Prairie View September Newsletter

Autumn is upon us! It's hard to believe we've reached the month of October. It's always incredible how rapidly our surroundings change, with the leaves transforming into a colorful display and the mornings becoming refreshingly crisp. As the days grow shorter, let's hope for a beautiful and rain-free autumn season, allowing our students to fully enjoy the outdoors!

As we continue through the school year, I need assistance from our stakeholders regarding arrival and dismissal procedures. Safety is our top priority at Prairie View. Unfortunately, we have concerns about the safety of students being picked up and dropped off on the south side of the building along Pleasant Street. As communicated since the beginning of the school year, we kindly request that parents picking up students in their cars use our car pick-up process on the north end of the building. Our car pick-up process ensures that our students are picked up by the appropriate individuals. Now that our students are accustomed to this process, it takes an average of 10-15 minutes for all car riders to be picked up.

Similarly, for students who ride buses home from school, we use a daily checklist to track all students and ensure that they board the correct bus each day. The challenging part of our dismissal process involves students who are "walkers." Within the building, students who do not take the bus or are not picked up by a car with an orange visor sign at the north doors are considered "walkers."

During dismissal, many of our "walkers" are not walking or riding their bikes home. Instead, they are walking to a vehicle on Pleasant Street, some of which are parked on the north side of the street and some on the south. From a safety standpoint, our concern is that we do not have enough staff available to ensure that students who exit from the southeast door are safely picked up by the appropriate adult. We are worried about students crossing Pleasant Street and not being seen by a car, etc. Therefore, for the safety of our students, we ask that all parents/guardians who are picking up their student in a car use the car pick-up process.

If you have students across town at Dummer, the Middle School, or High School, we encourage you to pick those students up first and then head to Prairie View for your student. This will help eliminate the possibility of waiting in line.

Thank you for your help in this manner. We do not mean to be an inconvenience! We just want to ensure that all students are safe and acounted for.

Student absences need to be called in by 8:15 am (815-786-8811) on the day of the absence for the safety of your student. There is an answering machine here at school, so you can call at any time to let us know if your student will not be present. An automated system will take calls before 7:00 a.m. If your child is not at school and we have not been contacted, we will make every effort to get in touch with you, including calling emergency contacts that you've provided during the registration process. If contact cannot be made, please note that the absence will be considered UNEXCUSED.

Students shall be permitted no more than seven (7) excused absences, including vacations, per school year, based upon parental/legal guardian confirmation for the reasons of the absence. After the student has been excused seven times in one school year, additional excused absences for illnesses may only be verified through a written medical statement from a physician. For our full attendance policy, please refer to our student handbook.

On October 3rd, Prairie View will host professionals from Safe Passage into our classrooms to speak with our students about Erin's Law. Please read over the information below. After reviewing the provided information, if you would like your student(s) removed from the classroom during Erin's Law presentations, please let your student(s) teacher know.

What is Erin’s Law?

Erin’s Law, or Illinois Public Act 097-1147, requires public schools to provide child sexual abuse prevention education for children in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grades.

How is Erin’s Law taught at Prairie View?

In order to meet the requirements of Illinois Public Act 097-1147, Prairie View utilizes a local community resource called Safe Passage. Safe Passage social workers provide age-appropriate instruction that will help students recognize unsafe situations, keep themselves safe, and how to respond to unsafe situations. This year, Safe Passage's staff will visit each classroom and deliver an in-person presentation. Common themes instructed at all grade levels include:

• Identifying safe versus unsafe or unwanted touching
• The Safety Rule About Touching (The Touching Rule): Private areas are not for others to touch, except to keep a child clean and healthy
• Understanding the difference between good and bad secrets

Any further questions regarding Erin's Law?

If you have further questions regarding Erin's Law, please click here to view additional information provided by Safe Passage. Once you've reviewed the information provided by Safe Passage, if you have additional questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact the main office at 815-786-8811. If you'd like to opt your student from Safe Passage's Erin's law presentation, please contact your student(s) teacher and let them know.

Last Friday, September 27th, you received your student's Trimester 1 progress report. This progress report is being provided to give you information about the current learner traits your child is demonstrating to start off the school year. Please review the “Key for Performance Standards” section at the top of the document before looking over your student’s learner traits. We encourage you to look over the entire document as a preview of what standards are being assessed this trimester and throughout the school year. Your child's progress towards those standards will be indicated on their first trimester report card and will be discussed with you at our parent teacher conferences. You will also receive a copy of your student(s) Fastrbridge Family Report. If you have any questions about either of these documents, please reach out to your student(s) teacher. Family reports will be reviewed and discussed during Parent/Guardian-Teacher conferences next month.

Later this month, we will be sending information home about a school-wide reading program. As a building, we will have an end of year goal of collectively reading......cue your Dr. Evil voice...... One Million Minutes! Families will be asked to log minutes on a monthly basis. Here at school we will be planning some fun activities to incentivize and encourage all students and staff to read, be read to, and practice their reading skills on a nightly basis!

