Hello Lester Families,

It has been a wonderful full week at Lester! We had our 100th day of school and our 2nd staff underground spirit day (Monochromatic Day!). There will be a couple more of these days over the next few weeks. These are not dress up days for the kids, but for staff. What this means is that our staff will all dress a theme and we will see if the kids can guess. It has been a lot of fun so far! Can you believe February is already here? Each month we have a new character trait focus and this month, we will focus on being kind. We will remind students different ways to show kindness and we will encourage our students to find ways to show acts of kindness regularly. We encourage you to remind them at home too! During this month of kindness, our staff has placed hearts around the building with words of encouragement, words of kindness, and positive quotes. We hope you enjoy these as you are in the building as well.

All of our winter testing is complete and emails should have been sent by District 58 with student scores. If you have not received an email, please feel free to let us know. Students all showed their talent last weekend with participation in the Variety Show and the District 58 Science Fair. Our students did a wonderful job in both!

Today you should receive your child's 100 day attendance letter. These were sent home with all students. This is meant to be a way to keep track of student attendance. Our goal is that our students are present 95% of the year or more. We know that sicknesses happen, however, we are hopeful that this will increase awareness.

Next week, we will have our parent/teacher conferences as well as our PTA Book Fair in the library. Hours for the Book Fair are included in the graphic below. We look forward to seeing many of you next week!

Next week, our Student Council will also be collecting canned and boxed foods for the People's Resource Center. Please consider donating items to help this cause. We appreciate it!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend :)

Katie Novosel

Principal

knovosel@dg58.org

Lauri Smith

Assistant Principal

lsmith@dg58.org

GRATEFUL FORM

ABSENCE REPORTING FORM

LINKS TO PRIOR LESTER LIVINGS

District 58 will open 2025-26 student registration on Tuesday, Feb. 4. Look out for an email from Megan Hewitt with registration details or visit www.dg58.org/registration for more information. We will be asking all families to complete registration by March 31. New this year, we will ask families who are leaving District 58 to please complete registration as well; you will only need to answer a couple of questions confirming your withdrawal.

Lester School will hold Kindergarten Roundup on Thursday, March 13th at 6:00 pm. If your child will attend Lester next school year, please be sure to attend to learn more about the kindergarten experience and to meet the kindergarten team.

In addition, we invite our 2025-26 kindergarten families to attend Kindergarten Dual Language Information Night at El Sierra School, 6835 Fairmount Drive, on Wednesday, Feb. 26 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. This meeting will provide an overview of District 58’s Dual Language Program. No RSVP required to attend; we hope to see you there!

Tuesday, February 4 & Thursday, February 6: Parent/Teacher Conferences

Week of Monday, February 3: Book Fair in Lester Library during conferences!

Tuesday, March 11: PTA Science Olympiad at Lester (more info to come from PTA)

Save the Date: Thursday, March 13th Kindergarten Round-Up for incoming Kindergarten 2025-2026

Tuesday, March 18- Friday, March 28: IAR (Illinois Assessment of Readiness) Testing for 3rd- 6th graders

Mon. March 31- Fri. April 4: SPRING BREAK

Thursday, April 10: Family Reading Night at Herrick cafeteria (more info to come from PTA)

Tuesday, April 22: OPEN HOUSE 6:00-7:30 at Lester

As you are spending time over the next few weeks with family, please consider submitting a recipe along with a photo of the recipe and/or you creating the recipe as a family in this form (optional). We would love to hear about the delicious recipes that represent your culture and your family’s history. Please share a recipe that is meaningful to you, the culture it represents, and any story behind it. We will then put them all together and create a document to share with all of our families!

District 58 is busy planning for its 2025 Summer School and Extended School Year (ESY) programs!

While details aren't finalized, we wanted to share basic information for families who may want to start making summer plans.

More information, including registration links, will be shared next month.

Summer School: General Education & Enrichment classes will take place Monday, June 9 through Friday, June 27, 2025 at Henry Puffer School. No class will be held Thursday, June 19. This session will offer math and reading grade-level readiness courses, as well as enrichment classes; topics are still being finalized.

Summer School: Band & Orchestra classes will also take place. The schedule is still in development and will be shared soon.

Extended School Year classes will take place Friday, May 30-Friday, June 27 from 8:15-11:15 a.m. at Henry Puffer School. No class will be held on June 19. This session is open to students who qualify through their Individualized Education Plan (IEP). The student’s IEP team will identify targeted goals and specific special education services for the student.

Please note, District 58 will not offer the Essential Skills Summer School program this year. This program was previously funded by federal money that is no longer available.