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Dear Baggett Family,

Wow! What a wonderful first four weeks of school it has been. It was great to welcome back so many of you at our Open House in July and to see you again last week at Curriculum Night. Thank you for showing up and continuing to communicate that you prioritize your child's education and you value the partnership with your child's teachers and our school.

One thing that I value is the opportunity to connect with each and every one of our students. Over the past two weeks I have been going into classrooms to share a welcome back to school message with each of them. For the Kindergarten through 2nd graders, my message has centered around a book, Maybe, by Kobi Yamada. For the older students, I have been leading with maps, pcitures, and videos of the story of Rebeca Andrade, a Brazilian gymnast who overcame financial hardship and multiple injuries to win the gold medal for her floor routine at the Paris Olympics and become the most decorated olypian an Brazilian history. For all of the students, it is a message of overcoming obstacles and challenges, living up to our school-wide expectations of being respectful, responsible, problem-solvers, supporting one another in times of challenge, cheering each other on in times of success as we build a supportive community in each classroom. I truly enjoy these opportunities and look forward to visiting your child's classroom again soon to be a spectator rather than a presenter, seeing them live up to the challenge that I placed in front of them.

Thank you for taking some time to reinforce this message with your child. The actions that we are expecting from them are based on positive choices that they make every day. Please help us by delivereing your positive message (with a similar theme) each and every day. No matter when you have time to do it (in the morning before school, during dinner time, right before bed, on the weekends, or even over the phone), your support is so much appreciated. We cannot do it without you!

Mitch Green

Principal

Baggett Elementary School

Families are welcome to join us for the bolded events.

September 2 - Labor Day Holiday - No School

September 6 - Coffee & Conversation - 8:30 - 9:30 AM, Family Center

September 9 - PTA Executive Board Meeting - 6 PM, via Zoom

September 10 - Boy Scout Registration - 6:30 PM, Cafeteria

September 13 - School Council 8:30 AM, Administrative Conference Room

- PTA Bingo Night! 5:30 PM, Cafeteria

September 15 - October 15 - Hispanic Heritage Month and PTA Art Contest

September 18 - Title I Annual Meeting 12:00 PM, via Zoom

September 20 - Digital Learning Day

September 27 - Fall Festival, In Front of Baggett ES, 5:30 PM

October 1 - School Picture Day

Join Principal Green for this hour-long, quartlery event of "Ask the Principal?" Our agenda is your agenda. Come with questions or just come to listen to others' questions and Mr. Green's responses. Join us for Coffee & Conversation on September 13th from 8:30 - 9:30 AM in the Family Center!

Our Baggett ES School Council meets four times annually: September 13, December 6, February 21, and April 18. Each meeting begins at 8:30 AM and lasts for one hour. We are always looking for additional parents to join us for our meetings. If you are interested in doing so, please email gerard.gonzalez for more information - gerard.gonzaliez@gcpsk12.org

Reading is at the heart of what we do at Baggett ES. Two recent clubs have been formed to support interest in reading with one more on the horizon. Wise Girls Read and Reader's Rally are for upper grades students who are interested in reading. Reader's Rally is a group of 4th and 5th graders who gather to read a set of books. Students then participate in a quiz bowl competition about those books. Wise Girls Read and the soon-to-be-launched Wise Guys Read are for 3rd-5th graders who are interested in reading and participating in special projects associated with the books they read.

Additionally, all classrooms have now made it through Media Center Orientation and are able to check out books from the library. In fact, that is our expectations. Students should plan to check out books when they come to the Media Center for check-out. The books they check out should go home with them to be read with you or on their own. The books should then be returned the next day. Students should always have a book from the Media Center with them! That's the way we promote reading. Please promote reading in your home by carving out some time in the day to read to your child, to do a shared reading, or to have your child read aloud to you or read silently alongside you as you read. Modeling successful reading behaviors is an important component to developing successful readers and learners!

Our counseling team would like to thank all of the family members who came early to Curriculum Night to engage in a discussion about the importance of consistent student attendance. The school would like to thank you for establishing routines that lead to on-time, daily arrival for your student. These actions are what lead to student success.

Please know that our conseling team is available to you should you need additional assistance in any way. If we, or the Family Center, cannot help you, we are commited to pointing you in the right direction.

Ms. Jones, K & 1

Office: 678-226-2763

email:maura.jones@gcpsk12.org

Ms. Schlechte; 2 & 3

Office: 678-518-6663

Google Voice (call/text): 470-465-0860

email: alexandra.schlechte@gcpsk12.org

Mrs. Powers-Kouassi; 4 & 5

Office: 678-518-6658

Google Voice (call/text): 470-465-0989

email: yasirah.powers.kouassi@gcpsk12.org

Click here for the weekly update from our Play 2 Learn Program!

Following a year of Cultivating Community, our theme for the 2024-25 school year is Igniting Innovation. Innovation is part of our Vision statement, that we "will be an innovative STEAM school". For us innovation is about creating something new, and as I visited our 3rd-5th grade classrooms, our returning students had no challenge at all speaking about the times and places where they have an opportunity to create at Baggett. They spoke about all of our Discovery classes (Dance, Theatre, Music, Art, Science, Computer Science, STEAM, and PE) and they spoke about how they create through our Project-Based Learning approach where they work to solve problems at our school and community, creating solutions to address these problems.

So too, our teachers are consistently looking for ways to improve that which they do. Through reflection and data analysis, they are always looking to make incremental improvements, innovations, that lead to higher levels of student success.

As a school, you know that we are innovative. Just last week our solar panel system went in behind the school. We are the first elementary school in GCPS to have a solar panel system for students to study electricity, natural and renewable energy resources, the impact of weather, clouds, temperature, seasons on energy production, and so many other standards. We have kicked off the school year with an abundance of clubs and extracurricular activities including volleyball, cheerleading, drama, chorus, STEAM, Readers Rally, Wise Girls Read, Soccer, and LEGO Robotics with so many more on the horizon. No other school in GCPS does what we do! This is why more and more families happily report that they "Love coming to Baggett!" And why we are igniting innovation!