Henrietta Lacks Elementary

Wow! It's hard to believe that May is already here, and in just three short months, Henrietta Lacks Elementary will be opening its doors for the 2024-2025 school year! We're eagerly anticipating the start and continue to be committed to fostering a culture where every student's learning experience is both challenging and authentic, empowering them to take ownership of their education.

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Throughout the summer, we are looking forward to hosting staff retreats focusing on rigor, aiming to enhance each educator's capacity to deliver deeper learning experiences that fully engage every student. As educators, we understand our responsibility in laying a strong foundation of academic and life skills which will equip each child with the skill set for success throughout their educational journey and beyond. At Henrietta Lacks Elementary, we have a core belief that students can and should advocate for their educational needs. Our students CAN! They can reflect on their strengths and areas for growth, they can set goals for themselves, and they can identify action steps which will enable them to achieve their goal. We strongly support the idea that students can and should have a voice and choice in their learning throughout the school day.

During the spring months, we have been actively interviewing and hiring teachers who share these beliefs and core values as educators. We are excited about the passion our teachers are bringing to Henrietta Lacks Elementary and know it will have a lasting effect on our students and school community. We're committed to ongoing collaboration with the school community to ensure learning is challenging and designed to set students up for success in their future. We deeply value the feedback and input we receive from various stakeholders and will continue to appreciate their contributions!

May 14th - Bruster's Spirit Night Fundraiser

May 23rd - PTA Meeting at Hovatter Elementary

June 2nd - Principal at the Playground Event at 4:00pm

Hello Honeybee Families!

My name is Chet Huey and I am very excited and honored to "bee" the very first Dean at Henrietta Lacks Elementary. I look forward to getting to know all of the students and families in our community.

The 2024-2025 school year will be my thirteenth year working for LCPS. Prior to coming to Henrietta Lacks, I worked at three other schools in Loudoun County. I was at Countryside Elementary in Sterling for my first eight years. Seven of those years, I taught fourth grade and the other year I looped up with my class to be their fifth-grade teacher. I then moved over to Trailside Middle in Ashburn for two years, where I was a special education teacher/case manager and math specialist for Math 6, Foundations of Algebra, Pre-Algebra, and Algebra. This experience allowed me to gain firsthand knowledge of what is expected of students at the middle school level, as well as the curriculum they will see. From there, I went to Evergreen Mill Elementary in Leesburg and served two years as their very first dean, which has prepared me for the role here at Lacks.

As for my own education, I graduated from the Multiple Abilities Program at The University of Alabama, which gave me an undergraduate degree in Elementary Education and Special Education. I am a huge Alabama football fan... Roll Tide! I believe that education never stops, so I decided to go to graduate school to pursue another degree. This time I graduated from the Administration and Supervision Program at the University of Virginia.

Outside of school, I enjoy traveling, cooking, watching sports, going to concerts, and spending time with my family. My wife was formerly the school counselor at Rolling Ridge Elementary in Sterling for many years but is now the School Counseling Coordinator for all the LCPS Elementary Schools. Our oldest son, Paul, is about to turn four years old and our newborn, Jack, is almost one month. They both keep us very busy!

I work very hard to form positive relationships with all students and I go out of my way each day to show them how much I care. I believe every child can be successful and it is an honor to be able to help your child in this process as Dean of Henrietta Lacks Elementary. I cannot wait for the first day of school!

We were excited to have a fantastic turn out for our first Principal at the Playground event hosted in April, despite the cold temperature! A HUGE thank you to the PTA for providing some delicious freeze pops at the event, we saw a lot of colorful lips even though it was chilly outside. It was wonderful to see so many happy, excited children playing and laughing. We also loved chatting and connecting with so many families and hope you were able to make connections with other Henrietta Lacks Elementary community members. You might have seen that several teachers also attended the event, which made it even more special! Thank you to the future Henrietta Lacks Elementary educators for taking time out of your Sunday evening to join and meet some of your future students!

