Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! We hope you and your family had a wonderful summer break filled with wonderful memories and adventures 😊. Many staff are already back in the buildings preparing for the school year; we are excited to get started! Please plan on attending our Open House/Meet & Greet on Thursday, August 29th between 4:30 and 5:30. You’ll have an opportunity to meet your child’s classroom teacher as well as meet with other staff and support groups.
Many thanks to our ABS PTA working in partnership with the Columbus PTO to Shred the Supply List so that everyone can have the resources they need for learning this year already taken care of. Special thanks to Elizabeth Stevens, Sara Nonzee, Martha Arlart, Oliver & Rebecca Zornow, Brianne Connolly, Holly Hardin-Nurmi, Dawn Price, Lori Kluball, and Marni Mahoney for all the fantastic work securing donations and making this a reality for our families; it is such a blessing to have these people serving on our PTA/PTO. Please reach out if you are interested in being a part of the PTA as it’s a vital part of our school community; we would love to have your support 😊.
We will also have a representative from Amira Learning at our Open House/Meet & Greet. Please plan on stopping by to visit as this an adaptive resource we are planning on using with all our students this year and students can also work with Amira at home. For home use, students will need an internet connection and preferably a desktop computer or laptop to interact with the program. A headset and microphone are also useful but not required. Amira provides instant feedback to students as they develop their oral language skills in Spanish. This would be a great resource to build into our students’ home learning routines as well as reading independently for 20 minutes per day, five times per week.
We have attached once again the ABS school calendar for the 24-25 school year. Please note that we are not following the same calendar as the AASD neighborhood schools. Our instructional day is longer beginning this year (First Bell at 8:20AM / Instruction 8:23AM to 3:24PM). We will still have the same drop-off and pick-up routines in the Zion Parking Lot. Students can be dropped off beginning at 8:05 a.m. and pick up will commence at 3:25 in the Zion Parking Lot. We are utilizing these additional minutes for more built-in educator collaboration and professional development time. We thank you once again for your support with this change. This extra time is critical as we are implementing new Spanish Language Arts and English Language Arts curriculum resources this year better tailored for dual language instruction and structured literacy. We are also beginning year two of our math curriculum resource adoption of Bridges Math which also includes more robust dual language resources for math instruction. This gives us better vertical alignment of instruction for our school. Our work committees and amazing staff have been doing an outstanding job of researching, vetting, and restructuring our delivery models focused on student success. The challenge this year is steep, but we are excited to get started knowing we are moving in the right direction for our learners.
Our students still access the Columbus playground and LMC as a part of their school day. Please take a drive by of the Columbus playground as significant changes are underway. Another huge thanks to Oliver and Rebecca Zornow, Brianne Connolly, Columbus PTO, AASD Facilities & Operations Staff, the City of Appleton, and Neighborhood Partners for securing an $80,000 grant to make renovations to the Columbus playground – we have green grass and swings 😊! The construction phases of the project should be completed by the first day of school. For most of the first year the sod will be fenced off so that it can develop deep roots ensuring long term future use. The asphalt and expanded woodchip play areas will be available beginning the first day of school.
We are looking forward to seeing you soon 😊!
Best,
Joel
ABS is "shredding the school supply list!"
Families will NOT need to directly purchase classroom supplies.
Benefits:
- Bulk purchasing is more efficient
- Eliminates guessing in the store aisle
- A pay-what-you-can model ensures every student is equipped for success
- Teachers can adapt throughout the academic year based on the needs of their classrooms
Appleton Bilingual School is partnering with Columbus to shred both schools' supply lists. Please consider contributing what you can to equip our classrooms next year using the QR code.