Timber Talk Community Newsletter

10. You read our newsletters 😉

9. You take pride in your student's education 🥰

8. You get your forms in on time 📝

7. You show up for PTO meetings 🧑🏾‍💻

6. You attend our events 🎭

5. You help your student with their work 📝

4. You are responsive to your teacher's classroom needs 📚

3. You are quick to volunteer 🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏽‍♂️🙋🏿‍♂️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏿‍♀️

2. You get your children to school on time & ready to learn 🙌

1. You support your children to be the best they can be 😍

Our Vision:
Baltimore County Public Schools will be among the highest performing school systems in the nation as a result of creating, sustaining, and investing in excellence for every student, every school, and every community.
Our Mission:
Our mission is to provide all students with outstanding teaching and learning in order for all of our children to become globally competitive graduates.

November:

• 11/13/24: Ravens Book Mobile is coming to TGES for our Pre-K - 3rd graders

• 11/14/24: Report Cards Distributed

• 11/18/24-11/22/24: American Education Week

• 11/18/24: Pre-K Conference Day – No School for Preschool-3 or Pre-K

• 11/19/24: Pre-K and Elementary Conference Day – Schools Closed for Elementary Students

• 11/19/24: PTO Virtual Meeting

• 11/26/24: Turkey Trot/Fun Run (Pledging begins on Nov 15)

• 11/27/24: Thanksgiving Break Begins at the End of the School Day -- Half Day -- TGES Students Dismiss at 12:05 pm

• 11/28/24-11/29/24: Thanksgiving Break -- Schools and Offices Closed

Looking Ahead...

• 12/6/24: PTO Movie Night

• 12/18/24: PTO Chipotle Restaurant Night Fundraiser

• 12/20/24: Winter Break Begins at the End of the School Day -- Half Day -- TGES Students Dismiss at 12:05 pm

** Please note that this is anonymous and the purpose is to gather data from our community to see what is needed **

Greetings Timber Grove families,

American Education Week (AEW), set for November 18-22, 2024, is a time where school systems across the nation celebrate public education and honor the individuals who work in our nation’s public schools and support students’ academic and social-emotional growth. Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) has observed AEW for many years, providing opportunities for families, stakeholders, and members of the Team BCPS community to see learning in action and participate in engaging activities and celebrations. In response to feedback from administrators, staff, parents, and caregivers regarding the operational challenges of AEW, and in an effort to expand opportunities for family and community engagement throughout the year, BCPS is shifting its practice away from a one-week only celebration to provide greater flexibility to design engagement opportunities that meet the needs of their school communities. As such, Timber Grove will not be hosting a week of classroom visitations. While the visits are fun, they can distract students from consistent focused student learning and do not maximize our time working collaboratively with our community.

Rather than just inviting you during the week of November 18-22 for a specific time slot to observe your child learning, we have planned meaningful engagement opportunities that are spread out throughout the year! During AEW, families are invited to sign up for a “Chat and Chew” with our Community School Facilitator on November 18th, 19th, 21st, or 22nd so that you can provide feedback about services and programs that you would like to see at our school. The sign-up link is here: https://forms.gle/Jpq4iscJ3J2K79ua9

Our Timber Grove Elementary family activities for this year include:

· Chat and Chew with our Community School Facilitator and counselor, November 18th, 19th, 21st, and 22n, Community School Event

· PTO Meetings, 3rd Tuesday each month on Google Meet

· Turkey Trot Fun Run, PTO-sponsored, November 26, 2024

· Movie Night, PTO Sponsored, December 6, 2024

· Rhythm and Hues Nights, (Music and Art Program), December 2024 and May 2025

· Parent Night: ELA Focus, Marking Period 2

· Best Practices for Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of Children, January 2025, Community School Event

· Parent Night: Math Focus, Marking Period 3

· After School Pre-K Parent Events, Marking Period 2 and Marking Period 3

· Book Fair, March 3rd – 7th, Family Night, March 5th

· Family Prom, PTO-sponsored, March 2025

· End of the Year 5th grade Celebrations, School-sponsored and PTO-sponsored events

· Field Day, Marking Period 4, school-sponsored event

· Summer Send-Off Event, June 2025, Resources for students and support for families with continuing student learning during the summer months

Please keep an eye out for our monthly online Timber Talk. As we plan more events you will find information about them there. We look forward to working together as a community to make Timber Grove the best place for students to grow!

Respectfully,

Scott Audlin, Principal

🚌Arrival is from 8:05-8:20 AM

Dismissal is from 3:05-3:20 PM🚗

• Your student is considered late if they arrive after 8:20. An adult will need to walk them into the front office to check them in.

• If you need to pick your child up early, please try and do so 30 minutes prior to dismissal (3:05).

• Please be mindful of where you are parking in the morning during arrival to drop off your student. There are no drop-offs on the side staff parking lot. You must use the carpool loop line to drop off your student or park on the street to walk them up.

We kindly ask all families to use the designated crosswalks when dropping off and picking up students. There have been numerous concerns raised so far this year already about safety, and we want to ensure a safe environment for everyone.

Using the crosswalks helps protects individuals and encourages safe habits. Thank you for your cooperation.

We have been making great strides in our attendance rate already this year! We have had MULTIPLE homeroom's have perfect attendance many days in the month of October.

Special shout out to Mrs. Fugate's Pre-K class for having 6 whole days in a row with perfect attendance!!!!!

For the rest of this school year, we are going to amp up our attendance initiative by having homerooms within each grade level compete for the most days with perfect attendance for each month.

Each day your student's homeroom has perfect attendance, they will receive a "sprinkle" on their donut attendance tracker outside of the cafeteria. Whichever classes have the most at the end of each month will receive a special reward!