Skip the stores and save both time and money on back-to-school shopping with a Sprout School Supply Kit. These kits are teacher-approved, matching our Henrietta Lacks Elementary supply lists and will be delivered to school and ready for the first day. Again this school year, we will be offering families the opportunity to Pay It Forward and purchase an additional school supply kit to donate to a deserving child at our local school if they are interested. All Pay It Forward Kits will be provided to the administration at the close of our sale and distributed to local students, so they are all set for the first day. Order now at https://sproutsupplies.com/order using School Code HES005. Order deadline is July 9, 2024.

If you have a student who is joining Henrietta Lacks Elementary for the 2024-2025 school year as a rising Kindergarten student, a student new to LCPS this year, or a student coming from another LCPS school that is NOT Pinebrook, Hovatter, Goshen Post, or Elaine Thompson Elementary, we would love to gather some input regarding your child's learning, social, and emotional needs in order to prepare for class placement. Please feel free to provide some valuable input regarding your child to ensure we are able to best meet their needs using this Google Form.

If you have a rising 1st or 2nd grade student joining Henrietta Lacks Elementary next year and they are currently attending Pinebrook, Hovatter, Goshen Post, or Elaine Thompson Elementary, we encourage you to complete the parent placement surveys being sent out from those schools. The administrative teams from each of the above mentioned schools will be collaborating to share survey information with Henrietta Lacks Elementary. Additionally, the Henrietta Lacks Elementary administrative team will be participating in class grouping/placement discussions to ensure each and every student's needs are considered and understood.

If you have any questions regarding the class placement process, please do not hesitate to reach out to Henrietta Lacks Elementary.

Hopefully all the families of rising kindergarten students saw the information about the upcoming kindergarten screenings in May that was sent earlier this week! We wanted to invite your child to attend an upcoming kindergarten screening. We have a few dates/slot available in the month of May to get started. Please see the attached invitation to learn more about the screening process and sign up.

Rest assured, if there are no spots remaining or the dates/times offered in the month of May do not work for your family/child, we will be communicating many additional dates/times for screenings in June and July soon, so be on the lookout for more emails!

When registering your student for LCPS, you indicated a language other than English as a response to at least one of the three federally-required questions. We are contacting you to schedule your student´s screening.

To schedule your student´s appointment please call the Welcome Center at 571-252-1680 or click on this link.

As questions have continued to be asked regarding various operations and plans for Henrietta Lacks Elementary, we thought it might be beneficial to create an FAQ document to address the questions that have been asked by numerous families. Please find the document linked below for your reference. We will continue to update the FAQ document with more streamlined answers and update the questions as needed.

Henrietta Lacks FAQ Document

Additionally, if you have a question about anything related to the school, please feel free to submit it using this Google Form. A Henrietta Lacks Elementary staff member will reach out directly if it is a question specific to your situation or we will add it to the FAQ document if the question benefits the general community.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

6pm English & Spanish

7pm English & Arabic

This session is for families of Multilingual Learners in elementary and middle school. Explore the LCPS Gifted Education Program, its mission, program options, evaluation process, and family support. Families are encouraged to come with questions.

Click on this flyer link to learn more!

English Flyer PDF

Spanish Flyer PDF

Arabic Flyer PDF

We will be using the Second Step curriculum to support student growth at Henrietta Lacks Elementary. Please feel free to click on the links below to learn more about the program and how it will support your child.

Second Step Flyer (Overview of the curriculum)

How to Create a Second Step Family Access Account

How do I activate access?

To access program materials, set up a Second Step account by visiting SecondStep.org and selecting

Create Account on the right-hand side of the homepage. Follow the prompts to enter an email

address, password, and account details. If you have an existing account, you can use it to log in.

1. When you log in to SecondStep.org, you’ll land on the My Dashboard page.

2. Click on the Family Access link in the right panel.

3. Paste your Activation Key (listed below) into the box and click the Activate button.

By activating access to Second Step content, you are agreeing to Committee for Children’s

Terms of Use.

