Dragon Tales

Well, we've made it through our first full week! I'm sure everyone is ready for the weekend and the opportunity for a little rest and relaxation.

As they all seem to be, this was a pretty exciting week. Fall Festival rehearsals were back in full swing. The sounds of students engaged in various activities outside my office everyday brings me joy and a reminder of the great opportunities we provide students at da Vinci.

We also had our first talent show of the school year. The alumni/staff talent show was a hit with students and a great way to end our week. It's awesome to see our alumni return to model the courage it takes to be on stage. I'm certain it positively influences our current students to participate in our four upcoming student-talent shows. Lastly, I want to send a huge thank you to all our performers, techies and staff who helped put on this awesome show.

As always, don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions,

Mr. Roosevelt

Mark your calendars for Back to School Night on Thursday, September 19th. Families will have the opportunity to hear from administration, walk your student's schedule and tour the building. We ask that you make every attempt to not bring your students. Our classrooms are not big enough to hold families and students.

We will start at 6pm in the auditorium with a presentation from the admin team.

We will also have a representative from Outdoor School here to answer any questions that 6th grade families may have. Event details are below:

Date: September 19th

Start Time: 6pm (doors open at 5:50pm)

End Time: 8pm

Address: 2508 NE Everett St

Parking: Will be available in our lot behind the school, on the asphalt behind the playground, and throughout the neighborhood.

On behalf of the PTSA, we hope to see you all at the 1st PTSA meeting of the 2024-2025 school year. Please RSVP through this link (PTSA Meeting RSVP)

Meetings are on the third Wednesday of every month (unless otherwise noted) and run from 6:15PM – 7:30 PM. All are welcome to attend, and meetings will be held virtually via Zoom.

We look forward to seeing you at our first meeting of the year!
Wednesday, September 18th
6:15pm

As families begin to prepare for Outdoor School, we are in need to specific items to help families who may not have access to these items. Specifically, we are in need of rain coats, boots, and sleeping bags. If your student has outgrown these items, or if you have replaced them with new ones, we are taking donations.

If you have items to donate, please email Ms. Shannon (sfoxley@pps.net) and she will help coordinate from there. Our hope is to create an ODS closet that we will be able to pull from if students need specific items.

Come join us for TAG information night!

Monday, September 23rd from 5:30-6pm

If you are unable to attend, please contact Ms. M-B (kmurray@pps.net) and she can answer any questions you may have.

This week I want to highlight the creative way Ms. Oates and Mr. Seifert worked to build community in their classroom through their "Hoodies About Us" activity. It's fun to see the different ways students decided to share a bit about themselves with their classmates. Nice work Ms. Oates and Mr. Seifert!

We learned this week that there may appears to be a glitch when our teachers receive a message sent through our student information system, Synergy. If you have sent a message to your student's teacher(s) through ParentVue (the parent version of Synergy) and have not received a response, there is a chance it never made it to them. We are working with our IT department to fix the issue. If you sent a message through ParentVue, we encourage you to resend it through an actual email platform until we learn the issue has been resolved.

We are in need of snack donations for our students who are staying late for our Fall Festival Rehearsals. Any individually wrapped, non-perishable, snack options will be greatly appreciated. Please bring your donations to the main office and we will distribute them accordingly.

PPS is hosting a series of events that focus on Belonging, Equity & Inclusive Practices where we will screen powerful, award winning documentaries that will stir, provoke, and challenge each of us about what is possible in the systems we create for our children with disabilities. Staff, Parents, Community are all invited. The first screening will be Forget Me Not, on September 25th 6:00 PM at McDaniel High School. Our Roles, Our Work, Our Children!

Full text of message with movie description