Waters Families,

We have a few more new staff members who are joining the Waters team next year. Please see their introductions below, along with a recommendation for one of their favorite restaurants.

You may see homerooms popping up for students in your ASPEN account over the next couple of weeks. These are not the homeroom assignments for the coming school year. We will be sending a confirmation email for each student on Monday, August 19, with the homeroom assignments.

Please also make sure to save the date for Friday, August 23 for the Back to School Bash! It is always a fun event and a great chance to connect and reconnect with Waters families before school starts the following Monday.

With Kindness,

Mr. R.

The student fee for the coming school year can now be paid via EPay. The link is also posted on the main page of waterselementary.org. School fees will not be paid through ASPEN this year. You may also submit a check directly to the main office with the student's name written in the notes section.

Purchasing materials through the student fee enables us to make sure every student has what they need for the first day of school and save families money through bulk purchasing.

Waters' School Fee ($150 per student) includes the following:

• Student instructional supplies (folders, pencils, notebooks, etc.)

• Consumable student textbooks/workbooks

• Online licenses for programs like IXL and Flocabulary

• Local classroom field trips for the school year

• One School Spirit Shirt

The fee DOES NOT include:

• Personal items like backpacks, lunchboxes and water bottles

• Overnight & Downstate Field Trips (Indiana Dunes, Springfield and Washington DC)
  
  

Student fees are due Friday, September 20. There is no student fee for PreK.

For any issues with the school fee, please email Ms. Mendez.

Hola Waters Elementary School Community.

I am thrilled to join the Waters Elementary School community this year. Originally from Santiago de Chile, Spanish is my first language. I moved to Oregon, USA, at 23 and spent 11 years in Portland, where I developed my career as an artist, educator, and activist. Although I wasn't yet a citizen, I actively engaged in the community. Chicago represents a new and exciting chapter for me, having moved here with my partner, 6-month-old son, and our dog during the challenging times of COVID-19.

This school year, I am dedicated to building strong relationships with my students and their families and ensuring we support their academic and social-emotional needs. I love incorporating the arts, creative and critical thinking into the classroom, helping students find their voices and tools for and in their learning.

Outside of teaching, I enjoy playing volleyball, creating art and opportunities to uplift underrepresented voices, and spending quality time with my family here and in Chile.

I am working on trying more food and restaurants in Chicago. Still, my favorite food is Lebanese (Taste of Lebanon restaurant 1509 W Foster Ave, Chicago, IL 60640), specifically the baba ganoush dish; it brings back good memories with my friend Zeina when we were doing our MFA in Arts. We both used food as art to share our culture. She taught me to make this dish and we came up with the idea of one Sunday a month, bringing people together to share their dishes, which we called "The Homesick Dinners."

I’m excited to be part of the Waters Community! I live in the North Center neighborhood with my husband, two daughters, and our dog. My oldest daughter will study abroad in Vienna, Austria this fall, followed by Barcelona, Spain next spring. My youngest daughter recently graduated from high school and will study engineering and computer science at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. I love helping children develop a love of reading and finding fun ways to teach new skills. Before I became a teacher, I worked in international business and lived in Germany twice. I enjoy the challenge of learning new languages, which gives me a different perspective on teaching English. Aside from teaching, I like to travel frequently, bike, and garden. I can’t wait to explore the outdoor learning space at Waters, and I look forward to meeting you!

Club Lago

331 W Superior St.

Club Lago is a special place for me because we are friends with the owners, and it is a small, family-owned business that has passed through generations. It doesn’t hurt that the food is incredible, and the menu is packed with secret family recipes. I love their homemade pasta with meat sauce and always save room for cannoli. They also have a wonderful wine selection and other options.

I can’t wait to join the Waters community this fall! Before joining the CPS Teacher Residency program last summer, I worked at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. I have an MFA in creative writing with a concentration on fiction. My writing has been published most recently by the Sunlight Press, and I’m currently working on a novel. I live in Lake View with my wife who is also a writer, and my son who will be entering first grade this fall. I believe that public neighborhood schools are the foundation of a healthy democratic society. My own elementary and middle school experience instilled in me the value of curiosity and a sense of social justice. I look forward to contributing those values to the school community both in and out of the classroom.

Garcia’s Restaurant

4760 N Lincoln Ave.

I moved to Chicago from South Texas in 2010. Shortly after I moved, a friend from home visited for a Gipsy Kings concert at Ravinia. After the return Metra trip, we were hungry but most kitchens were closed. I’d not been to Garcia’s before, and was concerned that we would be disappointed by inauthentic Mexican food. The plate of nachos we ordered was almost identical to our favorite restaurant at home, and I’ve never quite gotten over the surprise. I know, I know… Nachos are more Tex-Mex than Mexican. The food critic and chef Adan Medrano writes convincingly in favor of what he calls a Texas-Mexican cuisine that dominates the part of the state where both the nacho and I were born and raised; a culinary tradition that is neither Tex-Mex nor Mexican. But I digress. On that night almost fourteen years ago, I tasted a little bit of home and I’ll never forget it.

We moved to North Center 15 years ago and have enjoyed growing as a family in this community. We have two daughters, who are 10 and 13. I've been teaching in CPS for 19 years, and I'm excited for this opportunity and the chance to grow and connect with my new school family at Waters. I am passionate about teaching reading especially and am eager to share my love of books with my students. Outside of school, I love traveling, camping, kayaking, hiking, ultimate frisbee and most sports. We enjoyed a Yellowstone road trip this summer, including some backcountry kayaking. (Loving that 4th grade National Park Pass!) We're big basketball fans, too (Go, Sky! Go, Fever!) and enjoy playing as well as watching our favorite players on the court.

If I were stranded on a deserted island and could only eat one food for the rest of my life, I'd pick sushi, and I don't think I'd ever get bored of it. I love that it is clean and simple, and I feel good after eating it. One of my favorite sushi restaurants is Sushi Taku in Logan Square... they have a great all you can eat option!

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and joining the Waters community!

Waters will be implementing a new reading curriculum for grades K-5th in the fall, CKLA Amplify, and the publisher has a regularly produced podcast. The podcast is not specifically centered on the curriculum itself. However, it does cover many facets of how we learn to read and interesting topics like "Cognitive Load Theory". Please take a moment to check it out if you are looking for something to listen to.