The Chesak Chatter

Greetings Chesak Families and Friends,

As we head into Week 10, we are excited to celebrate Red Ribbon Week!

Red Ribbon Week is an important time when schools across the country unite in a shared commitment to a drug-free lifestyle. At Chesak, we’re focusing on glowing with healthy choices! Throughout the week, we will encourage students to make smart decisions, develop healthy habits, and understand how their choices positively impact their bodies.

To extend these lessons at home, we’ll be sending out daily Healthy Habit Challenges for your family to try together! Each time you complete a challenge, your student can submit a ticket to be entered into a raffle. We’ll also add some extra fun with a spirit week!

Thank you for partnering with us to help our students glow with good health, both at school and at home!

Kind Regards,

Roshaunda Henson

Principal

rhenson@district158.org

847-659-5700

This week, 68.61% of our students had no absence issues a 2.61% decrease from last week. Remember, each time we hit over 70%, Champ the Cheetah earns another light in his lamp, helping our school shine even brighter and bringing us closer to a school-wide celebration. Our first reward will be a Glow Dance Party in the classrooms!

Champ currently has three lights in his saber—just one more to go until we light it up with a school-wide Glow Dance Party!

Let’s keep the momentum going by maintaining our no absences issues attendance rate above 70%.

We've raised our Chronic Absenteeism Rate by 2.41% since last week, and we're currently at 12.41% Check out our chronic absenteeism dashboard for this week. Our school’s goal by the end of the year is to keep our chronic absenteeism rate between 8-10%, down from 13.95% during the 2023-24 school year. Let’s keep working together to lower it even more and keep our attendance strong!

Children’s mental health is important. Students who miss just 2 days of school a month tend to be more stressed and anxious. Help lower student stress by encouraging attendance when your student is feeling well. #YourPresenceIsYourPower

Starting October 21st, students will participate in a monthly fitness run to practice cardiovascular endurance. Students will wear pedometers to track their steps and can choose to run or walk for the allotted 15 minutes. The goal is to stay in the MVPA (Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity) zone as much as possible.

Click HERE for more information about the run, upcoming dates, and P.E. teacher contact information for any questions.

Huntley School District 158 and the Huntley Area Lions Club are excited to partner together again for the 2nd Annual Recycle for Sight Used Eyeglass Collection Drive.

How can you help? Look through dresser drawers and closets for prescription eyeglasses, prescription sunglasses, reading eyeglasses, empty plastic and metal eyeglass frames that are no longer of use to you and donate them. Don’t forget to ask friends, neighbors, and relatives to participate for a great cause!

Donation boxes will be available at all District 158 schools and the Administration Office from Monday, October 21 thru Friday, October 25.

Donated eyeglasses are taken to the Lions of Illinois Foundation where they are cleaned, sorted by prescription and distributed by trained volunteers, free of charge, to children and adults in developing countries.

More information will be provided next month. So for now, let the search begin!

The Huntley 158 Virtual Bulletin Board (VBB) is a way to connect Huntley 158 families with enrichment and educational events and programs in the community. This year, rather than receiving a separate email, families can find these opportunities on the district’s Virtual Bulletin Board webpage in our weekly newsletter. We encourage you to click the link and check out what’s happening for students and families in the community!

To submit a program or event for inclusion on the Huntley 158 VBB, organizations must be not-for-profit or a taxing body based in Huntley 158 boundaries or a surrounding community. Please email your event flyer in PNG or PDF format to kimoore@district158.org and include "VBB" in the subject line. To ensure accessibility for all, flyers must be accompanied by a brief description of your event that includes the name of your event, date, time, location, call to action/website link (if applicable) as well as contact information. Thank you!

For planning purposes and to make necessary childcare arrangements, please check out the 2024-25 school calendar. Huntley 158 early release and institute days for the year are listed below.

EARLY RELEASE DAYS*

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Friday, December 20, 2024

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Thursday, April 17, 2025

*also ECC Parent Education Day

Early Release Dismissal Times

Elementary school (Chesak, Conley, Leggee, and Mackeben): 1:30 p.m.

Martin Elementary School: 12:55 p.m.

Middle and high school: 12:30 p.m.

INSTITUTE DAYS

Friday, October 11, 2024 - No School

Monday, January 6, 2025 - No School

A big thank you to all of our families and staff who joined us for Family Reading Night! We had a fantastic time glowing with a good book, dancing, enjoying reader theater plays, listening to guest readers, taking fun photos at the photo booth, playing games, and so much more. Your participation made the night truly special, and we loved seeing everyone come together to celebrate the joy of reading!

Clink the link below for the latest and greatest PTA News.

Important Reminders

Arrival and Dismissal: School day is from 8:30-3:25. Car rider dismissal will begin around 3:20-3:25pm. In the morning we will release car rider's to come into the building around 8:15-8:20am. It is important that our students are in the building at the start of the day at 8:30 and until the end of the day at 3:20.

Attendance Procedures: If your child is late or absent from school please call the attendance hotline at 847-659-5711 and leave a message.

Physicals: For any of our kindergarten and new students, please make sure to get physicals forms turned into our nurses office as soon as possible. Any questions please contact Nurse Deb at 847-659-5704.

Extra Clothing: A friendly reminder to please send your child with an extra set of clothing for any accidents.

Transportation: Please make sure your child's teacher knows if they will be a bus, daycare bus or car rider.

• To help us expedite the process please practice your child's car rider number with them. For simplicity they are called like the following example 293 = Two Nine Three. K93 = K nine three. The line will move faster if the students come up right when their number is called. Please only display the numbers of the students you are picking up that day. If a student is absent, please do not display their number for pick up.

• Click HERE to find a letter describing our carline arrival and dismissal procedures. Students will be assigned a number on a car tag that gets hung on your rear view mirror so that we can get students to their car safely each day. Any changes in transportation should be made by notifying the teacher in writing and/or email prior to 2:30 that day. Car rider tags can also be picked up in the office.

• Only walker family numbers should be at our front entry way. If you have a car rider number please go through the car rider line to drop-off and pick-up students. Please do not park and go to the entry way to pick-up or drop-off. Only families who are walkers should be waiting at the entry way.

• Students will be dismissed to come out to their cars until around 3:25 as our instructional day ends at 3:20pm.

• To ensure safety, when coming through the car rider line please stay in your cars as cars are moving out once students are in the car. Also, please ensure that students car/booster seats are on the right side for pick-up. If you need to buckle students in, please pull up and into the parking lot to do so. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we want to make sure everyone is safe getting into the cars.

Below is an image of our car rider line map. Please use this diagram to support when lining up for arrival and dismissal. When in the overflow lot please follow the arrows to only develop one single file line. Once you loop around we will place you in a row to lead up the front of the building for drop off/pick-up. Thank you!

K - 2 Elementary School in Huntley Community School District 158

Email: rhenson@district158.org
Website: huntley158.org/chesak
Location: Chesak Elementary School, Reed Road, Lake in the Hills, IL, USA
Phone: 847-659-5700
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Chesak-Elementary-School/100063693394514/
Twitter: @ChesakCheetahs