Community Connection

Greetings,

Despite our recent weather, the school year is off to a great start! The scholars are doing an excellent job settling into the routines and getting started with learning.

We were thrilled to see the overwhelming support for our new dismissal app. We will still use the app…soon! We are waiting for integration with the districts information system. Once we receive the green light, we will let everyone know!

We had a great turnout at Meet the Teacher. We are looking forward to seeing everyone again at our Welcome Back Wellness & Family Fitness Fun Night on Wednesday, September 20. The event will take place from 4:30 to 6:00.

Principal Richards & The Stono Park Team

9/4- Labor Day- No School

9/8- PTA T-Shirt Fundraiser Ends

9/15- Hispanic Heritage Month Begins

9/18 - Picture Day

9/20- Title 1 Welcome Back Wellness & Fitness Family Fun Night 4:30pm-6pm

9/22- Early Release- Dismissal @1:30pm

9/22- Special Person's Lunch

10/2- SEL groups w/Mr. Williams & Mrs. Rivers start

10/6- 4th Grade Field Trip to Gaillard

10/11- PTA Bingo Night- 5pm-6:30pm

10/13- Early Release - Dismissal @1:30pm

10/20- PTA Fundraiser- Dress Down Day $2.00

10/26 - PBIS 1st Quarter Bingo Celebration for Students

10/27- Half Day - Dismissal @ 11:30am

Lowcountry Food Bank will be providing free fresh produce! Family Fitness stations by MUSC, Little Gym, Dance Lab, Yoga & Breathwork, pickleball and much more!

We are excited to invite our families to eat lunch with their scholars at school on Friday, Sept. 22nd. This can be any special person in the student’s life! Due to space we can only accommodate 2 special person’s per student.

Adults can purchase school lunch for $4.75 and a younger sibling lunch can be purchased for $2.25. Only cash & checks can be accepted as payment. NO CREDIT CARDS or DEBIT CARD.

RSVP can be done on the google form below or a paper copy will also come home with the student. RSVP are due by 9/13 in order to ensure enough food is ordered.

Menu

Main Entrees

Pizza

Brunch Kit

Salad

Vegetable

Corn, carrots or side salad

Assorted Fruit

Water Bottle-$1.00

Side Salad- $1.50

Side Fruit or Vegetable- $.75

Lunch Schedule -

10:30am-11am- Kindergarten & 2nd Grade

11am-11:30am- 3rd Grade & Child Development(4yr old)

11:30am-12pm- 1st Grade & 4th Grade

12pm-12:30pm- 5th Grade

Important Information

Safety is always our top priority therefore every person will need to sign in through the district raptor system prior to entering the building. To ensure that events run smoothly we ask that you arrive at least 15 minutes prior to your student’s start of lunch since you will have to sign in.

Since you are RSVPing ahead of time with your name the school is able to print out your raptor ID badge ahead of time and be ready for you when you arrive at the school if you are already in our raptor system. If you are not in our raptor system, you will have to have your ID scanned which can lead to long lines. We encourage everyone to here well before your scholar's lunch time.

Everyone entering the building MUST HAVE AN ID! ID will be checked for everyone even if you are already in the raptor system to get your sticker or if you need your ID scanned the day of the event.

Special Person's Lunch RSVP

Attention Families:

Every year in grades 3-12, students who have not yet identified as gifted and are showing high academic potential are offered the opportunity to participate in aptitude testing. This year, nominated students in grades 3-5 will test in September in an attempt to allow all children who qualify as Gifted and Talented per SCDE guidelines to begin gifted service as early in the school year as possible. If you would like to nominate your child for this testing, please complete one of the forms below.

Gifted & Talented Nomination Form - English

Formulario de Nominación para Dotados y Talentosos - Spanish

For more information, please check out our FAQ’s about Nomination Testing: English / Spanish

CD- Our youngest learners will be focusing on the following skills: Welcoming, Listening, Focusing Attention, Self-Talk, Following Directions, and Asking for What You Need or Want.

Kindergarten- Toys and Play Scholars will build their literacy and citizenship skills by reading a variety of books about toys and play. They will end the module by writing an informational piece after interviewing a classmate about their preferred classroom toy. They will draw and label the toy and write a sentence to accompany the drawing.

1st Grade- Tools & Work Scholars will create a magnificent thing (a product that fulfills a need or solves a problem in their classroom). They will write a description of what they created, why they created it, and how they used tools to create it.

2nd Grade- Schools and Community Scholars will create an informational book titled "The Most Important Thing About Schools" after completing whole group and small group research.

3rd Grade- Overcoming Challenges Near and Far Students will synthesize their thinking about reading challenges and possible strategies to overcome those challenges by creating an eye-catching bookmark listing the possible strategies described in the reading contracts that they wrote.

4th Grade- Poetry, Poets, and Becoming Writers Scholars will synthesize their learning about what inspires poets to write poetry by presenting their own original poems inspired by something meaningful along with a speech including supporting visuals about what inspired their poem.

5th Grade- Stories of Human Rights Scholars will work in small groups to compile monologues and create a program. The monologue is based on a character's reaction to an event from Esperanza Rising. Students write about the human rights challenged by the event, identify the corresponding article of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, and explain how people are impacted by this issue today.

Welcome to the 23-24 school year. Please help us have a safe and healthy year at school. Here are some ways that you can insure the best for your student.

