CMIT South Elementary School
Dear CMIT South Elementary School Tiger Family
There are several noteworthy events and activities happening in the coming weeks, so let's dive right in!
Celebrating Student Achievement:
I am thrilled to announce that Ms. James and 12 of our talented students represented CMIT South Elementary School at the Annual Southern Prince George's County Art Exhibit at Harmony Hall in Fort Washington, MD. Their exceptional artwork showcased our school's commitment to fostering creativity and artistic expression. Congratulations to all the participating students for their outstanding contributions!
Upcoming Assessments:
As we approach the end of the school year, it's important to remain focused on academic growth and achievement. Please note the following assessment schedule. Schoolwide Testing: From May 20 to June 1, we will be conducting iReady, NWEA MAP, and DIBELS testing. Expect reteaching sessions, one-on-one data conferences, and regular communication to ensure students are well-prepared for the assessments.
May 20-24: Grades K-5 will be participating in Spring NWEA MAP Math Growth Tests for Math, Reading, and Science.
May 13-24: Grades K-3 will be participating in DIBELS Testing.
May Highlights:
Mark your calendars for these important events and dates in May:
May 17 Career Day: Students will have the opportunity to explore various career paths and engage with professionals.
May 23 21st Annual Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation Awards ceremony: CLF will honor our Teacher, Staff Member, Student, Researcher, and STEM Club MVP of the year among all CLF schools
May 24 3rd Quarter Honor Roll Assembly: 2nd grade / 3rd grade & 4th grade / 5th-grade students.
May 27 Memorial Day: Schools and Offices Closed
May 28 Tree Planting: Ceremony in memory of Jackson Buckner.
May 28 CMIT South High School Graduation: Excused Absence for students who attend.
May 31 Field Day at Liberty Sports Park: where students will enjoy fun-filled outdoor activities.
Looking Ahead to June save the dates for these upcoming events in June:
June 3 Camp Schmidt: 5th Grade Overnight Field Trip.
June 6: Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony.
June 7: 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony.
June 12: 3-hour early dismissal at 11:25 am.
June 13: 3-hour early dismissal at 11:25 am (Last day of school for students).
Important Reminder that a Budget Meeting to review details of proposed budget cuts for the 2024-2025 school year. Stay tuned for the exact date of our May Budget Meeting with CMIT SOUTH and CLF.
Thank you for your continued support and involvement in our school community. Together, we can make the remaining weeks of the school year memorable and successful for our students.
Sincerely,
Mr. Ronald A. Miller, Jr.
Principal
Chesapeake Math & IT Academy South Elementary
Prince George’s County Public Schools
Congrats to Ms James, Patrick M., Shadul S. and 10 other students for participating in the Art Festival at Harmony Hall.
Please take a look at these May/June calendar reminders:
- 5/21-5/23 MAP Testing K-5th
- 5/24 3rd Qtr Honor Assembly via Zoom
- 5/27 Memorial Day- Schools and Offices Closed
- 5/31 Field Day
- 6/6 Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony
- 6/7 5th grade Moving-Up Ceremony
- 6/12 3hr early dismissal
- 6/13 Last day of school
In November 2020, PGCPS launched an online volunteer application and approval process. Click here for more information on becoming a volunteer and to access the application.
Hazel Health Services Coming to CMIT South Elementary
What is Hazel Health?
Hazel Health has partnered with Prince George's County Public Schools to provide access to quality healthcare services for all students, at no cost to families, this school year. Students can be referred by the school counselor or their parent/guardian. A designated person at the school or a parent/guardian can initiate a video visit with a Hazel health care provider while your child is at school or at home to provide either physical or mental health services. Therapy sessions with Hazel Health are a safe space and are private and confidential.
How can your child receive services?
Waitlists for mental health services for children are sometimes long or sometimes as parents it's tough to find the time to take our children to appointments which makes it difficult for them to receive the immediate support they need. Hazel Health is geared to bridge that gap. Students are able to receive these services free, virtually and while in school. If you have any questions please feel free to visit their website https://www.hazel.co/ or reach out to me.
