KES December Newsletter
December 2024
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Thank you to those who participated in our recent parent/teacher conferences. Your involvement is vital in fostering a strong home/school partnership, which greatly benefits our students.
If you were unable to attend the conferences, please reach out to your child's teacher to schedule a phone conference at your convenience. We want to ensure that every family has the opportunity to connect with us.
As a reminder, conferences will occur again in February of this school year. We look forward to seeing you then!
Best regards,
Mr. Alferio and Miss Brouse
Miss Brouse, Assistant Principal: taylor.brouse@keystoneschools.org
Mr. Alferio, Prinicpal: jacob.alferio@keystoneschools.org
As you know, we have done away with the Yellow Medical Cards! Our emergency medical forms are now online through FinalForms. FinalForms allows parents/guardians to complete and sign Emergency Medical forms, Demographic forms, Athletic forms, and more for students.
Final Forms must be updated and signed at the beginning of every school year so that we have up-to-date information on your child's health and information. Additionally, forms must be updated at any point in time throughout the year if you have had a change in address, phone number, person of contact etc. for your child during the school year.
*PLEASE NOTE:
Current students already have accounts; this was verified in an email you received. If you DO NOT see this email or have questions, contact Tina Bednarski.
Tina Bednarski: 440-355-2424 | tina.bednarski@keystoneschools.org
These forms MUST be completed in order for your child to attend school field trips.
School Fees Assigned
Please make sure that you are addressing fees at your earliest convenience. Your child's account needs to be in good standing to be able to participate in any field trips in the future.
Ways to Pay:
- Send in cash or check with your child
- Cash must be exact change
- Checks made payable to Keystone Local Schools
- Online through https://payschoolscentral.com/
KES Office Procedures
Here is what you can expect when you come to the KES office for picking up, dropping off, or bringing materials to a student:
- When in the front vestibule, press the doorbell on the right side of the wall
- You be greeted by a secretary and asked how they can help
- If you are picking up a student for any reason, you will be asked to show a photo ID into the camera on the doorbell
- You will be prompted to also sign your child out while your student is being called to the office
*Please note that if it is past 9:00am, an adult must escort the student into the KES vestibule and sign in the student after speaking with a secretary.*
Dear Parents and Gaurdians,
As we approach the holiday season and a busy start to the new year, it’s the perfect time to pause and reflect on how we can best support our young readers through oral language. One of the most important ways we can nurture reading skills is by helping them build a rich and varied vocabulary. The more words a reader knows, the more they are able comprehend what they are reading or listening to. A strong vocabulary is much more than a collection of words it is the foundation for successful reading, writing and communication. Here are some helpful hints when introducing new words to your young learner:
Provide a simple, kid-friendly definition for the new word: Gigantic means something is really, really big.
Provide a simple, kid-friendly example that makes sense within their daily life: Remember the really big tree at the park? It was a gigantic tree!
Encourage your child to develop their own example and non examples: What gigantic thing can you think of? What is something that is not gigantic?
Keep new words active at home: Use new vocabulary in daily conversation or talk about new words in books your read or listen to.
To build oral language with your child, please visit the Family Resource tab by clicking here: https://tinyurl.com/acoachescorner or scanning the QR code. Happy Reading!
- We now have a "landing" page for sign ups for all available and open spots needed for volunteering and donations. Check out: https://signup.com/go/ViweGft
- Meetings are the 1st Tuesday of the month at 6p. Held in the KES library!
- To sign up or review any of the current clubs that the KES PTA has to offer, click the link! https://ohpta-00019369.givebacks.com/store?limit=21&live=true
The safety and welfare of our students and staff are our highest priority. Throughout the year, we perform various safety drills including fire, bus evacuation, severe weather, building evacuation and lockdown. Schools conduct these safety drills during which students and staff practice emergency procedures. These procedures are evaluated for improvements after each drill.
We understand that some of these drills can be stressful or confusing to families and children so we hope this information will bring some ease and clarification to our safety drills. Below is an explanation of an ALICE Drill and what students can expect.
An ALICE/Lockdown Drill: Keystone schools conduct lockdown drills during which students and staff practice emergency procedures. Students and staff will participate in ALICE drills together to practice the tools and knowledge to respond and escape in the event of an active shooter or threat to our building.
It is important to note that we have our classroom teachers and staff make sure that they are preparing and discussing the reasons and procedures for safety drills at the beginning of the school year, as well as revisit these procedures often. Below we have provided the various weeks that we will be conducting a safety drill for your reference on our monthly calendar.
1. Download the ClassDojo app or go online.
2. Click "I'm a parent"
3. Select “Get Started”
4. Enter your personal information and click “Create free account”
5. Select the "Kids" tab.
6. If you have been given an invitation code, click "Add code" to enter the code and connect to your child's teacher.
NOTE: We use the free version of this app so please make sure that you do not pay for any subscription!