Save the date!

Halloween this year falls on a Thursday. We will be having our annual Halloween Parade starting at 1:00 p.m. If Parents/Guardians and younger siblings would like to stop by the school and see the excitement, please park in the parking lot and head around the back of the school to the blacktop. Please line the outside of the blacktop when you arrive. If inclement weather arrives, we will parade through the gym and hallways. Please do NOT send your student to school in their costume!

Students are invited to wear their costumes with the following guidelines:

• Students will change into costumes after lunch and must be able to put on independently over their clothes.
• If a student's costume includes a mask, it will not be able to be worn while at school except for a picture and the parade.
• Please limit costume accessories, as these can potentially serve as a distraction to our daily learning. Weapons (play swords, knives, guns, etc.) are not allowed.

The classroom teachers have coordinated Halloween parties with volunteers. Only designated volunteers will be able to participate in classroom parties on the 31st. All classroom celebrations will be following our district adopted Treat Policy however, each classroom will incorporate one curriculuar activity during their celebration that will involve the consumption of a tasty treat. The ingredients of these tasty treats will be reviewed for allergies and safety concerns by our school nurses prior to our room parties taking place. As always, the safety and health of our students is a top priority.

Treat Policy:

Celebrations and positive reinforcement are an important part of our district's culture of supporting students. Often, students bring treats or snacks to school to share on special occasions. Due to food allergies and other health concerns, we are only allowing a minimal amount of preapproved treats to be consumed at the classroom party. We still encourage healthy eating habits and promote non-food items such as pencils, stickers, bookmarks, or other small items in place of food treats. All Curricular activities involving food will be dealt with individually.

**Be on the lookout for information in your student's take home folder regarding our annual Pumpkin Decorating Contest!**

Save the date!

If your child has glasses prescribed, please remind and encourage them to wear them at school when they are supposed to be wearing them. We will also provide reminders.

Thank you so much to all of our students and families that supported our recent pizza fundraiser! The office has limited tickets still available if you would like to purchase some!

Uncle Lar's has generously donated a free 14 inch pizza to the top sellers at each grade level! Thank you, Uncle Lar's for partnering with Prairie View for this great fundraiser!

If you missed out on our sale or already enjoyed your pizzas and would like some more, please reach out to the main office (815-786-8811) as we have a handful of cheese($18) , peperoni($20), and sausage($20) pizza certificates still available!

Big shoutout to Mr. Beverage and Mr. Moore for helping make our school a great place to learn!

We are working on scheduling a few visits with the Fox Valley Therapy Dog Club here at Prairie View. Be on the lookout for a permission slip for our future. We have had therapy dogs visit in the past and our studetns have loved learning about and getting to know the various pups in attendance.

The Fox Valley Therapy Dog Club will be visiting the Sandwich Public Library on the 2nd Monday of each month from 5:30-6:30 pm. The kids can read to the dogs. Check out the Sandwich Public Library Website for further details!

Prairie View PPA has 2 fundraisers coming up before the end of the year:

• Mrs. Fields/Cheesecake Factory Fundraiser (Frozen cookie dough, cheesecake, cinnamon rolls, cake rolls, brownies, and more!)
• Farmhouse Candle Company Holiday Fundraiser (Hand-crafted locally owned candles offering their best selling scents for the holidays.)

Watch for more information coming home soon! If you have any questions Prairie View PPA can be reached on Facebook or by email at prairieviewppa@gmail.com.

This year's meetings will take place at 1:30 p.m. in the Prairie View Lounge. We would love to have any and all stakeholders join us for our monthly meetings. This year, our PPA president is Becky Englehart, Vice President is Amanda Chapman, Secretary is Katie Orosco, and our Treasurer is Kim Vartiak.

October 17th

November 21st

December 19th

January16th

February 20th

Marth 20th

April 17th

May 15th

Friday, October 4th has been changed from Fish Nuggets to Nachos

Friday, October 18th has been changed from Nachos to Fish Nuggets

• 10/2: Walk to School Day
• 10/2: 3rd Grade Hoover Field Trip
• 10/2: Custodian Appreciation Day
• 10/3: Erin's Law Presentations
• 10/8: Building Disaster Drill
• 10/8: 3rd Grade Naper Settlement Field Trip
• 10/9: Sandwich Fire Department School Assembly
• 10/11: No School - Institute Day
• 10/15: School Board meeting at Haskin Elementary at 7:00PM-8:00PM
• 10/17: Prairie View PPA meeting 1:30PM-2:00PM
• 10/23: Kindergarten Field trip to Kuipers
• 10/30: Picture Retakes
• 10/30: Building Law Enforcement Drill
• 10/31: Halloween Parade @ 1:00 p.m.
• 11/1: K-3 YMCA Field Trip
• 11/5: No School- Election Day
• 11/8: End of 1st Trimester