The “Lost and Found” collection bin is located in the cafeteria. Any found articles (coats, hats, gloves, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc.) are placed in the bin. Found small items (keys, glasses, jewelry) are stored in the Main Office. Students may check the “Lost and Found” for lost items before or after school, or during lunch. All items left unclaimed at the end of each academic quarter are donated to charities or are discarded. Parents are strongly encouraged to label all belongings with first and last names.
Birthdays are so much fun to celebrate with classmates. However, during the school day, the health and safety of each student are important, especially students with food allergies. Students are ONLY permitted to bring in NON-FOOD items to distribute to classmates at the end of the school day. Birthday invitations will not be distributed.
Attendance in school each day is important. Let’s stay in school.
In order for an absence to be considered excused, a written note must accompany the student no later than three (3) days after return to school. The note should include:
- date(s) of absence
- scholar’s name
- Reason for absence
Late or make-up work will not be accepted unless the absence is an excused absence. Please review Administrative Procedure 5113 AP 5113 - Student Attendance, Absence and Truancy for further information.
Students who are absent for ten consecutive days will be withdrawn on the 11th day and will need to re-enroll.
Lawful Absences
Students enrolled in public schools are considered lawfully absent from school for any portion of the day, only under the following conditions:
- Death of a family member
- Illness of the student
- Court appearance
- Work approved or sponsored by a school
- Observance of a religious holiday
- State of emergency
- Suspension from school
- Mental Health (Students may receive as an excused absence one (1) day of absence
- in each semester of each school year for a student’s mental health needs.
- Other emergencies
- Deployment-related absences
Unlawful Absences
Unlawful absence – any time a student does not attend school that does not qualify as the above-listed reasons for a lawful absence.
Tardy
Scholars will be officially tardy if they are not in the building at 8:10 a.m.
If your scholar enters the building after the 8:05 a.m. bell, a parent must escort them into the building and electronically sign them in the late arrival portal. Scholars will be given an orange tardy slip to be permitted to class.
Parents of students who have 10 or more tardies in a semester will be required to meet with the principal/designee to discuss the reasons for the tardies and to develop a plan for improvement.
Health Forms
Please be sure to submit all required health forms! Please note that ALL medications, cough drops included, cannot be administered or consumed without appropriate documentation.
You can access all health forms here for the 2023-2024 school year.
School Meals
2023-24 School Year Meal Prices
Elementary (Pre-K through Grade 5)
Breakfast: $1.60/day
Lunch: $2.75/day
How to Pay
MySchoolBucks, owned and operated by Heartland Payment Systems, is an online payment service that provides parents the ability to securely pay for meals, monitor student cafeteria purchases, make tuition payments for Before and After School Extended Learning programs, and receive email notifications for low-account balances. With MySchoolBucks, payments can be made 24/7 using a Visa, MasterCard, Discover, credit or debit card, and mobile app.
Principal Lunch Account
ALL breakfast,lunch, and Principal lunch payments should be made via www.myschoolbucks.com.
All money comes/goes to 1 account (child's). All that is needed to set up account (if not done) is
students lunch pin or student id.
Free and Reduced-Price Meals
We encourage all families to consider applying for free and reduced-price meals! Visit www.myschoolapps.com/Home/PickDistrict to apply online today!
To apply, you will need:
- The name, school, and grade of your school-age children
- The name of all adults living in the home
- Income information for all adults living in the home
- Student ID Numbers for your school-age children
Applications will also be sent home with students the first week of school. Applications are available at all PGCPS schools and can be submitted at any time.
Grade Level Updates
Grade level blurb:
Hello everyone!! Updates for next week are as follows:
Testing Updates
Great job to all of our Kinder students for completing the iReady test this past week.