November winners will receive a chance to see Officer Gilbert's police car and ask him questions about his job. The winners will be announced during the first week of each month on the morning announcements.

Stay tuned for the rest of the months prizes! Good luck!

According to the Maryland Compulsory Attendance Law, "Under Maryland law, a truant student is one who is “unlawfully absent” from school for more than:

• 8 days in any quarter,
• 15 days in any semester, OR
• 20 days in a school year."

Have you taken our community school survey yet? It closes on December 31st, so make sure you complete it!

Why?

-Our community needs assessment survey will tell us what our community needs, how your experience has been at Timber Grove, and what you'd like to see more of. We are committed to working together to meet your needs, and your input is crucial.

Then what?

-We take your thoughts, opinions, needs, and wants seriously, and we want Timber Grove to be a resource hub in the community. Once the data is collected, we can start investing in making improvements.

This month's partnership shoutout goes to the Community Assistance Network (CAN)! Ms. Oriel Smith, their lead community resource specialist, came out to our health and wellness event to provide attendees with wrap around resources, such as:

• Emergency shelters
• Rapid rehousing
• Shelter aftercare services
• Permanent supportive housing
• Homeless street outreach services
• SNAP application assistance
• Family support services case management
• Supplemental diapers
• Economic stability services: financial assistance
• Supplemental food
• Information and referrals
• Job development

For more information, please see the flyers below under our resource roundup.

Website: www.canconnects.org

Main phone for services: 410-285-4674

Exciting news for our Pre-K - 3rd graders! The Ravens Book Mobile through the Maryland Book Bank will be coming to TGES on Wednesday, November 13th.

Students will be going with their homeroom classes to the book mobile to pick out a book to keep. They will also be given a family letter that talks about their program.

We can't wait for our students to experience this opportunity and want to thank the Maryland Book Bank and Baltimore Ravens in allowing us to do so!

Please check the link below frequently for all the lost and found items. This will be updated weekly.

Please note that whatever items are left behind by Monday, November 25th, will be donated.

For more information, please reach out to Ms. Atherton at satherton@bcps.org.

Please contact Nurse Brown at 443-809-6051 or jbrown44@bcps.org for any medical concerns your student has.

If your student needs prescribed medication during the day, please print & fill out a parent request to administer medication form using the link below. If you need assistance with printing, please come to the front office to pick up a form.

Please use the link below from the Office of Food & Nutrition for information on menus, MySchoolBucks account for snacks, pin numbers, and much more.

Co-Presidents: Danielle Jorden-Ellis & Shirelle Jones

Secretary: Stacie Mendoza

Treasurer: Monique Carr

Thank You for Making Trunk or Treat a Success!😄

We would like to thank our volunteers, trunkers and candy donors for their incredible contribution to this year’s PTO Trunk or Treat event held on October 25th! It was so exciting to see such a wonderful turnout of students, families, and staff. Whether you helped with planning, setting up, cleaning up, decorating your trunk, and donating candy, your efforts made this event possible.

If you captured any photos during the event and would like to share them for our website, please send them to us at timbergrovepto@gmail.com.

We greatly appreciate your participation in creating a fun and safe experience for our TGES community.

Sincerely,

PTO

PTO Meetings @ 6-7pm, Every 3rd Tuesday Each Month

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/dzj-nbpd-rmz

• Nov 19 (virtual)

• Dec 17 (virtual)

• Jan 21 (virtual)

• Feb 18 (virtual)

• Mar 18 (virtual)

• Apr 8 or 22 (virtual)

• May 20 (TGES Library)

Download the Talking Points app to stay connected with your child's teacher. If you need to change the language of the messages follow these steps:

1. Download the Talking Points App

2. Click on Settings

3. Click Personal Information

4. Select the language you would like

November 20 – 12:30 PM

Lunch & Learn – TalkingPoints for Families

Virtual

Presented by Angela Dregier

This presentation is an introduction to TalkingPoints for parents. It shares information about how the 2-way messaging platform works and how all parents regardless of home language can use it to engage in meaningful conversation with their child’s teachers. For registration click here!

All potential volunteers must complete the BCPS Volunteer Application and participate in an orientation/training session annually. This includes field trip chaperones.

Please send all certifications and applications to Ms. Galvin at cgalvin@bcps.org

Step 1: Complete a BCPS Volunteer Application from your computer or get a paper copy from the school.

Step 2: Complete the Online Volunteer Orientation- https://bcpsvolunteers-md.safeschools.com/register/0c626573

Step 3: All Volunteer Applications and Certificate from the online training must be given to Mrs. Galvin or emailed to cgalvin@bcps.org.

Caliday partners with our school to provide a fun before and after care experience inside of the school building.

Caliday Experience:

• Outdoor Play

• Homework Support

• Caliday Club Activities

• Philanthropic Student Led Clubs

• Hands-on Experiences

• Healthy Snack

• Student Choice

Quality Staff:

• First Aid and CPR Certified

• Active Assailant Certified

• Director Certified

• Individualized Professional Growth Plans for All Employees

Visit www.caliday.org to learn more and enroll!

Email: pdctimbergrove@caliday.org

Join Your Caliday Community Facebook Page

Schoolwide Title I Fact Sheet

Policy 1270 Community Involvement

Rule 1270 Community Involvement

FY25 TGES Family Engagement Plan

FY25 TGES Home School Compact

FY25 Right to Know Letter - English, Spanish, Burmese, Chinese, & Urdu

FY25 TGES Community Feedback Survey

All previous newsletters:

September 2024

October 2024