District Newsletter

Dear Lemoore Union Elementary School District Families & Staff,

Spring has arrived and we are excited to continue to provide learning and engaging experiences for our students! We are weeks into our final trimester of the 2023/2024 school year and we have so much more to accomplish in the months ahead. We are excited to share the wonderful events, district updates, celebrations and pictures of our students and staff in this edition of our LUESD District newsletter.

Our LUESD staff have been exceptional as they diligently focus their efforts on our student’s academic and social emotional needs. It is our goal to support continued growth for EACH ONE of our students. This was apparent during our recent professional development day, in which we intensified our work on our culture of continuous improvement to ensure we are meeting the needs of our students, staff and families. Our staff is committed to ensuring high levels of learning and support as demonstrated by our time focused on instructional practices, collaboration and team time, understanding trauma informed practices which are critically important in understanding and addressing behavior challenges and providing specific training to our site and district support staff as they play a pivotal role in meeting the needs of our district families.

I hope you will take time to enjoy the wonderful items covered in our spring newsletter. We are thrilled about the opportunities we to have provided our children, which include engaging in sports at the elementary and middle school levels, Read Across America Day events celebrating our love of reading and ensuring ALL of our students continue to experience a learning field trip this year. We celebrate the success of our students in both sports and music competitions and festivals along with the amazing spellers in both the District and Kings County Spelling Bee events. We are also excited to share our recent announcement of our LUESD Employees of the Year and our Liberty Middle School being recognized by the state and nation as a Redesignated School to Watch! These are just a few of the fantastic experiences our student and staff have taken part in this school year.

Thank you for your trust in us to educate our communities children. We don’t take this for granted. Wishing all of our families and staff a wonderful spring break from March 25- April 1. We look forward to many upcoming learning and engagement opportunities in the months ahead!

Happy Spring Break!

- Cheryl Hunt, Superintendent

We are pleased to announce our Lemoore Union Elementary School District Employees of the Year

• Debra Brown, Teacher at Engvall Elementary School- Teacher of the Year!
• Maria Banuelos, Paraprofessional at Cinnamon Elementary School - Employee of the Year!
• Starr Bouhaben, Secretary at Freedom Elementary School - Employee of the Year!

We congratulate EACH ONE of our outstanding employees. We are thrilled that they are being recognized for their commitment and service to the students and families we serve in our district! We also look forward to honoring them at the 2024 Excellence in Education Awards as part of the Kings County Office of Education and Educational Employee’s Credit Union event.

We appreciate our staff and the difference they make each and every day! WAY TO GO!

Lemoore Elementary celebrated Read Across America during the week of March 4th - March 8th. During the week dress up days took place, including dress as your future college or career. We also had guest readers from all over Lemoore reading & sharing stories with each one of our classes. Thank you to all the branches of military, police, fire and our Superintendent who came to share stories with our students.

Congratulations to our Lions who participated in the Kings County Spelling Bee. Aidena Martinez (1st grade) placed 2nd. Arielle Pasion (3rd grade) placed 1st. Issak Zubia (6th grade) placed 9th.

The 2024 Boys Soccer team ended the season UNDEFEATED and are league champions. Coach Hernandez is super proud of the boys and their sportsmanship. They played with all aspects of ROAR.

Our 5th and 6th grad students participated in their first joint concert on March 9th at the Annual Music Program Pancake Breakfast. They did an amazing job. Thank you Mr. Bentley for our great music program and all that you do to share the love of music with our students.

Engvall celebrated Read Across America in honor of Dr. Suess's Birthday. We had a variety of events planned for students. Student Council read to classes, students had dress up days, and community members were on site reading to our classes. Students and staff truly enjoy the week focused on reading and literacy.

Engvall Elementary students have been able to participate in engaging field trips this year. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to have experiences outside of Engvall. We are grateful to our parents who volunteer to chaperone, our students and to our district who has chosen to send all students on a field trips for their excitement exploring and learning new things.

