PEEK AT THE WEEK

Pre-K students had fun while learning about dental hygiene this past week. The students got a chance to brush, floss, and learn about healthy vs unhealthy food choices for dental health. The comical part of the lesson was when the dental student asked the students if they flossed, and they immediately broke out into the 'floss' dance move. Students received a bag full of dental goodies to take home with them.

• We are nearing the deadline date for latchkey staff child care licensing hours to be completed, recorded, and verified. As you know, December 30th is the deadline for child care hours to be completed by latchkey staff for the 2019 year. Just a reminder that the calendar year for child care licensing hours runs from January 1st to December 31st, this is different than the school district PD calendar year that runs from August to June.

• Many latchkey staff have already completed required hours and have documented them on the required child care licensing State of Michigan form in your staff file in the Early Learning office at Central/GSRP. However, some staff still need to complete hours. In order to assist staff that still need hours, Lori Peppin and I will be conducting a three hour child care licensing PD on Friday, November 22nd from 9:00-12:00 onsite at the Cardinal's Nest. We will be hold another three hour PD in December for those that need the hours and would like to attend an onsite PD at the Cardinal's Nest rather than completing one of many online PD offerings. If you plan to attend the PD on Friday, November 22nd, please RSVP to both Susan and Lori via email. We will be sharing information on the topics of early childhood and also the new Mi.Registry Great Start to Quality website.

• It's already here again! The registration and payment deadline for session #4 of Cardinal's Nest 3 and 4 year old preschool and Davison latchkey at Cardinal's Nest, Hahn, Hill, and Gates is Thursday November 14th. Michelle Edwards will be sending out reminders about the deadline to DCS staff and currently registered families through email and social media. Both Cardinal's Nest 3 and 4 year old preschool staff and Davison latchkey staff should continue to send out the reminders to registered families at your respective site. Thanks to our Davison latchkey and Cardinal's Nest preschool staff, payment and registration for each session deadline has been smoother that the last and families are getting used to the new procedures for completing session online payments in a timely manner. Thank you for helping to get the needed payment and registration information out to our latchkey and preschool families!

• Latchkey site supervisors and program directors will be meeting Monday morning at 9:15 for our monthly meeting in the Early Learning office at Central/GSRP. We will be discussing Session 4 payment and registration, payroll, and on-site licensing notebooks and Procare computers, and the process for collecting BIR's. A light breakfast will be provided. See you Monday morning!

• Davison Latchkey and Tuition based Cardinal's Nest 3 and 4 year old are attached below for your convenience.

Preschool staff, please mark your calendars!

Davison's Early Learning programs have been invited to say the Pledge of Allegiance at upcoming Monday, December 2nd Davison School Board meeting. We would like to have a good representation from our preschool teaching staff and students. In order to have a representation of each of our preschool classrooms and a manageable number of students, we are asking that each GSRP and tuition based 3 and 4 year old Cardinal's Nest teacher choose two students from your classroom that are good representatives of the Cardinal Code and have the support of family that can attend the board meeting. The Pledge of Allegiance is recited at the beginning of the meeting and families and children are allowed to exit the meeting right after the pledge is recited. I am so proud of our Early Learning staff and students and look forward to having a great turnout! I will send out details regarding the meeting time, location, and a map and letter for the parents of the students that will be invited to attend, recite the pledge, and introduce themselves. Please email me the names of two students from your classroom that you will be inviting to attend. I will follow up with each of you in person to iron out the details. Thank you for your help with this!

DCS school employee payroll is due this week. If you are a DCS Early Learning office payroll employee, please come to the Early Learning office before 3:00 p.m. on this Monday, November 11th to sign your timesheet.

A few reminders regarding designated payroll offices:

• DCS Early Learning school staff includes latchkey staff that are school employees from Hahn, Hill, Gates, and Cardinal's Nest. DCS Early Learning employees also include GSRP staff at Central/GSRP.
• DCS Cardinal's Nest school employees sign payroll in the Cardinal's Nest office. These are school employed staff that work at the Cardinal's Nest in preschool classrooms. There are also three lunch staff that double as latchkey employees that sign at the Cardinal's Nest due to being located at the Cardinal's Nest. All other latchkey staff sign in the Early Learning office at Central/GSRP where their payroll is prepared.
• All Early Learning school or GECS employees should be receiving reminders each payroll period from your designated payroll signing office regarding the payroll calendar signing dates. Please remember to respond to these reminders when you receive them. It is time consuming for payroll preparers (Carrie Blazen or Emily McKanna) to have to track down employees to see if they got a message regarding the signing date.
  
