundraising options and much more! Our PTA is an important part of our school community and we appreciate the time and talent put into these efforts.

Thank you, NMES Volunteers, for the time you give our school. We love seeing our volunteers in our hallways, working with students and supporting our wonderful staff.

Thank you, NMES Community, for supporting our school with thoughtful donations and contributions. Our students and staff benefit from your generosity.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving season!

NMES Home-School Connection - Click HERE to view.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lockard - Principal

Mrs. McGaha - Assistant Principal

Dear NMES Families,

New Market Elementary invites you to participate in our school’s 2024-2025 Family Survey. Your feedback is important to us! Your responses will remain anonymous and will be combined with the responses of other families.

To access the survey online, go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/24_25_SysSur-Families

Important: If you have more than one child enrolled in FCPS, please complete one survey per child.

If you require a paper survey, please contact [Insert School Contact and Related Information].

The survey will remain open until Tuesday, November 19 at 11:59pm EST.

We thank you in advance for your feedback!

FCPS 2024 - 2025 Calendar Handbook

FCPS 2025 - 2026 Calendar

American Education Week: November 18 - 22 - see information in section below for our Spirit Days for this week

NMES Food Drive: November 11 - 22 - see information in the Counselor Corner section of the newsletter

• Tuesday, November 4: Schools closed for Election Day
• Wednesday, November 6: Grade 3 field trip to the ESSL

• Wednesday, November 6: PTA meeting at 7:00pm in the cafeteria
• Friday, November 8: Report cards issued
• Monday, November 11: Veterans Day - Wear red, white and blue!
• Wednesday, November 13: Picture re-take day
• Tuesday, November 19: Final day for families to complete the FCPS systemic survey (link to survey above this section of the newsletter)
• Wednesday, November 20: Grade 5 to Outdoor School
• Wednesday, November 20: Grade 1 field trip to the Weinberg
• Friday, November 22: Hearing and Vision re-takes
• Friday, November 22: Grade 5 to Outdoor School
• Friday, November 22: Mrs. Woozley, Mrs. Thuman and Mrs. Kueberth's classes to the ESSL for field trip
• Monday, November 25: Mrs. Henry and Ms. Johnson's classes to the ESSL for field trip
• Tuesday, November 26: Mid-term of quarter 2
• Tuesday, November 26: 2-hour early dismissal (dismissal begins at 1:25pm)
• Wednesday, November 27: Schools closed for Thanksgiving Break
• Thursday, November 28: Schools closed for Thanksgiving Day
• Friday, November 29: Schools closed for Thanksgiving Break

For all attendance related emails or transportation changes, please email nmes.attendance@fcps.org and include your child's teacher. Transportation changes must be made prior to 3:00pm.

Consistent attendance is important for your child's academic and social success in school. MSDE sets the attendance goal at 96%. Below are the attendance percentages for each grade level and for the school overall as of the end of October:

Pre-Kindergarten: 93.2%

Kindergarten: 94.5%

Grade 1: 94.8%

Grade 2: 94.5%

Grade 3: 95.1%

Grade 4: 94.9%

Grade 5: 95.0%

Overall School Attendance Percentage: 94.8%

You can support by sending your healthy child to school each day on time. Instruction promptly begins at 9:00 each morning. You can also support by planning vacations around the FCPS calendar. Thank you!

The following students were nominated by their classroom teacher as a "Role Model Monday" nominee. These students demonstrate our Be a Wolf expectations on a regular basis across the school day. These students are recognized on our morning announcements by Dr. Lockard. The students receive a certificate and small prize for being a great Wolf each and every day! Also, the parents receive a Good News Phone Call from Dr. Lockard.

• AJ Butterfield, third-grade student in Mrs. Schaffer's classroom. Mrs. Schaffer shared the following about AJ: "Mrs. Schaffer AND Mrs. Ewen both agree that AJ is a great Role Model Monday student! AJ is very kind and caring to everyone in his class. He is always willing to help others! Most importantly, AJ helps his classmates without being asked to. Keep up the great work AJ!"
• Garrett Weedon, fifth-grade student in Ms. Cooley's classroom. Ms. Cooley shared the following about Garrett: "Garrett is a great leader in our classroom. He comes to school each day ready to learn with a positive mindset. He is also always ready to help other students with their learning too. He demonstrates the “Be a Wolf” expectations each day and is a great role model for others. We are very lucky to have Garrett in our class this year!"
• Liam Applegate, fifth-grade student in Mrs. Hardy's classroom. Mrs. Hardy shared the following about Liam: " Liam starts the day with a bright smile on his face. Every day he shows up and is the best “wolf”. He is kind in the way he interacts with others and also is responsible with his work. He is a great example of a role model at NMES!"
  