Mrs. Debra Brown was chosen as the LUESD Teacher of the Year! Mrs. Brown is a champion for all students. She has taught 1st grade at Engvall for 19 years and has been involved in coaching sports at Engvall as well. Mrs. Brown started working for LUESD in 1990 as a paraprofessional. She was also a substitute teacher for LUESD for two years prior to becoming a teacher. Mrs. Brown has the belief that she has a positive impact on all students.

Read Across America is a special week at Cinnamon Elementary. Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that celebrates reading and recognizes the talents of the famous author Dr. Seuss. Our librarian, Mrs. Ahumada, organized all of our events for Read Across America. These included: dress up days for students and staff, fun facts, riddles and trivia about Dr. Seuss daily on Morning Announcements, book giveaways and classroom activities to celebrate and build the love of reading with our students. We love Dr. Seuss and we love to read at Cinnamon!

Recently we have had several grade levels extend their learning experiences through field trips to various locations. TK-K went to Storybook Garden, 2nd Grade went to the Fossil Discovery Center, and 1st Grade went to the Chaffee Zoo. These opportunities are engaging and exciting for our Eagles and families and are sure to make memories that last a lifetime!

For the 4th year in a row, we participated in The Great Kindness Challenge and this year Cinnamon earned the Kindness Certified Seal. This challenge empowers students to create a culture of kindness at their school, in their homes and in the community.

Individual students completed 50 kind acts to celebrate kindness with each other, their teachers and staff members. Teachers taught lessons about kindness in their classrooms and classes took on challenges by completing a project recognizing and thanking local businesses for their support of our community. Creating this culture of kindness helps all of our Eagles learn in a safe, supportive and caring environment.

Our students have been on some amazing field trips in the past few weeks. We would like to thank LUESD for making this a possibility for EACH ONE of our students in the district. A few of the trips taken already, Hearst Castle, Fossil Museum, Burris Park, the Children’s Storybook Garden and the Zoo!! We have a few more field trips coming up in the weeks ahead including Scout Island! There has been so much learning and adventure for our students, staff and parent volunteers.

Students at Freedom Elementary participated in kindness themed activities the last week of January. Each day at recess our counselor, Mrs. Sevilla, and our SEL para, Ms. Espinoza, hosted activities kind activities for our staff and students. Everyone loved taking part in these activities.

Each one of our students and staff met at Freedom Park last Friday afternoon, ready to read their favorite books to themselves and some to their book buddies. We had Lemoore PD and Fire Department join us to show their love of reading too! This was as a week of fun filled dress up days and guest readers came to a close. Freedom Jets love to READ!!

It's almost spring time and hope is springing eternal. If you are as American as apple pie, your thoughts may be on baseball. If that's the case, the soundtrack in your head might feature Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone

The sun came out today

We're born again and there's new grass on the field

What's this all about? It's about the fact that our students, our families, our staff, everyone affiliated with Meadow Lane Elementary School has put in a hard year of work and will continue as we transition into the last trimester of the school year. It's time to cash in.

We’d like to give a big yip, yip, yip, yeehaw to Meadow Lane students, Jonmari Cristobal and Joelle Geldore. They each won the Kings County Spelling Bee in their grade level, fifth and sixth respectively. It is the second year they have done so. We are proud of them and the work they put in to achieve this honor. Both will represent Meadow Lane, Lemoore, and all of Kings County at the state spelling bee later this spring.

We’d also like to congratulate our soccer teams on a great season. It was great in the lessons learned, the fun that is part of being on a team, the perseverance it took, and the memories made. Each boy and girl on the soccer teams represented the school well and we are proud of them. Basketball is the next sport for students to participate in and tryouts will begin when we return from spring break, on April 2.

We have just completed a great week of Read Across America, along with a book fair and our students in grades 3-6 are completing the ICA assessment to get ready for state testing in May.

Our 2nd trimester in the 2023/2024 school year at UCS has been a wonderful and eventful one. We continue to celebrate our Hawk Hero culture, with events such as the site, district, and county spelling bees, Turkey Trot & Jingle Bell Run, New Years Dance, high school registration, and Valentine grams, just to name a few.

