Miller Elementary Summer Update

Hello Miller Families!

I hope your summer break is continuing to be filled with fun and excitement! I have been busy with my family traveling for baseball, sneaking away to the beach, reading books, taking walks, participating in professional development and of course spending some quality time with friends and family! June was a busy month at Miller Elementary as we wrapped up last school year and began to plan to welcome all of your amazing preschoolers and kindergartners in a few short weeks!

Although I'm officially away from the building for the summer, our custodial crew, Mr. Jimmy and Mr. Anthony are busy deep cleaning our classrooms and getting to those summer projects. We are making sure everything is just right before we open our doors to an amazing school year!

Finally, many families begin to have a lot of questions about the start of the school year and their child's classroom teacher. I will be providing many important details about Kicking-Off the 24-25 school year in my newsletters along with an important teacher/class placement letter in August. You can expect another newsletter from me around August 1st and your child's teacher placement letter will be sent via a Final Forms message on Monday, August 5th. If you do not receive an update, either my newsletters or Final Forms Message, please reach out to the Miller office after this window of time. This is also a reminder to check all information in Final Forms to ensure your email and contact information is up to date. You can find the link to Final Forms below!

I hope you continue to enjoy these summer days as you create fond memories with your family!

All the best!

Maria Goodman

Important End of June & July Office Hours: The Office is Closed

If you need immediate assistance, contact Mary Kohanski at 330-562-6106

Important August Office Hours:

Miller Elementary Office Hours- 8:00-3:00 M-F

330-562-6199

or

Contact Maria Goodman - Miller Elementary Principal

330-954-2189

Email mgoodman@aurora-schools.org

In case we haven't met yet, WELCOME! My name is Maria Goodman and I have been an educator for the Aurora City Schools for 20 years! I taught 3rd grade at Leighton Elementary for 14 years and I have been the lucky principal here at Miller Elementary for the past 6 years. I feel honored to be the educational leader that welcomes you and your child to the Aurora City Schools along with our amazing staff members! You will get to know them very shortly and see why Miller is such a great place for the young child to grow and thrive. We truly are partners in your child's social, emotional and academic journey and we want to welcome you to Miller Elementary!

My husband, Noah Goodman, is also an educator in the Aurora Schools. You can find him teaching Social Studies at Harmon. My son Cole is in 7th grade at Harmon and my daughter Amelia will be a junior at Aurora High School. We love raising our family in Aurora and have such fond experiences of them thriving in our schools and growing into amazing teens! Hang on tight, because I remember when my kids started in preschool and kindergarten and it feels like yesterday!

• Popsicles on the Playground- @ Leighton Elementary School
• Wednesday 7/31 11:00-12:00
• Monday 8/5 3:00-4:00

• Friday, 8/16 - Miller Elementary Preschool & Kindergarten Meet and Greet from 2:00-4:00 PM (Suggested Arrival Window: Last Names A-L 2:00-3:00 & Last Names M-Z 3:00-4:00. If this doesn't work for your family, please adjust!)
  

First Days of School

• Tuesday, 8/20 - First Day of School for Kindergarten Students Whose Last Name Begins with A-L (M-Z Do not attend school today)
• Tuesday, 8/20 - First Day of School for Assigned Preschool Students (To be Announced in your Placement Email in August)

• Wednesday, 8/21 - First Day of School for Kindergarten Students Whose Last Name Begins with M-Z (A-L Do not attend school today)
  
• Wednesday, 8/21 - First Day of School for Assigned Preschool Students (To be Announced in your Placement Email in August)

• Thursday, 8/22 - ALL KINDERGARTEN and PRESCHOOL Children Attend School
  
• Friday, 8/23 - ALL KINDERGARTEN Children Attend - No Preschool on Fridays
• Monday, 8/26 - All Preschool and Kindergarten Attend School

Kindergarten Only

• Friday, 8/30 - Getting to Know You Days- KRA-Kindergarten Assessments - Students Whose Last Name Begins with A-L Attend School (M-Z Do not attend school this day)
• Tuesday 9/03 - Getting to Know You Days - KRA-Kindergarten Assessments - Students Whose Last Name Begins with M-Z Attend School (A-L Do not attend school this day)
• Preschool will operate as usual these days with no preschool on Friday and all preschoolers attend on Tuesday 9/3.