1. Have an adult check in with your student and take their temperature before leaving the house. Pay attention to any signs of illness like fever, a red sore throat, extreme sneezing and coughing, a painful earache or toothache, vomiting or diarrhea. Please see a doctor and send in a doctor note when they can return. A sick child is often contagious and unable to do their best work at school. Have a working thermometer and a stocked first aid kit. Items can be found at the dollar stores and Walmart.

2. Give medicines on a regular schedule daily at home for best results. Please do not give on an empty stomach unless your doctor tells you too. If medicine will be needed at school, deliver the doctor's order form and the medicine to be signed in. Other than the medicines that you can consent for on the health card, all others must have a doctor order for school each year. All local doctors keep our CCSD forms. If you need one, let us know.

3 Please communicate with us if your child has had an injury and will be in a splint or cast or if they have had a concussion or something that will limit activity.

4 Please turn in current compliant shot records. You have 30 days from registration to get those in per SC law. If you need help making an appointment to get caught up, let us know.

5 Please see that your student dresses for the weather in light colored shirts and shorts, dresses or skirts as the heat index is quite high. They will stay cooler in light colors that reflect heat. A light jacket can be packed if the classroom is cool.

6. Please send in an extra set of clothes, underwear and socks to be prepared for any need. Our supplies of donated extra clothing are very low. Prepare your student to be able to change easily into a fresh outfit without having to come to the clinic and wait to try to find clothes where the most germs live.

7. Please send your student in Velcro shoes until they learn to tie laces. Untied shoes cause many slips, trips and falls. Closed shoes only please for safety at recess and PE

8. Covid is still with us, and flu season will begin very soon. Be safe and encourage hand washing. Cover coughs and sneezes. Stay home when ill. The rule for covid right now from DHEC is that the day of a positive test is day zero. Stay home on days one through five and return on day six IF there is no fever and symptoms have improved,

Thank you for your help and support and have a wonderful healthy year.

Nurse Wendy

We begin dismissal at 3:20pm. If your student is a car rider please ensure that you are in our car rider line before 3:40pm.

Late Car Rider Fee

If scholars are not picked up by 3:50 p.m. There will be a fee of $15. However, if a scholar is picked up late more than 3 times, they will be taken to Kaleidoscope, and a $50 fee will be charged.

As long as your child is healthy, please encourage showing up to class when school is in session daily and on time. Every day of school is an important opportunity for students to learn as well as connect to peers and their teachers.

If your child is absent please make sure an excuse is sent in within 3 days of the student returning back to school. A student is considered Truant if they have missed 3 consecutive days of school without a doctor's excuse or 5 unexcused absences total. Once a student has 3 unexcused absences then a Truancy Warning Letter is sent home. Once a student has 5 unexcused absences a Truancy Conference has to occur with the caregiver.

A student is chronically absent if he or she misses only two days of school per month (18 days per year). Even one year of chronic absence can cause a child to fall behind academically and decrease a child’s chances of graduating from high school, which can have long-term consequences on their financial independence, physical well-being and mental health.

Parents can prepare their children for a lifetime of success by making regular school attendance a priority and understanding the reasons for their child’s absences.

Thank you for partnering with us to help your child learn, thrive and succeed.

Stono Park's SEL Groups will start the first week of October. Look out for permission slips in their folder from Mrs. Rivers & Mr. Williams.

Learn more at Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum | Committee for Children (cfchildren.org)

The Charleston County Public Library also has Free Virtual Tutoring with student's library Card. Visit Tutor.com Student Center | Charleston County Public Library (ccpl.org) to take advantage of this free resource.

Kids Café with the Lowcountry Food Bank

Beginning September 11, 2023, kids and teens can enjoy free after-school snacks and meals at select library branches through the Kids Café Program! The program is in partnership with the Lowcountry Food Bank and provides access to healthy food options. The program also offers hot and cold suppers at a few branches.

Snacks include nutritious options such as fruit, cheese, yogurt and muffins. Meals include foods like sandwiches, taco salad, chicken salad, mac and cheese, ham, sweet potatoes and more. This is an equal opportunity program.

The Kids Café Program goes through May 7, 2024. Meals and snacks are available to kids 18 and under, Monday through Friday, from 3 p.m.-5 p.m. (*unless otherwise noted) at the following library locations. Check out the schedule and locations below:

Serving Hot Suppers

• St. Paul’s Hollywood (5130 Hwy 165, Hollywood)

Serving Cold Suppers

• Main (68 Calhoun St, Charleston)
• Keith Summey North Charleston (3503 Rivers Ave, North Charleston)

Serving Snacks

• Hurd/St. Andrews (1735 N. Woodmere Dr, Charleston)
• Dorchester (6325 Dorchester Rd, North Charleston)
• Otranto (2261 Otranto Road, North Charleston)
  • *Snacks at Otranto Road Library will be served from 2:30 -4:30 p.m.
• John’s Island (3531 Maybank Hwy, Johns Island)
  • *Snacks at John’s Island Library will be served from 2:30 –4:30 p.m.

To support families with internet service during COVID-19, the FCC has a new

program called Emergency Broadband Benefit. Households with students who receive free or reduced-price school meals, including ALL students in CEP schools, qualify for the program. There are three ways to apply:

1. Apply online at GetEmergencyBroadband.org
2. Contact the local broadband provider to learn about their application process (find participating broadband providers here)
3. Call 833-511-0311 for a mail-in application.

Mortgage and Housing Assistance: Help for homeowners and renters during the coronavirus national emergency

Email: Traci_Alter@charleston.k12.sc.us
Website: https://www.ccsdschools.com/stonopark
Location: Stono Park Elementary School, Huntley Drive, Charleston, SC, USA
Phone: 843-763-1507