  
  

  
  

Pumpkin Winners

Thank you to everyone who participated in the media center's book character pumpkin contest! Your creativity is amazing! Congratulations to the following winners. They each earned a $10 gift certificate to the spring book fair! You can see all of the entries at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E7R0gtFMuCnQocCPTi5Yqhbf6t34hE98/view

• Overall Winner: Cooper Beachy and Garrett Cramer (Very Hungry Caterpillar)
• Best PreK-1st: Penny Vinson (Cookie Monster)
• Best 2nd-3rd: Jane Ratcliffe (Witch from Room on the Broom)
• Best 4th-5th: Bailey Laffin (Humphrey)
• Best Picture: Ryan Gray (Flippy from Dog Man)
• Most Creative: Aurora Walmsley (Tsunami from Wings of Fire)
• Funniest: Noelle Garcia (Elvis)
• Cutest: Lyla Meyers (Cats from Katie the Catsitter)
• Artistic Spirit: Sutton Davis (The Mousetress from Katie the Catsitter)

Mark Your Calendars!

The Hour of Code, the annual worldwide event to celebrate coding, is held in December! To celebrate, the NMES Media Center will host our annual Family Coding Night on Wednesday, December 4th. Be on the lookout for more information as the date draws near!

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who supported our fall book fair! We earned $2500 for the media center and were able to give away $600 in books to classroom teachers, prizes to students and volunteer discounts. Mrs. Siderius looks forward to using the profits to purchase more books to support our amazing Wolves!

Volunteering

Interested in volunteering at school? The media center can always use the extra help! Check out our SignUpGenius at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B4FABAF2AAAF58-50891918-20242025#/.

Family Coding Night Volunteers Needed

Are you interested in volunteering at our Family Coding Night OR have a high school student who needs volunteer hours? We need additional help! You can sign up at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B4FABAF2AAAF58-52794318-books#/. For questions, please email our media specialist, Mrs. Siderius, at jennifer.siderius@fcps.org.

As the leaves turn colors and the air becomes crisp, fall brings many fun holidays and celebrations! You can use our optional choice board to learn more about all the special days in November! Visit https://bit.ly/NMESNov24 to learn more!

PTA Dates

• Walking School Bus - November 1st
• McDonald’s spirit night - November 5th
• Meeting Date - November 6th from 7:00 - 8:00pm in the cafeteria (Enter using the cafeteria doors)

Trunk or Treat Highlights

This year's Trunk or Treat was a HUGE success! Thank you to the volunteers who made it possible, to the families who attended for making it fun, and to the NMES staff for ensuring a successful event! The NMES PTA already has big plans for next year!!

Fundraising Update

Thank you NMES families for your support of our most recent fundraisers. We would like to share that our NMES Raffle was a huge success raising $2,460! Not to mention the fun memories our student winners made by riding a firetruck to school, eating fun treats at school with friends and teachers, being principal for the day, and so much more! Thank you families, teachers, and staff for supporting the raffle.

We also had a great turn out for our Chipotle and Chick-fil-A spirit nights in partnership with New Market Middle School PTSA! We are still getting our latest total from the last restaurant night and will share our results as soon as available. We are ever so grateful for our families and community that support our school.

NMES Grade Color Shirts on Sale in the PTA Store

We have a few extra shirts, varying sizes and colors, from our bulk order now on sale for $15. Please see our PTA Store to place your order.

Once purchased, your student will receive their shirt via their homeroom teacher. As a reminder, grade color shirts are optional. Students may wear any shirt of the designated grade color for field trips and field day.

Please click HERE to access our NMES Multicultural Bookshelf. The month of November features titles celebrating Native American Heritage Month and Diwali. Enjoy these read alouds with your children!

Click HERE to read information and updates from our school counselors, Mrs. Carl and Mrs. Blake. Some highlights include:

• NMES Food Drive information
• Ways to show and model gratitude

On Friday, October 4th, we celebrated Walk to School Day at NMES! In total we had 164 Walking and Wheeling Wolves that morning! Fifth Grade won our Golden Sneaker award having the largest participation rate. Fourth Grade and Kindergarten were the runners up. Check out the pictures from the event below.

If you plan to volunteer in the school, serve as a chaperone, help with a class event and more then you must complete the FCPS Volunteer Training. We highly recommend that you complete the training now. FCPS has updated the required Volunteer Training. The volunteer training process has been enhanced to prioritize the safety and security of our students, staff and community. Updates include:

• Adding 2 new training modules to the onboarding process to be completed via Unified Talent after creating an account on that platform.
• Increasing the processing approval time to 48-72 business hours to allow for thorough completion of the training and registration processes.
• Reclassifying of volunteer functions to customize training requirements. Family/ Community Volunteers will only include functions that are supervised and controlled by FCPS staff.

To access the training please visit the FCPS Volunteer Webpage and follow the new onboarding process (please note, training must be completed before registering to become a volunteer). Please note, this is an annual process and must be completed every school year. If you have any technical issues with completing the required volunteer trainings, please email unifiedtalent@fcps.org

The FCPS Code of Conduct can be found on the system website. Click HERE to view the Code of Conduct and accompanying resources.

When school is in session, you can reach the front office from 8:30 - 4:00 at 227-203-1460.

FCPS has a link for families to know when a bus is running late: https://apps.fcps.org/transportation/status

The FCPS Transportation Department appreciates everyone's patience during the beginning of the school year until bus routes are firmly established. Expect delays in these beginning weeks.