MAP Growth Tests will be given on May 21 (Math), and May 22 (ELA), for all grades. Please ensure that your scholar has a good night’s rest and eats a healthy breakfast. All scholars must report to school on time. Testing begins first thing in the morning.
Queen and King of Kindergarten Day- May 22nd
Wear your crown or cape to show your pride for Kindergarten. Please ensure that your child wears their school uniform.
Field Day
Permission slips have been sent home. This is a FREE field trip, but permission is REQUIRED. Please return by May 24th.
Promotion at-home practice
These are the two items that we practice at school each day. Here are the links in case students want to practice at home.
LET IT GROW: PROMOTION DANCE- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SV796F6jJk
ADDAMS FAMILY GRADUATION SONG- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKG-z88QPY
Water bottles/Uniforms
Please ensure that you are sending refillable water bottles daily with your child. The weather is heating up and we want students to be able to stay hydrated. They should be dressed appropriately for the warmer weather as well.
Grade Level Updates
Grade level blurb:
Dear Families,
The field trip is next week on May 28th; students will visit Port Discovery. Students will also participate in an in-school science field trip. Field Day is May 31st.
Please continue to encourage daily reading. After reading students can write and share their story retell.
As always, Thank you for supporting learning away from home.
Reading Updates:
Unit 6
Reviewing of current and past skills
Alignment of reading activities with ABC countdown activities.
Students will be assigned spelling words for this week.
As we wind down the school year skills are ongoing to support fluency across content areas.
Math Updates:
Reviewing Chapter 10/11; Geometry - Chapter 12
Using models and strategies to add tens and ones.
Please see the following link for additional support!
Science Updates:
Living Things: Parents and their offspring.
Social Studies:
Culture read and discussion/asking and answering questions.
Health Updates:
Exercising our Bodies
Grade level blurb:
We are in the heart of testing season! We have wrapped up iReady and Dibles and will move on to MAP testing on Tuesday (5/21), Wednesday (5/22), and Thursday (5/23). Please ensure your scholar has good rest and a healthful breakfast. Please also remind them of the importance of slowing down and putting forth a good effort.
Some second-grade classes will be participating in an End of Year Luau celebration to celebrate our hard work this year! In order to make this event a success, we need YOUR help! We are asking for parent donations from our Amazon Wishlist from now until June 1st. You could also donate food on the day of our event June 7th using our sign-up genius.
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/VEN7KOFJQXOB?ref_=wl_share
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094DACA92AA7FEC07-49554877-endofyear#/
Please check SchoolMax weekly for up-to-date grades.
Please continue to review your class' digital agenda for homework updates. Your scholar should also have these written in their personal agenda as well. Digital agendas are being used to support home-school connections. Attached is the digital agenda for each teacher. Please refer to these for important due dates and assignments:
Reading Updates:
Continuation:
Unit 5 focuses on “Our incredible Earth” The essential question is “How does Earth Change?”. Students will focus on reading informational and procedural texts and learning about changes on Earth.
The spelling words are all homographs. Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Students should know all the meanings of the word.
Math Updates:
We are currently working on Topic 15 Graphs and Data. Students will be able to interpret data and create bar and picture graphs as well as line plots.
Science Updates:
Students are wrapping up plant and animal life cycles and will be moving on to our final topic of animal habitats.
Social Studies Updates:
Topic 5 Making a difference. In this Topic, we will focus on the essential question, “What can we do to make a difference?” Students will explore what makes a hero and who some famous heroes are!
Health Updates:
We are beginning a new topic related to Germs. Students will learn about what germs do and how to keep their bodies safe.
Grade Level Updates
Grade level blurb:
We are just a few weeks away from the end of the school year! Looking forward, we will be completing another round of tests in the coming weeks. Please make sure your students are on time to school daily to complete testing. MAP Growth tests will be taken on May 21-23rd.
Reading Updates:
Fleet/Lewis: This week we have taken a pause from studying the text structure of a play by reading the play Grandma and Grace. The story explored Asian immigrants migrating to the USA. Our focus this week has been completing both iReady and DIBELS testing. Scores should be available soon.
