Leslie Bell Elementary Newsletter

Second quarter is quickly nearing an end and is complete on Friday, December 20th. Teachers will be sending grade cards home Friday, January 10th. This will be the first Friday after returning from Winter break.

In December, there is a great amount of work to accomplish before Winter break. A lot of learning will continue throughout December with essential skills, end of quarter assessments, and Winter benchmarks.

Winter benchmarks are a middle of the year temperature check on student's learning. Teachers and staff will give various assessments throughout December to show the student's progress in reading, math, and science.

Attendance

As second quarter quickly comes to a close, half of the 2024-2025 school year is almost behind us. Our building and district has a strong focus and passion regarding attendance. As we enter the second semester in just a few weeks, we encourage your commitment to ensuring your child attends school every possible day this year. The evidence is clear: children with good attendance are more likely to be successful in school. High attendance rates are linked to high student achievement. This is true for every grade – elementary, middle, and high school students.

Good attendance starts early. Research has shown that the attendance habits established Kindergarten through Grade 2 have lasting effects on students throughout their education: children with high attendance in the early grades continue to have good attendance; and students with low attendance in the early grades are more likely to have low attendance—and lower academic performance—throughout their elementary and middle school years.

As your child’s most influential teacher, I am asking for your support in helping your child get into class on time at 8:00 a.m. every day. Your child may begin eating breakfast daily at 7:35 a.m. Your child needs to be in school and engaged in learning to reach his or her full potential. Yet, we realize that every family faces challenges and sickness occurs. Please communicate with the office and your child’s teacher to know if your family needs help dealing with a challenge. We will do our best to help you and your family ensure that your child’s school attendance stays on track.

Per out district Parent/Student Handbook, Students will be required to maintain a 90% attendance rate, with the exception of verified absences. When an elementary student arrives late, the student must report to the office with an adult. Do not drop your child off at the door. Parents must sign their children in at the office when tardy.

PTO will be having the Holiday Store for students in the LBS gym. The holiday store will be December 4th and 5th. The schedule is pictured below for the specific days classrooms will be shopping.

Students will be able to experience the joy of giving by choosing their own gifts for family, friends and even cats/dogs.

The gifts in the store will range from $2 - $10. To make it easy to shop for everyone on your list, please use the budget sheet that will be sent home soon. List everyone you need to shop for and the budget amount for each gift. Please send CASH ONLY in an envelope or small baggie back to school. There will be adult helpers to assist the students with choosing gifts within their budget and wrapping gifts.

The Holiday Store will be open for families to shop together after school on Thursday, December 5th from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m.

PTO is looking for volunteers to assist the kids while they are shopping. If you, or someone you know, is interested in helping either or both days, please click the link to sign up or contact lbspto@lexington.k12.mo.us

Link to Volunteer

2nd Grade students will present their Showcase on Wednesday, December 11st at 6:30pm, in the LBS gym. Doors will open at 6:00. Please bring your child 15 minutes (6:15) before the scheduled program time. Students will meet in their classrooms with the classroom teacher.

There will be a Silent Auction sponsored by PTO of classroom art projects created by students alongside Mrs. Alexander. The Silent Auction artwork will be available to bid upon beginning at 6:00. Bids will close 15 minutes after the program is over. There will be multiple pieces of artwork available for bidding!

It is very important that your students are in attendance. We have worked hard preparing our music and art projects, and it helps them to learn and understand performance/audience manners and expectations. Please encourage your child(ren) to “dress up” for the program. Thank you so much for your continuing support. We are very excited to share our Arts with you!!!

Sincerely,

Ms. Rogers and Mrs. Alexander

Students continue to practice being respectful, responsible, safe and kind each day at LBS. Students continue to collect tickets weekly to show their pride in following expectations. Our second quarter celebration will be on Thursday, December 19th! We can't wait to celebrate our students and their amazing behavior.

On our PBS Celebration day, students will be celebrated for December's character word: Consideration and will have our monthly Families meeting. Please try to to put your child's family shirt under their Ugly/Tacky Sweater for our Family Meeting.

In order for students to attend the celebration they must earn eight positive reward tickets, three or less recovery room visits, and no bus write ups.

November has breezed right on by! November wrapped up Conflict Resolution.

In December prior to our winter break, students will learn about Differences.