Hawk Highlights

🤩 Our 1st-6th graders absolutely CRUSHED their MAP growth goals!! This is a huge testament to how hard our students have worked this year, and to the high-caliber instruction and support our exceptional Highlands teachers provide. WAY TO GO, HAWKS!!

Upcoming Events:

• 🍎 Teacher Appreciation Week! May 5-9
• 📌 All School Mindful Moment (Creativity): May 5th @ 2:30
• Guest Speaker: Skottie Young (Marvel artist and author)
• ⛳️ Field Day: May 14th
• This fun day is reserved for students only. It is tradition for our 6th grade students to run the events and we would like to give them space to SOAR as mentors to our younger hawks. This event will be scheduled all throughout the day, but parents are welcome to watch activities from outside the playground gate if they so choose.
• 🎓 6th Grade Graduation + Celebration: May 22nd
• Graduation Ceremony: 8:30 in MPR
• Celebration at Main Event: 10:30-2:30
• 📅 Last Day of School: May 23rd
• Early Dismissal: 12:30

🫶🏻 Teacher Gratitude: Give through Raise Right!

We're delighted to again offer the Raise Right (formerly Scrip) gift program as an option to show appreciation to our wonderful Highlands teachers and staff. This program puts gift cards in the pocket of every teacher and staff member at Highlands.

The teachers and staff appreciate the freedom to choose gift cards from their favorite retailers and parents appreciate the simplicity of this gift of gratitude. As an added benefit, Raise Right provides a small rebate back to Highlands PTA as a result of your donation!

📌 HOW: Simply designate the dollar amount to the teachers/staff of your choice below. You can also donate to "All Highlands Teachers & Staff" - an important way to thank all the dedicated teachers and staff that help your child every day.

• Deadline for donations is Thursday, May 8th.

Thank you so much for your support!

Highlands PTA

https://ourschool.support/HighlandsRaiseRight2025

Pre-K

Lori Galloway

Kindergarten

Elizabeth Crowder

Tracie Nolte

First Grade

Bridgette Fullington

Peyton Sullivan

Second Grade

Whitney Chang

Julie Skahan

Third Grade

Erin Lutz

Des Scheideman

Fourth Grade

Jamie Diefendorf

Mimi Stopperan

Fifth Grade

Jennifer Orzel

Allison Sernett

Sixth Grade

Rebecca Durnell (ELA)

Mallory Espeset (Math)

Erin Parrett (SS/Science)

Resource

Carey Dahlstrom (SAIL)

Karolien Morrison

Open Position

SEEK

Karen Bonness

Katie Howard

Sarah Jaynes

Megan Kerr

School Psychologist

Open Position

Speech Language Pathologist

Gabby Harrison

Occupational Therapist

Natalie Kaiser

Physical Therapist

Kristin Robbins

Social Worker

Robin Sutton

Instructional Coach

Maggie Carter

Interventionist

Sara Weishaar

Art

Nichole Gates

Library

Micaela Emmott

Music

Angie Lunetta

PE

Conner Gadwood

School Nurse

Open Position

Interventionist Aide

Casey McCauley

Front Office

Secretary: Sloane Junge

Office Aide + Attendance: Monique LaBrasca

Paraprofessionals

Kathy Riley

Madison Fernandez

Jong Kim

Ronda Stone

Nicola Clark

Malory Hill

Kaci Wyman

Maria Green

Building Substitute

Chelsea Johnston

5th/6th Grade Band

Erin Starnes

5th/6th Grade Strings

Maddie Smith

Custodians

Darrell Kronk

Patrick Kyle

Stoja Kojic

⭐️ Highlands will continue the work of belonging and inclusion through the newly-adopted district Social-Emotional Resource Character Strong for grades K-12. We will kick off each theme from Character Strong at our monthly All-School Mindful Moments and continue throughout the month at Hawks Nests and daily social-emotional lessons.

⭐️ Shout-out to our amazing 6th graders for helping to plan these Mindful Moments!

HI WIG #1: Implement a system-wide monitoring process that utilizes collaborative instructional teams who meet regularly to review student data from screening, progress monitoring, and common formative assessments (CFAs) to identify next steps for instruction. (Intentional Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 instruction)

• ✅ Lead Measures (to get us there):
• Intentional Core Instruction: Students are doing the talking (thinking); teachers are asking questions to encourage students to think and generalize what they know to new situations.
• Intentional Core Instruction: Teacher teams will use information from CFAs and real-time observations during core instruction to strategically target skills that will accelerate achievement
• Educational Equity: How will we get EVERY student there? A collective responsibility to provide students with what they need, when they need it, and with an urgency to master essential outcomes.
• IXL: students will engage in personalized learning plans using the IXL app to master skills for each priority standard with an 80% proficiency in both ELA and Math.
  

HI WIG #2: Prioritize social/emotional personalized learning through explicit instruction, modeling, classroom norms, school rituals/routines, and caring attention.

• ✅ Lead Measures (to get us there):
• Character Strong SEL Curriculum: Tier 1 daily instruction.

• Attendance Team: The office attendance team will monitor excessive absences by proactively sending out 7-day & 10-day absence letters and excessive tardy letters (10+ tardies) each week.

• Chronic Absenteeism rate will be communicated each month via school parent newsletter, as well as grade-specific rates through individual classroom newsletters.

• Mindful Mornings: 8:00-8:30 daily, building-wide. Students know they can softly enter the school day through friendship and connection. Device-free.

• Schoolwide System of Mentorship: all-school monthly Mindful Moments, Class Buddies, Hawks Nests, StuCo

• BIST + PBIS: building-wide system of grace, accountability, and positive reinforcement

• Weekly student SOAR tickets

• SOAR student store

• Quarterly PBIS assemblies + Highlighted Hawks

• BIST continuum: Implement buddy pass system and monitor usage/efficacy of buddy intervention