Reardan Weekly

We will see you back in school on Monday, December 2nd

A big THANK YOU to FirstFruit Farms for the apple tasting in the elementary.

It doesn’t take a lot of snow to make our kiddos happy. They enjoyed the snow while it lasted. Parents, remember to send your children to school in weather appropriate clothing.

Book Fair will continue to run Monday and Tuesday through all conference times:

Monday, November 25th – 8:00 AM - 7:00 PM

Tuesday, November 26th – 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Stop by the lost and found to see if you recognize any of the items that are collecting by the minute.

Last call for Parent Conferences! If you would like to schedule a conference with your child and all of his/her teachers, we still have time slots available on Monday and Tuesday morning. These conferences will be held in Ms. Koch’s classroom in the High School building. We are holding Monday afternoon and evening sessions for drop-in conferences where you can stop in and meet with individual teachers in their classrooms. We hope to see you on Monday or Tuesday. Email Principal Newsum if you would like to set up a conference dnewsum@reardansd. net She will check her email over the weekend and get you scheduled.

PLEASE take time to review your students’ goal setting and reflection work whether you attend conferences or not. Each middle school student is expected to share their progress packet with their parents along with their High School and Beyond Plan. Please sign the last page of the packet and have your child return it the week after Thanksgiving break.

This week we want to give a shoutout to our HS WDFY (Washington Drug Free Youth) students for creating a Thankful Tree and hosting a fun activity for students to share their gratitude and some treats. Lily and Lacey created this beautiful 3-D tree and students contributed their personal gratitude thoughts. Thanks for being positive leaders.

Middle school students had an awards assembly on Thursday where we recognized 63 students who achieved a grade point average of 3.3 and above along with our Character Trait of the Month awards, Bus riders of the month, and drew names from the Reardan Pride Card bucket. Following the assembly, all students who had no tardies or major office referrals for the month of November played games, sang karaoke, and enjoyed a cereal bar snack cup. Our PBIS end of month celebrations aim to shine a light on all students who are “doing it right” each month. For December we are focusing on the trait of Kindness and students who complete a “Kindness Bingo” card and have no major office referrals will decorate cookies, enjoy cocoa, and watch a fun holiday movie on December 19th. We are so grateful for our amazing families. Our coaching partners at Clayful have shared a link with ideas for connecting with your teen here: Here's some coaching ideas. Clayful coaches will be on staff all next week including Thursday and Friday.

Winter Concert Middle & High School

Date: December 11th

Time: 7:00 PM

Location: High School Gym

Winterfest

Dates: December 9-13th

Important Information: Join us for our annual spirit week with the Davenport Gorillas! Support our food drive and cheer on our wrestlers at the Battle of the Belt in Davenport on Thursday, December 12th, and at home basketball games and spirit competitions on Friday, December 13th.

Winter Reading Challenge

Students are invited to participate in our Winter Reading Challenge! Starting December 1, students can log their reading hours for a chance to win exciting prizes. Encourage your child to explore new genres and authors.

The Options Program offers 25 + different K-8 enrichment classes on a 8 week rotating schedule that certificated teachers and community members teach. These classes are meant to foster creativity and innovation, identify and nurture talents, enhance at-home learning, prepare students for the future and build a stronger school community.

The kids are having a blast in 2nd quarter enrichment classes! One of the classes offered to 2-4 grades is "Blow It Up". This class is a great way to spark kids' interest in science and introduce them to exciting concepts like explosions and reactions. This week they brought science to life by blowing up a balloon in one breath to demonstrate a complex scientific principle like Robert Boyle's Law. It's great that the kids are having fun while learning about such an important concept.

Monday 11/25 -Innovation Center

What is Parent Square?

Parent Square is the 2-way communication platform we are launching. This is how the winter coaches are communicating with their teams and parents. It allows parents and athletes to receive communication via app notification or text, without having to share phone numbers. Accept the parent square invite in your email and download the app.

If you have questions contact Andrea McLaughlin amclaughlin@reardansd.net

A student was caught helping another student in the breakfast line.

Roberta and Heidi rolling chicken tacos for lunch.