Your page will refresh, and you’ll now have access to student curriculum and family engagement

resources for the Second Step Elementary and Second Step Middle School digital programs.

What is my family access Activation Key?

Your Activation Key is: FAM8DF7BC952

Do you love organizing? If so, you might be interested in the Henrietta Lacks Elementary book shelving event that is tentatively scheduled to be held on August 6th. Basically, we will be looking for volunteers to help inventory and shelve the many new library books for our students! Save the date on your calendar for now if you are interested. More information and event details will be coming soon!

Pre-Registration for Kindergarten and/or any new to LCPS students is currently open. If you know anyone with a rising Kindergarten student, please encourage them to pre-register as soon as possible as it greatly helps with planning and preparing efficiently for the incoming Kindergarten class.

Please visit the webpage for specific details regarding registration to LCPS. If your child already attends an LCPS school in grades Kindergarten - 12 you do not need to complete registration, your child will automatically be enrolled at Henrietta Lacks Elementary for the 2024-2025 school year if it is your child's zoned school.

You do need to complete the registration process if:

• You have a child who is new to LCPS in grades Kindergarten through 12
• You have a child currently attending an LCPS Pre-kindergarten program entering kindergarten
• You have a child who was formerly enrolled and may be returning to LCPS

Our Financial Technician, May Auguste will be overseeing new student registration. She will be in contact with families who have completed the pre-registration process to review next steps. Please see the Henrietta Lacks Elementary Registration Checklist below. If you have specific questions, please feel free to contact Leigh Boyd via email at leigh.boyd@lcps.org or Ms. May via email at gaymay.auguste@lcps.org.

The PTA met on April 11th and decided on a name for the PTA. We are officially the Henrietta Lacks & Hovatter Elementary PTA or HLH. More nicknames to come soon!

Additionally, we voted on some updated funding requests for both some Hovatter initiatives and some start up needs for Henrietta Lacks Elementary. We also reviewed nominations for the 24-25 PTA committee and we are excited to have equal representation from both schools. Thank you to the nominating committee for devoting time to finding amazing candidates, who are dedicated to serving the whole school community and meeting the needs of all Hovatter and Henrietta Lacks Elementary students.

We look forward to meeting on May 23, at 6:00pm in the Hovatter library to close out the 23-24 school year and hold official elections for the new PTA committee.

For more information about the PTA, upcoming events, and ways to get involved, please visit our current website and Facebook page for additional information about the PTA and upcoming events:

PTA Website: https://hovatterpta.memberhub.com/

PTA Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/HovatterElementaryPTA

Both the website and Facebook page will be revised soon to reflect the changes in the PTA and include Henrietta Lacks Elementary.

Click on the picture to join the PTA!

Do you or does anyone you know have a business that might be interested in partnering with Henrietta Lacks Elementary? If so, please check out the flyer below, which outlines a variety of opportunities to involve your business at Henrietta Lacks Elementary. We look forward to making connections with local companies and working together to support the school!

We completed a May walkthrough last week and it is amazing to see the progress. The bus loop has been paved, many of the sidewalks are installed, classrooms are starting to have cabinets installed and are ready for some finishing touches, and most importantly, everything is still being completed in the expected timeframes!

Loudoun County Public Schools is offering new resources for all staff and parents/guardians to use to support students through www.parentguidance.org. You can learn more about this initiative by clicking here.

These resources include easily accessible video-based courses on difficult parenting topics, individualized parent coaching for any LCPS parent/guardian, on their schedule in their home, and weekly interactive webinars to let parents know the mental health needs of our students are a critical concern of Loudoun County Public Schools. Your unified mental health team members are ready to assist parents in accessing the support. You can watch this video about the services available.

Please consider taking a some time to complete the community input survey, if you have not already. The input gathered so far has been crucial in supporting the process to establish the vision and core values for Henrietta Lacks Elementary. Again, we sincerely appreciate your proactive involvement, the time invested, and your dedication as we work together to create an exceptional learning environment for your child.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE SURVEY!