• Monday, 9/02 - NO SCHOOL (Labor Day)
• Monday, 9/23 - Miller School Picture Day - More Information Forthcoming

Each Summer, we like to invite our Miller children to play on the playground and enjoy a tasty popsicle treat to get excited for the start of the school year! This will be an opportunity to meet and play with some new friends. We will be holding our Popsicle Parties on the Leighton Playground since it is a larger space and we always have a large turnout! If it rains, I will send out a Final Forms message noting a cancelled event along with a new date and time. Hope to see you soon!

Please save the date for our Preschool and Kindergarten Meet and Greet!

Our Preschool and Kindergarten Meet and Greet will be held on Friday, August 16th from 2:00 - 4:00 PM. During this time, you and your child will get to visit Miller Elementary, meet their teacher, and walk the school building and classrooms to be ready for our first day. We ask that you bring your child's school supplies to our Meet and Greet so their book bag isn’t too heavy on the first days of school.

To help with parking and traffic flow in the building, we encourage all students with last names beginning with the letters A-L to come between 2:00-3:00 and those with last names beginning with M-Z to attend 3:00-4:00. If this suggested time frame doesn't work for your family, please adjust to the other window of time. We are excited to spend this time with you and your child!

Back to school supplies have already started showing up in our local stores and of course on Amazon! I wanted to make sure you had updated School Supply Lists so you can grab supplies during some important sales events. Happy Shopping! Please remember to check that a folder, lunchbox and other items can fit in your child's backpack. If the backpack is too small, it can be problematic when your child is learning how to pack it up and zip it up!

The Aurora City Schools use Final Forms to complete necessary back-to-school paperwork and to send out important communication! Final Forms saves data from year-to-year so that you will never need to enter the same information twice. If at any time a phone number, email address, or contact information changes, we will get a notification that a change has been made so please make updates whenever necessary. Also, if you see a field in red, you will need to make necessary updates in the system.

We have many families who have accessed Final Forms and have completed the necessary paperwork. This is one thing you can do now before the hustle and bustle of the beginning of the year! If you are having difficulty with Final Forms, we will be reaching out to families in August when we return to the office.

Our transportation department has been busy preparing for the 24-25 school year. Tentative bus routes may be available as soon as July 17th to view bus stop locations and times. Please remember these routes are subject to change and should be checked closer to the start of the school year. You will need to log into E-Link Versatrans using the link/button below and follow the log-in procedures to access your child's busing information. https://versatransweb04.tylertech.com/Aurora/elinkrp/Login.aspx

If this is the first time using E-Link, use the following login information.

User name = jane.smith (That is the students name, jane.smith with no spaces. Password = students date of birth 01012018)

Once you are in, go to “Work with students” then “View my students” We also now have GPS on the school buses. You can see when the bus is to arrive at your home.

We also have a Bus Stop App where you can track and monitor your child's bus and receive important updates. If you download “versatrans my stop” from the app store and sign in using the same information as above.

If you know your child will not be riding the bus no matter what grade, please email the transportation department and let us know so that we can have more accurate routes. Any student being transported to any location other than their home address will need to fill out the "Alternate bus stop form". This form is located on the ACSD website under the Transportation Department Site and is linked below. We ask that the changes made will be a regular schedule. We cannot do requests such as every other week.

All requests or changes to busing can be sent to: transportationinfo@aurora-schools.org

Transportation Information: https://www.aurora-schools.org/administration/transportationoperations

Finally, Miller Elementary uses a Google Form for attendance and pick-up/drop-off notifications. This is for notification purposes if you will be picking your child up instead of sending them on the bus and does not allow us to make changes to bus stops and locations. All Busing changes must go through transportation. More information about our attendance and notification will be shared in August!

One way you can become involved with our schools is to join our Aurora Elementary PTO. This wonderful organization supports our schools to provide rich and meaningful activities and events. You will be receiving more information from our PTO as the school year begins, but you can start by viewing their website.

When you sign up as a member, it will ask for your child's homeroom teacher. Please remember this information won't be ready and heading your way until August 5th! Thank you!

Maria Goodman : mgoodman@aurora-schools.org

Miller Elementary Principal

Erin Toler : etoler@aurora-schools.org

Miller Elementary Secretary

Email: mgoodman@aurora-schools.org
Website: aurora-schools.org
Location: 646 S Chillicothe Rd, Aurora, OH 44202, USA
Phone: 330-562-6199