Hamline Family Newsletter

Hamline Huskies,

I am very excited to tell you about our new school-wide theme around Social Justice. Staff are working to develop units around Identity, Diversity, Justice and/or Action. Focusing on these areas allows educators to engage in a range of anti-bias, multicultural and social justice issues. We are using the Teaching Tolerance curriculum to help build and develop these units. Support staff is also looking at ways to bring student voice into how we do things at Hamline. We believe that empowering children and encouraging their voice will prepare them to be the change agents our world needs.

Although conferences will look different this year, they are a time for you, your child and the teacher to build a partnership and to discuss your child's academic progress.

As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.

Remember, near or far, you are always in our hearts.

In Partnership,

Principal Kristin Reilly

Space for Learning

Would you be interested in a desk for your child to use at home? The Minnesota Tool Library is partnering with Mayor Carter's office to build desks for students. If you would like a desk, please fill out the following form or contact me.

Please reach out to me with any questions or concerns by email, text, or phone at:

Email: jennifer.ewald@spps.org

Office: 651-744-6055

Google Voice: ‪(612) 315-0791‬

Fall conferences will look a little different this year.

• Our conferences will be held from November 16-November 25.
• Your child's classroom teacher will reach out to schedule the day and time that works best for your family.
• Please make sure to let your child's classroom teacher know if you need an interpreter.
• All conferences will be held on a Google Meets.
• Please use your child's iPad in order to access the Google Meet.

We do not have school on the following days:

• Friday November 20
• Thursday November 26
• Friday November 27

Supply Pick-up Day

Friday, November 20th

8am-2pm

• Pick-up in back of the school on Hubbard.
• A staff member will bring out a box of school supplies to you.
• Please wear a mask.

Please click on the following icons for more information.

"Our job is not to prepare students for something; Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything."

As we build our inquiry-based learning model at Hamline, we have identified five competencies that we want every student leaving Hamline with: Collaborators, Communicators, Problem Solvers, Creators, and Self and Community Aware. We believe these are the characteristics needed to prepare students for the 21st century.

Please go to https://www.schoolcafe.com/spps to complete the Free and Reduced Lunch Application. Having everyone complete the application is very important due to the fact that it determines how much educational funding our school receives. Even if you do not qualify for free and reduced lunch, we need 100% of families filling this form out.

Also, families must complete an application and qualify for free or reduced price meals to qualify for other assistance programs such as Metro Transit’s $1 Ride program, Comcast’s Internet Essentials, and some scholarships for summer camps

Reminder to fill out the annual iUpdate student form at Campus Parent. It is important we have updated contact information so you will receive updates from the school. If you need any help with your login or password, email karen.azen@spps.org or leave a message at 651-744-4287.

The Midway Food & Empowerment Project aims to collect and distribute resources to our community on an ongoing basis.The speed at which multiple community partners came together to make this happen is nothing short of amazing. We will continue to work with our partners to ensure that our community members receive the items they need to thrive

https://www.hamlinemidway.org/TheMidwayProject

You may have noticed that teachers are asking your student to identify what zone they are in and what they need to do to get into the green zone or learning zone. The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum that helps students identify their emotional state and gain skills to help them regulate their emotions. The zones use the colors and language of the traffic lights. Green means you are good to go. Orange means you have to be cautious and slow down. Red means you are experiencing high intensity emotions and you need to stop and take care of these emotions. Blue is similar to the rest area when on the highway and it means you need a break to re-energize. These emotional states are all normal and experienced by all of us. The goal is to teach students how to recognize the feelings in their body and equip them with tools to use when they need to calm down and come back to a green zone. Here is a visual you can look at to explain the zones and perhaps start using it with your student to further support their emotional awareness and self-regulation skills.

- Kaltun Abdikarani, School Counselor

If your household has been affected by COVID-19, you may be eligible for housing assistance through MN Housing. The COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program provides housing assistance payments to help prevent eviction, prevent homelessness, and maintain housing stability for eligible renters and homeowners. Local administrators will review applications from individuals and families requesting assistance, verify eligibility, and process payments for eligible expenses on behalf of households. To find out more about the program, please visit the website below.

*Applications are available in English, Spanish, Hmong and Somali

http://www.mnhousing.gov/sites/np/covid19housingassistanceprogramFAQ

Lynnette Medcalf, School Social Worker

Life has been turned upside down for everyone. The current life events that are happening should not be processed alone. Therapy can help children begin to process and make sense of their worlds with a Mental Health Professional.

Paying attention to the mental health of children can help reduce problems at home, school, and in social interactions with others. If you would like more information about starting therapy services for your child please reach out to our School Social Worker, Lynnette Medcalf at Lynnette.medcalf@spps.org or School Counselor, Kaltun Abdikarani at Kaltunabdikarani@spps.org. You can also fill out the help form for families on the Hamline website, spps.org/hamline.

Thank you,

Sharice Zaccardi

Community School Mental Health Practitioner

Saint Paul Public Schools engages in a process of continuous improvement. At the school level, a major tool in the improvement process is the School Continuous Improvement Plan (SCIP). The SCIP is a strategic document that district schools utilize to identify annual improvement priorities at each school.

For more information, please see our "Title 1" section on our webpage or see the following link for our Family Friendly SCIP. If you have any questions on the SCIP, please reach out to Jennifer Ewald, assistant principal, at jennifer.ewald@spps.org.

Through establishing a Gender Inclusion Policy, Saint Paul Public Schools will ensure that all students have equitable access to safe and comfortable programming, athletics and facilities.

POLICY POINTS

1. Respect all students’ gender identity and gender expression by honoring the right of students to be identified and addressed by their preferred name and pronoun.
   
   
2. Prohibit, within academic programming, the separation of students based upon gender unless it serves as a compelling pedagogical (instructional) tool.
   
   
3. Permit all students to participate in co-curricular and extracurricular activities in a manner consistent with their gender identity including, but not limited to, intramural and interscholastic athletics.
   
   
4. Provide all students access to facilities that best align with students’ gender identity.

Bridging Snelling Avenue, Hamline Elementary and Hamline University are one integrated campus. Each member of our community is both a teacher and a student, engaged in a journey of lifelong learning that provides a rich variety of resources to support this diverse education. Our partnership with Hamline University, the first of its kind in the nation, places more than 100 tutors and mentors in classrooms and provides students with access to the university campus on a continual basis. Hamline students see themselves in college students. As the saying goes, "College begins in kindergarten". We are two campuses, but one community in the heart of the Hamline Midway neighborhood.

Website: hamline.spps.org
Location: 1599 Englewood Ave, Saint Paul, MN, USA
Phone: 651-293-8715
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hamlineelementaryschool
Twitter: @HamlineElem