• Also, just a friendly reminder that we ask staff not to come in to sign payroll during the hours of 11:30-1:00 in order to avoid office staff lunch time and half day preschool departure and arrival time traffic.

Both Cardinal's Nest and GSRP staff reported cleaning issues in buildings this week. I contacted Phil Thom, Executive Director of Operations and Non-Certified Personnel and Phil

thanked us for the information and replied that he has communicated with the cleaning staff management and we should see immediate improvement. I also spoke with our cleaning crew personally and shared the issues that we have been having. Thank you for your input so we can get the issues communicated and resolved!

• Certified preschool lead teaching staff will be receiving an email from me this week regarding round one of three classroom observations for certified preschool staff and associate GSRP teachers. For round one observations, I will be visiting classrooms during choice time in preschool interest areas.
• All GSRP lead and associate teachers at Central/GSRP and Cardinal's Nest GSRP have had their first of three observations using the new CLASS pre-k observation tool completed by our ECS, Heather Williamson.
• Non-certified 3 and 4 year old classrooms will be visited by Lori Peepin for round one of three classroom observations for evaluation purposes.

We are closing in on filling our 130 allocated GSRP slots at Central/GSRP and have scheduled our three remaining GSRP openings. We have 7 open slots at the Cardinal's Nest/GSRP p.m. program. We have received interest forms for these slots form the GISD and these openings will be filled in the very near future. GSRP applications for our Davison GSRP programs continue to roll in from the GISD. This is a testament to our teaching staff's efforts with students and families to make our Davison preschool programs a popular choice for our District and County. Keep up the great work with making personal connections with our families in our community in order to make Davison remain the sought after district for preschool programming!

Monday, November 11th- Latchkey site supervisor/program director meeting 9:15 @ Early Learning Office Central/GSRP. Payroll signing date for DCS preschool and latchkey employees.

Tuesday, November 12th- County Center Director's Meeting 12:00-2:30 (Susan and Lori)

Wednesday, November 13th- 7:30-12:00 Linking walk at Hill for administrators (Susan) GSRP Advisory Meeting 10:00-12:00 GISD (Lori).

Thursday, November 14th- Payment deadline for Davison Latchkey and Cardinal's Nest 3 and 4 year old tuition preschool at midnight. MSU vs. U of M team spirit wear day for Central GSRP. Administrator meeting @ 9:00-12:00 and administrator celebration day gift of time from Mr. Brown. Lindsey Tate on Head Teacher duty at Central/GSRP.

Friday, November 15th- MSU vs. U of M team spirit wear for Cardinal's Nest. New attendance rosters and sign in sheets due for session #4 of Davison Latchkey and Cardinal's Nest 3 and 4 year old preschool. GSRP PD at GISD- a.m. or p.m. depending on staff registration.

Notes from Monday, November 4th's Central/GSRP social committee meeting are below:

~Central/GSRP will be having our next staff luncheon on Wednesday, November 27th. We will be ordering Hungry Howie's Pizza. The cost is $5. Money is Due by Tuesday, November 26th.

~We will be having a Friendship Feast in our individual classrooms on Wednesday, November 27th. Susan will be sending an email to staff with details.

~ Michigan Vs Michigan State spirit day wear and free jeans day will be this Thursday, November 14th.

~ Next Social Committee meeting at Central/GSRP is Monday, December 2nd. We will be discussing Winter Wonderland Family Day.

The email below is from Michelle Edwards regarding donated quilts. Each administrator can take two. We will be donating one to a Central/GSRP family and one to a Cardinal's Nest preschool family. Each Cardinal's Nest and GSRP preschool teacher can send me the name of a needy student in you classroom that would benefit from this generous donation. I will do a drawing to choose the families. Please get me your student/family name ASAP. I will also pick up some hats and mittens if their are preschool sizes.

Email from Michelle Edwards...

Principals,

The Quilter's Club from Trinity Lutheran Church has delivered some beautiful quilts to be given to students in need.There are 20 quilts, which means every principal should take at least two. If you have a need for a third please let me know (we just want to make sure everyone gets their two first!). There are also some handmade hats and mittens; please take what you need.

We had a little fun this year with Photo Factory! We were made aware that our picture bears a strong resemblance to to "Step-Brothers" We are referring to our picture as Step Sisters! :)

Have a fabulous week!