The Transportation Department wants to let you know that over the past two years, we have been in the process of obtaining electric buses, in hopes of getting in on the ground floor of the change sweeping through our industry and hopefully providing a safe, reliable, and green mode of transporting students.

After all this time it was finally real last week, our partner in this process Avista, and their contractor Colvico started trenching at our transportation facility to install all of the new conduits that will carry the new power lines to supply the chargers that we have ordered and hope to have it all installed later this spring. We currently have 2 electric buses in production slots at the manufacturer scheduled to be built in January and we should see them in spring and get them on the road before the end of the school year.

Seeing that our hard work has something tangible to show is exciting. If you have any questions or concerns or would like to know more about the process please contact the transportation department at 509-796-4361 or by email at mmccain@reardansd.net. Thank you!

Hi Parents,

CAUTION

This week I want to bring to your attention some important information on what today's children are facing online. We have shared some about the dangers of websites, social media, and online gaming before, but this information unfortunately takes it to a more pressing and dangerous level.

This week Superintendent Sobotta was a part of a meeting with the FBI regional team sharing about violent online groups. The FBI is warning that these groups are deliberately targeting minor victims on publicly available platforms, to include social media, discord, online gaming, and more. These groups, called GORE groups are a loose network of groups with the primary mission to target youth to coerce them into acts such as self-harm, produce Child Sexual Abuse Material, attempt suicide, and hurt animals. They then take these acts that are live streamed and recorded and blackmail, manipulate, scare, and control their victims into more acts for further exploitation. Some groups will blackmail for money, while some will threaten to post online or share with family and friends of the victims. These members are dangerous predators with only the goal of hurting and destroying children's lives for their entertainment and notoriety. They will target kids as young as 8 and especially those with a history of mental health issues such as depression and suicidal ideation. Their ultimate goal is to get youth to complete a recorded suicide.

These groups are using extreme fear to control their victims, therefore it is imperative to use caution when posting online, never share personal information online, educate our children, monitor their online presence and gaming. The FBI also recommends you watch for warning signs of self-harm and suicide:

• Sudden behavior changes such as becoming withdrawn, moody, or irritable.

• Sudden changes in appearance, especially neglect of appearance.

• Changes in eating or sleeping habits.

• Dropping out of activities and becoming more isolated and withdrawn.

• Scars, often in patterns.

• Fresh cuts, scratches, bruises, bite marks, burns, or other wounds.

• Carvings, such as words or symbols, on the skin.

• Wearing long sleeves or pants in hot weather.

• Threatening to commit suicide and openly talking about death, not being wanted or needed or not being around.

FBI also recommends the following:

• Monitor children's online activity and discuss risks associated with sharing personal content.

• Use discretion when posting images, videos, and personal content online, particularly those that include children or their information.

• Run frequent online searches of you and your children's information (e.g., full name, address, phone number, etc.) to help identify the exposure and spread of personal information on the internet.

• Apply privacy settings on social media accounts—including setting profiles and your friends' lists as private—to limit the public exposure of your photos, videos, and other personal information.

• Exercise caution when accepting friend requests, communicating, engaging in video conversations, or sending images to individuals, you do not know personally. Be especially wary of individuals who immediately ask or pressure you to provide them photos or videos. Those items could be screen-captured, recorded, manipulated, shared without your knowledge or consent, and used to exploit you or someone you know.

• Do not provide any unknown or unfamiliar individuals with money or other items of value. Complying with malicious actors does not guarantee your sensitive photos or content will not be shared.

• Use discretion when interacting with known individuals online who appear to be acting outside their normal pattern of behavior. Malicious actors can easily manipulate hacked social media accounts.

If you are worried about mental health, self-harm, or suicidal ideation please reach out for resources, if there is an immediate life-threatening emergency call 911.

National Suicide Hotline: 988

24/7 Regional Crisis Line: 1-877-266-1818

Online Mental Health Resources: HearMeWA.org

If you or someone you know has become a victim or any of these type of crimes, retain all information and reach out to Law Enforcement for help or online with the FBI at https://www.ic3.gov/

--

Brad Eylar

Director of Security/ Emergency Manager

Reardan- Edwall School District