Mathews/ Madison:
This week we began our novel study: Charlotte’s Web. Students practiced making inferences, identifying character traits, and using context clues to identify unfamiliar words in the first two chapters.
Math Updates:
Fleet/Lewis: This week we have explored telling time to the nearest minute as well as elapsed time. Next week we will be solving problems involving mass and liquid volume.
Mathews/Madison - This week we have worked on multiplying by 10! Next week we will pause due to MAP testing.
Science Updates:
Fleet/Lewis: This week we have explored using fossils as a record.
Mathews/Madison - This week we introduced how living things adapt to their environments to survive! We will continue this topic next week.
Social Studies Updates:
Fleet/Lewis: This week we have continued studying Chapter 6 Lesson 1. This lesson talks about the evolution of travel in the United States.
Mathews/ Madison:
This week we discussed the different levels of government: local, state, and federal. Students discussed important ways that the government supports us.
Health Updates: For May we will be discussing When Bodies Have Challenges. This unit will address body challenges, their causes and effects, physical impairments, learning disabilities, and special needs in the community
Grade Level Updates
Grade level blurb:
Hello Tiger Family,
The year is flying by and we are now down to the last 4 weeks of school. We want to thank all those who stopped by on Career Day to share about their careers with our students. Our scholars had a chance to learn about careers that they might have never heard about before.
As we conclude this year we have several activities that are planned to end the school year. Permission slips for Field Day have been sent home for students. For students attending the trip, we need permission slips returned to the school by Friday, May 24, 2024. This trip is at no cost to our scholars but we need permission to take your child out of the building.
Next week we will begin our MAP diagnostics. This will happen during students' homeroom classes with testing slated to begin at 8:30 am. Students will be taking three diagnostics in reading, math, and science. The purpose of these diagnostic tests is to see the growth students have made throughout the year.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024- Spring MAP Math
Wednesday, May 22, 2024- Spring MAP Reading
Thursday, May 23, 2024- Spring MAP Science
Monday, May 27, 2024- Memorial Day No School
Friday, May 31, 2024- Field Day
Wednesday, June 12, 2024- 3 Hour Early Release for students
Thursday, June 13, 2024- Last Day of School for students 3 Hour early release
This is a friendly reminder that late work is only accepted if a student has an excused absence! If a scholar is absent and does not bring a note they will earn a 0 on the assignment that was missed. Please read the reminders to ensure that you are partnering with your scholars to make them successful in school.
Fourth Grade Reminders:
Please check SchoolMax weekly to see the scholar’s updated grades. Canvas is a Learning Management System that scholars utilize to complete assignments and get access to materials. The grades provided in SchoolMax are those that will be used to calculate progress reports and report cards.
If your scholar is absent, please share a note with the homeroom teacher within 3 days of your scholar returning to school. For students to receive make-up work you must provide a note stating; the student’s name, the date of absence, and the reason for absence. Work is provided to students upon their return to school with an absence note.
Each week we suggest checking your scholar's browser history and YouTube history. This is to make sure that your scholar isn’t going to a site or watching videos that you would not approve of. Teachers are limited to only seeing activity on your scholar’s screen when they are in class. We utilize a system called Hapara that allows us to prevent access to certain sites. We are asking that you check your scholar's computer history weekly.
Reading Updates:
This Week: We completed our i-Ready diagnostic test during the reading classes. We also got a chance to continue to read in our Novel Study “The Hero That Lives Two Doors Down.” So far students have met the main character of Steve Satlow and have been able to describe him using details and examples in the text. Students also identified the point of view of the story and explained how this helps the reader understand the events in the story.
Next Week: Students will continue to read our Novel Study and practice the reading skills we have been covering all year. We will look at the main idea of the story and support it with details from the text. We will also analyze the setting of the story and explain how it affects the events that happen in the story.
