Messages from Memorial

Happy New Year! I hope that you had a great holiday and break. We have now completed the second quarter of school year and report cards will be available on the Skyward Parent Portal on January 7. If you need a hard copy sent home, please let your child's teacher know. Also, if you have any questions about your child's report card, please reach out to your child's teacher. Although we do not schedule a conference with all families at this time, teachers are always available to meet in person or by phone.

You should also be receiving a copy of your child's middle of the year NWEA scores this week. When the reports come home, please review them for growth, celebrate the successes, and use them to make a plan for improvement, if needed. A great way to improve in reading is to read for 20 - 30 minutes a day. A good way to improve in math is to be able to fluently recall math facts.

It looks like winter has arrived. Please make sure that your child is appropriately dressed for outdoor recess. We go outside each day unless it is 0 degrees or lower, with wind chill, or unless it is too wet. Hats, mittens, snow pants, and boots are required to play in the snow. If you need assistance with any of those items, please contact Mrs. Seip.

With Great Respect,

Mrs. Debra Misecko

January

3 - Return to School

7 - Report Cards are available on the Skyward Parent Portal

12 - PTO Meeting at 3:30

17 - No School - Martin Luther King Jr. Day -

20 - Discovery Fair

February

9 - PTO Meeting at 3:30

9 & 10 - Visiting Artist

18 - No School for Mid - Winter Break/Snow Make-Up Day (eLearning if needed)

21 - No School for Mid - Winter Break

FYI - IMPORTANT DATES TO BE IN SCHOOL:

Grade 3 - IREAD 3 - March 7 - 18

Grades 3, 4, & 5- ILEARN - April 18 - May 13

In the interest of student safety and to maintain an effective learning environment, we would appreciate your help keeping your child's dismissal plans as consistent as possible. The number of calls and emails for daily dismissal changes are increasing. This tends to confuse students and interrupt classroom instruction. If you have an urgent need to change dismissal plans, please send in a note with your child in the morning or email Mrs Remijan and your child's teacher before 10 a.m. To make sure your request is able to be fulfilled, both the office and your child's teacher need to have advance notice.

• Please make sure your child has the appropriate outdoor wear for the weather. We will go outside everyday unless it is 0 degrees, with wind chill, or if it is too wet.
• Please make sure that you are screening for COVID 19 symptoms before sending your child to school. If anyone in the home is being tested, because of symptoms, please wait for a negative result before sending you child to school. If you are unsure of what to do, please keep your child home and call the Memorial nurse for assistance.
• Follow this link to the VCS COVID 19 Information websites.
• Morning supervision and breakfast begin at 8:20. Please drop off your child after 8:20. If they would like to eat breakfast we will send them right in. All other students will be let in the building at 8:30 a.m. The tardy bell rings at 8:45.
• Pick up and drop off should only be done along the school on the curb on Milton Street. Students should not be dropped off or picked up in the school parking lots. The parking lots are not supervised for safety.
• Please consider putting a spare mask in your child's backpack. Some students are experiencing mask malfunctions and losses during the school day.
• Water bottles are important each day, as we only have filling stations available to students.

Memorial continues to focus on sharing The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. We will talk about one of the 7 Habits each month. The January Habit is Habit #5 - "Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood." The most important parts of habit 5 is to be an empathetic listener and to listen for understanding. Understanding should come before responding. For more information please read more from Dr. Stephen Covey's website.

Memorial is in need of an additional instructional assistant at Memorial. The job title is Utility Personnel and the application can be found on the VCS Website at this link. If you have any questions, please call Mrs. Misecko.

Last month's presentation on Cyber Safety for Parents, from Ms. Shelby Milner, Indiana State Police Community Educator, was very informative and helpful. Did you know there are fake Apps used to hide files and photos? That was news to me and the other parents who attended.

Some of the other things she shared were:

Specific Apps Parents Should Worry About:

• Tiktok, Snapchat, Google Hangouts, Whisper, and Omegle

Helpful Tips for parents:

• Use monitoring software
• Do not ignore age restrictions
• Check Privacy Settings
• Review account history
• Make realistic rules and consequences
• Know your child's online world

And Resources for more information:

• www.commonsensemedia.org
• www.netsmartz.org
• www.fosi.org
• www.cyberbullying.org
• www.stopbullying.gov
• www.cybertipline.org
• www.smartsocial.com
• www.polarisproject.org

We are so excited to announce the PTO Executive Board for the 2021-2022 school year and greatly appreciate their willingness to work in these valued positions.

President - Kristen Elinkowski

Vice President - Rose Gutshall

Treasurer - Megan Taylor

Secretary - Rae Smedley

Stay tuned for more information coming about 21-22 PTO events. They will be shared in the Memorial Newsletter, on the Memorial Elementary PTO Facebook page, and the Memorial PTO Website.

The Memorial PTO will continue to participate in the Box Tops for Education program. It is now as simple as scanning grocery reciepts using the Box Tops for Education App. Please use the link below for more information on how you can use your regular purchases to support the Memorial PTO.

Email: dmisecko@valpo.k12.in.us
Website: valpo.k12.in.us/Domain/337
Location: 1052 Park Avenue, Valparaiso, IN, USA
Phone: 219-531-3090
Twitter: @Valpo_Memorial