Dear Lions Park Families,
It has been a wonderful week at Lions Park! We were treated to three days and three nights of fifth grade musical performances. We were so proud and impressed by our fifth graders. Many thanks to Mrs. Koehlinger, Mrs. Merrill the fifth grade team and many other staff members who made this memorable week possible. Thanks also to our PTO for providing funding and support that enabled us to have professional sound/lighting, programs, flowers and keepsake pictures. Special thanks to Roseann Houghton, Natalie Kronforst, Zhaleh Naghibzadeh and Mallory Reyes for their contributions. In addition, we recognized Disability Awareness Week throughout District 57. Each day students learned about different disabilities. We believe that teaching students about differences helps them to be more inclusive and welcoming to all people.
It is hard to believe that we have only seven weeks of school left! As our staff continues the important work of this school year, we are also preparing for the 2022-2023 school year. One important upcoming task will be sectioning students into classes for the new year.
Sections are created according the the following criteria:
Strengths and areas of need are considered for each child.
Some students are clustered by these strengths and/or areas of need to enable push in or pull out support.
Social and emotional needs are noted and an attempt is made to balance the number of students needing support in these areas among the classrooms.
We try to balance the number of boys and girls in each class.
We welcome your input into this process by inviting you fill out this form. Please do not feel obligated to share input. The teachers have wonderful insight into the needs of their students, and are a critical part of this process. If you choose to share your thoughts, please include information about your child's learning style and the type of learning environment you feel will be the best match for your child's style. You may also include students you feel are or are not an asset to your child's learning environment. If there is a particular child you do not want your child to be sectioned with next year, it is important to write a letter stating this. We do not automatically separate students who have had conflicts. We do not guarantee that we can honor every request, but we seriously consider all input that is provided. Because of the complexity of the process, we do not accept requests for particular teachers and requests for a particular teacher will not be honored.
While classroom teachers and specialists are involved in this process, it is important that you submit any input you have via this form, so that I am aware in case changes need to be made over the summer when the teachers are not working. Furthermore, pertinent information will be shared with teachers, but the specific form responses will be read only by me and Mrs. Dean, our assistant principal.
Please complete and submit this form no later than May 1st, if you wish to provide input. I assure you that our staff takes this task very seriously and puts a great deal of time and thought into creating the most balanced sections for the following year. We appreciate your support as we make our plans.
Warmly,
Katie Kelly