Math Updates:
This week we continued our focus on Equivalent Fractions. How can we use various math strategies to find and use equivalent fractions? Next week we will take the Spring MAP assessment for Math, Reading, and Science, May 21st-23rd. In math, we will continue our focus on fractions.
Science Updates:
This week we continued our exploration of Topic 3:Types of Waves and Wave Properties learning about how different types of waves transfer energy causing objects to move. We are also exploring how the wave medium can affect movement. Please check Schoolmax and Canvas with your scholar to ensure completion of assignments
Social Studies Updates:
This week: Students will listen to guest speakers and explain what they learned about their careers.
Next week: Students read “The Land of the Northeast” and explained how the Northeast has mountains, a long coast, and large lakes and rivers.
Health Updates:
In health, we are learning about our Digestive Systems! How does our digestive system contribute to the overall function of our bodies? What can we do to promote a healthy digestive system?
Grade Level Updates
Grade level blurb:
Hi everyone! We are in May, and we are focusing on our character trait, perseverance! We want to persevere in any way we can, especially in wrapping up Q4!
We are prepared for our trip to Camp Schmidt at the end of the year for our 5th grade students and we are so excited! The date will be June 3-4, so stay tuned for further info! Thank you SO MUCH to all of our volunteer chaperones who will be coming on the trip! We appreciate you!
Field Day is also coming up on May 31! This time, we are going off the school property to Liberty Sports Park to enjoy our activities! Thank you to the chaperones who have already signed up! If you’d still like to, please send Ms. McDonagh a message.
Our 5th-grade promotion ceremony is planned for Friday, June 7 at 9:00 am. We will have lots of information coming out about this soon, but we are so excited to honor and celebrate our hardworking scholars! Please keep this date available!
We have been having tests, quizzes, and homework, so we want to make sure students are keeping up with their work. Students should click on their homeroom teacher’s name to see their assignments. Here is the link to the 5th-grade website for those who need it: https://sites.google.com/pgcps.org/5thgradeclasssite/home
A reminder that we are happy to have volunteers come in to assist us with different things throughout the year, so if you are interested, please make sure your volunteer requirements are completed. We would love it if people wanted to come in and volunteer during lunch times for students, so let us know if you are interested.
Our last round of MAP assessments is next week! Please make sure students are well-rested and come to school with charged Chromebooks!!
Additionally, please see the following message from PTO about upcoming dates/deadlines:
Promotion Ceremony Baby Pictures
The 5th grade team is collecting baby photos of all graduates. Submit your photos ASAP!
Promotion Ceremony
Friday, June 7, 2024 | 9:00 AM
Gym
Two tickets will be available for each scholar.
The attire is black and white. Scholars may be a combination of each color or one color. Scholars should dress to impress.
Thank you!!
Reading Updates:
We are working on unit 4 week 2 and our section is about historical fiction. We are also starting on our new spelling words for this section next week!
Math Updates:
Students are in unit 9 of Math which is about dividing fractions. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!
Science Updates:
Students are working on unit 5 of Science, about the human impact on Earth’s systems. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!
Social Studies Updates:
We are working on chapter 9 now about the Civil War. We are working on Chapter 9 lesson 4 more next week!
Updates from the Art Room!
This week was a week of review for grades 3-5! Third grade is combining their art-making knowledge with grammar to create an illustration for poems they wrote using sentence parts.
The fourth graders are using their knowledge of different types of symmetries to create Notans.
In fifth grade, students are reviewing one point perspective.
Thank you to all who came to the opening reception on Wednesday and congratulations again to our twelve terrific and tenacious tigers!
CHESAPEAKE MATH AND IT SOUTH ELEMENTARY
• Hours: 8:00 a.m to 2:25 p.m
• Grades: K-5
• Uniform: Yes
• Before After School Enrichment: Yes
http://clfmd.org/enrichment-2/
• School Colors: Hunter Green, Navy Blue
• School Mascot: Tigers
• School Website: http://www.cmitsouthes.org
For more information