Congdon Park Weekly News 5/22/2024

"Once again, the PTA is offering prepackaged school supply packs for sale as a convenience for our Congdon Park families! These kits can be ordered now at https://www.educationalproducts.com/shoppacks/ , using code CON036 (3 letters/3 numbers). Place your orders by 6/2/2024 for the lowest price! Proceeds from the sale support PTA-funded activities."

What an incredible spring concert we had last Friday. So many people were involved in making this such a wonderful experience for our students, staff and families - our music teacher, Mr. Garland, our teachers for making adjustments to their schedules, runners that went to each classroom to make sure the classes got to the gym on time, our art teacher Ms. Ellingson for displaying so many of the incredible works of art our students have created, piano player Tom Wegren, our engineer, Steve Kolberg, and custodial staff who spent hours setting up the stage, the risers and over 400 chairs, Michelle Palmer, our kitchen manager and her staff for making adjustments to the lunch schedule to accomdate the concert times.

The end of the school year brings lots of fun activities, but these activities can't happen without your hlep. Please consider volunteering your time to make these activities happen for our students and staff:

Bike Rodeo - May 14th - https://signup.com/go/dMswDXT

Field Day -June 5th - https://signup.com/go/atOpOWB

Staff Brunch - June 7th - https://signup.com/go/dEDgjCD

Thanks for helping to support our Congdon community!

What is Field Day?

Field Day is a K-5th grade event that we try to have every school year. 3 grades participate in the morning, and 3 participate after lunch. Here is this year's schedule:

Date ~ Wednesday, June 5th (No Rain Date)

Grades K, 1, 2 ~ 8:15am to 10:45am

Grades 3, 4, 5 ~ 11:00am to 1:15pm

Food for volunteers will be available 10:30-11:30. We encourage afternoon volunteers that want to eat, to eat at 10:30 so they have time to get to their station by 10:50. Morning volunteers will after their shift.)

Volunteers are needed to make this event happen! If you would like to volunteer please click HERE

You can sign up for the morning session, the afternoon session, and/or the extra help for set up or a floater. Feel free to sign up for one area or the whole day!

For safety reasons...we are unable to allow visitors to this event due to the large amount of students on the field. However, you are more than welcome to sign up as a volunteer!

Thank you so much for your generous donations to our food drive. We collected 227 pounds of food to share with our neighbors in need.

Every year parents are asked to sign the Blended Learning Form - yes this needs to be completed every year. By signing the form your child is able work on chromebooks and have access to other technologies. If you child will be attending Excel this summer it is very important you fill out the form right away. The permission you granted for the 2023-24 school year ends on the last day of school. For all other families you are encouraged to fill out the form now as well, it will be one less thing to do in the fall. Here is the link:

Blended Learning Form 2024/2025

At the end of the 2023-24 school year 5 of our amazing teachers will be retiring - Bonnie Boyhtair (2nd), Carol Burger (2nd), Dan Kopp (5th), Kathy Lofstuen (5th) and Amy Sundland (2nd). The retirement of these 5 amazing teachers and people will leave holes in our hearts, but we are excited for them and the new chapter in their lives. Interesting fact these 5 teachers combined have taught a total of 193 years. Burger - 40, Kopp - 37, Boyhtari - 38, Lofstuen - 41, Sundland - 37.Can you imagine how many kids that is that these 5 taught??!!

The 4th annual Congdon Park bike rodeo 2024 was a tremendous success! We had over 150 kids and their families attend. We had a bike safety course setup in the parking lot as well as Duluth DEVO mountain biking course in the field and food trucks for dinner. Kids enjoyed seeing their friends and learning a little about pedestrian safety, too. Attendees donated over 100 lbs. of food for CHUM and were entered into a raffle to win one of 2 bikes (donated by Marshall Hardware), 100 water bottles, 20 bike locks or 10 bike repair kits (donated by Skihut). Over 75 kids received new bike helmets that were properly fitted and free as part of the MN department of transportation Safe Routes to School grant. Special thanks to the Congdon Park PTA for organizing, the Duluth bike patrol and K9 and Duluth fire department for stopping by; Super One foods donating water and granola bars; Lauralloons, Great Lakes Aquarium and Spirit Mountain volunteers. Thanks mechanics from Skihut and Continental for donating their time to get everyone's bikes ready for summer!

Duluth Public Schools' Social Studies Curriculum Committees are in the process of reviewing the current social studies curriculum in order to meet the 2021 Minnesota K-12 Social Studies Standards to be implemented during the 2026-2027 school year. To aid in this process, they are looking for feedback on the social studies curriculum from families and community members . If you are a district family member or community member, we would appreciate it if you took a moment to provide any feedback on the curriculum using this link. The survey will be open until June 15th. Thank you in advance!

Thank you so much to all the parents who showed such love and appreciation for the teachers and staff at Congdon Park. A special shout out to our PTA and Ashley Moseley, Amanda Sutton, Brianna Halvorson, Jamie Messina, Stevie Haasken and Kayla Foley who provided veritable feasts in the staff lounge every day. There were raffle drawings on Friday from a number of local restaurants and all staff were given flowers to bring home to add to their gardens! We cannot thank you enough for your support.

We are celebrating the end of the year with one last game of Bingo on June 4th. We are in need of chapter books to give away as prizes. There will be a box in the lobby if you have some to donate.

Find out more about Keyzone at Congdon, dates, times registration etc.

https://www.isd709.org/community/key-zone

You may remember our teacher wish tree from the hallway of the school. Teachers would list items they need for their classrooms and parents could take down the apple, purchase the item(s), and return the item(s) to school. The tree is gone and the list is virtual! Teacher wishes are in a sign-up and will be updated throughout the year, so keep an eye on the list! Once you purchase the item, tag it with the teacher's name and drop it in the labeled bin in the school lobby.

Here are our teacher wishes so far.

Click HERE for more information on summer basektball.

Please reference last week's newsletter for all information previously posted about summer camps and activities for kids.

Kathi Kusch Marshall - Principal

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Website: https://www.isd709.org/congdon-elementary
Location: 3116 E. Superior St
Phone: 218.336.8825
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cpsduluth