We will be recognizing our 2nd trimester academic achievement award winners: Hawk Scholars (3.0-3.79 GPA), and Dean’s List (3.8-4.0 GPA) on the UCS Stars wall, along with those students who have shown significant growth in citizenship and /or attendance being celebrated on our Top Hawks wall. The second round of star and hawk head painting ceremonies will take place soon and our Open House extravaganza will take place on April 25, we hope to see you there!

We continue to recognize students on a weekly basis at our Friday Flag salute in the courtyard with our Hawk Hero awards and Student of the Month/Golden Hawk awards given out monthly. Fun Fridays remain a weekly event the students look forward to for socializing and positive behavior recognition. We have also had some great presentations and projects in our math, ELA, science, and history classes in the 2nd trimester on such topics as gravity, environmental support, foreign religion, etc., with many more to come. We wrapped up our soccer season in our first year of UCS sports! We won a game and Mr. Salazar got the water bath from the athletes. Our students have also read over 1000 books thus far in the school year. We’re continuing to make great strides and show Hawk Pride here at UCS.!

Some of our Liberty Band students participated in the Tulare-Kings County Music Educators Association (TKMEA) Honor Band, held at Porterville High School's Buck Shaffer Auditorium, on Feb 10th. The band was conducted by Kirk Clague, retired Exeter High School Band Teacher.
Students were selected by audition in December to participate; this included our students: Victoria Herrera Garcia - 8th chair clarinet, Emilie Harris- 5th chair alto sax, Solomon Bega - 2nd chair tenor sax, Grace Rodriguez - 8th chair trumpet, Zack Simpson - 10th chair trumpet, Myumi Peyegrin - 3rd chair trombone, Darius Sinsun- 1st chair bari sax, Leia Valdeabella - 1st chair Percussion, Aden Enriquez - 4th chair Percussion, Cayden David - 5th chair Percussion, Lillyanna Escamilla, 7th chair percussion. Congratulations to our Patriots!

We had our Liberty Patriot Rally on February 23. Students were asked to wear Red, White, and Blue. They were treated to some staff vs students basketball games, cheer performance, and a relay race. All the teams played hard, but the staff teams took the win in both basketball games.
The relay race consisted of so many different parts including a tug of war, 3 point shooting, cup stacking, and dodgeball. The crowds were cheering on the students in their grade. We hope that everyone had a great time and we cannot wait for our next rally. Thank you to the Liberty staff and ASB students that helped make this event a success.

Mrs Oliveira - 9 Years at Liberty

Mrs. Oliveira is a fearless leader. She does whatever it takes to make sure staff and students achieve great things. She is committed to the belief that every student leaves Liberty with a strong foundation in reading and writing. Her positive attitude influences everyone around her. Mrs. Oliveira knows her students well and values them as learners. She believes that every student deserves a high quality education and every staff member should always bring their best every day.

Mrs Covarrubias - 25 years at Liberty

Mrs. Covarrubias is a staple here at Liberty. At Liberty, everyone works together to achieve better results. Every staff member is a teacher, regardless of their title. She loves helping all students and seeing them understand the material for themselves. Mrs. C collaborates with all the teachers she works with and always asks the why behind what we do. This serves to prove that it takes every one of us to help make our students successful.

The District hosted its annual Spelling Bee on Wednesday, January 17th and Thursday, January 18th, 2024, at Liberty Middle School. The elementary sites and UCS had their top two students from each participating first through sixth grades compete for a place in the County Spelling Bee. The winners were:

