Hello Lester Families,

We hope you've had a fabulous week! Although a short week, it has been filled with many things. Our third graders went on their District 58 curricular field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. In addition, we had our PTA meeting. The PTA is currently looking for candidates for next year executive board as well as several committee chair positions. If you have interest in learning more, please check out the PTA website for more information: https://www.lesterpta.com/committees-volunteering.

Registration for the 2025-2026 school year is now open. Please be sure that you register your child(ren) as soon as you know you will be returning. We currently only have 40% of our current families who have registered. If your child(ren) will not be returning to Lester, please let our office staff know (jsteele@dg58.org & acushing@dg58.org) as soon as possible so that we can plan accordingly. District 58 would like to have all returning students registered by March so that we can plan for staffing for next year. We appreciate your help taking care of this. Directions on how to register are included below as well.

Best of luck to all of our students at the District 58 Reading Games tomorrow!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend :)

Katie Novosel

Principal

knovosel@dg58.org

Lauri Smith

Assistant Principal

lsmith@dg58.org

GRATEFUL FORM

ABSENCE REPORTING FORM

LINKS TO PRIOR LESTER LIVINGS

Our Orange Frog (Positivity & Culture) Committee would like your participation. Please consider printing this out and having your child write why they are lucky to be a Lester student. These will be placed around the building for all to see. There will also be copies sent home in case you do not have the option to print. Please return these completed to school with your child. We appreciate your participation!

Register for the 2025-26 school year by March 31

District 58 asks families to complete 2025-26 student registration by Monday, March 31 on the PowerSchool Enrollment platform. We ask the following groups to register online:

• All returning District 58 students

• All new District 58 students

• All current District 58 students (in grades preschool through 7) who will not attend District 58 next year. You will only need to answer two questions confirming your withdrawal.

• All outplaced District 58 students (these are students who attend a special education school/program not located at a District 58 school)

• All Grove Children’s Preschool students, after receiving admittance into the preschool program

Click here to learn more, including registration links.

Our PushCoin fee system recently sent 2025-26 fee invoices to most returning students entering grades 1-8 for next school year, regardless of registration status. Please note: all students must complete registration in PowerSchool for the 2025-26 school year. Receiving a fee invoice does not indicate that registration is complete. If you are uncertain whether you completed your child's registration, please log on to your PowerSchool Enrollment account and click on "Returning Student Registration" in the left hand navigation menu to check your registration status. Thank you.

Our instructional leadership team has been sharing information with our staff all year about metacognition and best practices in the classrooms. As a part of our school improvement plan, we are having a "metacognition spirit week" the week before our third through sixth graders take the Illinois Assessment of Readiness. During this week, students will be engaging in extra "brain work" and metacognitive strategies in the classrooms. In addition, we have our rainbow spirit week where students will wear pink to end our week of all things brainy!

We are excited to share that we exceeded our growth targets in both reading and math during NWEA MAP testing at the building level. Since we met our targets, student have earned a movie prize. We will be watching a movie during lunch periods the week of March 3rd. If you would prefer that your child not watch the movie, please let your classroom teacher know so that we can make alternate plans for your child during lunch on those days.

We will be showing the movie Luck during lunchtimes the first week of March. This movie is rated G and teaches a message of the importance of family and friendship.

WAY TO GO, students!!! We are so proud of you!

Thank you in advance to all parents who volunteered to help during these parties. Please be sure that all volunteers have checked in with the office Raptor system/ID prior to the event so that Bebe/Angie have your badges ready for you. This is always a busy time so the check in days in advance is helpful. In addition, please be sure that volunteers planning the activities have shared their plans with classroom teachers as soon as possible for approval. As a reminder, no food of any kind is allowed. Please contact your child's room parent with any questions. We appreciate your help!

Friday, February 28: No School- County Wide Institute Day

Tuesday, March 11: PTA Science Olympiad at Lester (sign up open now)

Save the Date: Thursday, March 13th Kindergarten Round-Up for incoming Kindergarten 2025-2026

Tuesday, March 18- Friday, March 28: IAR (Illinois Assessment of Readiness) Testing for 3rd- 6th graders

Mon. March 31- Fri. April 4: SPRING BREAK

Thursday, April 10: Family Reading Night at Herrick cafeteria (more info to come from PTA)

Tuesday, April 22: OPEN HOUSE 6:00-7:30 at Lester

Lester School will hold Kindergarten Roundup on Thursday, March 13th at 6:00 pm. If your child will attend Lester next school year, please be sure to attend to learn more about the kindergarten experience and to meet the kindergarten team.

In addition, we invite our 2025-26 kindergarten families to attend Kindergarten Dual Language Information Night at El Sierra School, 6835 Fairmount Drive, on Wednesday, Feb. 26 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. This meeting will provide an overview of District 58’s Dual Language Program. No RSVP required to attend; we hope to see you there!

As you are spending time over the next few weeks with family, please consider submitting a recipe along with a photo of the recipe and/or you creating the recipe as a family in this form (optional). We would love to hear about the delicious recipes that represent your culture and your family’s history. Please share a recipe that is meaningful to you, the culture it represents, and any story behind it. We will then put them all together and create a document to share with all of our families!