FIRST GRADE

• 2nd Korey Frey, Freedom

• 1st Aiden Martinez, Lemoore

SECOND GRADE

• 2nd Arianna Leyva, Engvall

• 1st Dafneigh Blair Isip, Freedom

THIRD GRADE

• 2nd Arielle Pasion, Lemoore

• 1st Aubree Webster, Engvall

FOURTH GRADE

• 2nd Xymon Ronin Villesis, Cinnamon

• 1st Juliana Bryel Cruz, Engvall

FIFTH GRADE

• 2nd Jonmari Cristobal, Meadow Lane

• 1st Daennah Blithe Isip, Freedom

SIXTH GRADE

• 2nd Issak Zubia, Lemoore

• 1st Joelle Feliz Geldore

SEVENTH GRADE

• 2nd Jimena Gutierrez, Liberty

• 1st Myumi Peyegrin, Liberty

• 2nd Reyna Tortona, University Charter

• 1st Luna Carpio, University Charter

EIGHTH GRADE

• 2nd Adrianna Escamilla, Liberty

• 1st Victoria Garcia, Liberty

• 2nd River Kooyman, University Charter

• 1st Silas Gonzalez, University Charter

The top spellers moved on and participated in Kings County’s Spelling Bee which took place the week of February 27th through March 1st, 2024 at the Civic Auditorium in Hanford. Our elementary district participants secured first place medals in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 and second place medals in grades 1, 2, 3, and 5.

Mr. Kenney has served in the district for 30 years. He is a leader who has put students first and has impacted many students lives. His ability to support teacher learning being a coach side-by-side is his primary focus. He is driven to support all staff and has done so with a purpose, being reflective and a valued member of our district administrative team. He knows his students by name and meets their needs. His catchy Mustang Spirit, Yip Yip Yip Yeehaw has been a catch phrase for his students and he continues to do whatever it takes to support both student and staff learning. He is attributed to supporting our district team redefine our vision with our EACH ONE matra and it is our north star today.

• 4th Grade Teacher at Engvall
• Teacher at University Charter School
• Assistant Principal at Lemoore Elementary
• Learning Coordinator at Lemoore Elementary
• Learning Coordinator at Meadow Lane
• Current Principal at Meadow Lane

LUESD Board of Trustees and Superintendent Hunt thanked EACH ONE of our retirees for making a difference in the lives of our students and for their positive contributions.

• Marvalee Dillon – 7 years - Paraprofessional, Engvall Elementary

• Maria Juarez – 13 years - Paraprofessional ELD, Lemoore Elementary

• Kristine Brassart – 23 years – 2nd Grade Teacher @ Engvall Elementary

• Dwayne Trott – 20 years – 5th Grade Teacher @ Meadow Lane Elementary

• Lori Valentine – 26 years – 1st Grade Teacher @ Engvall Elementary

Note: Students currently attending school on an approved intra-district transfer permit are not required to resubmit a new application each year when continuing at the same school. However, a new application must be submitted when a student incurs an address change that establishes new residency outside the boundaries of their attendance area. The TK/Kindergarten deadline to submit intra-district transfer requests is March 31st and the TK/Kindergarten deadline to submit inter-district transfers is April 15. Late or incomplete registration will result in a denial of transfer.

• Facilities, maintenance, & operations has been "flooded" with work keeping the district in good condition. Our maintenance team has been doing their best to keep their heads above water dealing with leaks and flooding issues throughout the district from all the rain we received. We appreciate the patience provided as we continue to reach EACH ONE of our schools.
• The Liberty Middle School Marquee project has been completed and looks great. This is a beautiful addition to LMS and is a great tool to keep our families informed of things happening at Liberty Middle School and in our district.
• As a part of our district’s preservation and maintenance of our school facilities, it is our plan to add new cafeteria flooring at both Meadow Lane and Lemoore Elementary Schools. Lemoore Elementary School will also receive some overdue upgrades including a dropped ceiling in order to replace the swamp cooler with a new kitchen air conditioner.
• The custodial and maintenance staff worked together to remove and reshelf the books in the Meadow Lane Library for the installation of new shelving. The Meadow Lane library looks fantastic!
• The extensive HVAC project continues at Cinnamon Elementary. Our goal is to prevent interruptions to students and teaching by scheduling the final phase of the project for this summer.
• The District Office Annex construction project is moving forward. We are preparing to move the server and will be moving swiftly toward demolition of our old building soon after. Our construction team along with LUESD staff are doing all they can to prevent any interruptions in service to our LUESD families and students while this move is being made.
• For our district employees - Keep using the FMX work order system for any custodial or maintenance needs! It helps us stay organized and allows us to provide the best service. We will reach you faster and arrive better prepared with all the details you have been including and we appreciate this very much! If you have questions on how to access or use the "work system", please refer to https://fmx.wistia.com/medias/j2oik8nsb9?wvideo=j2oik8nsb9