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Dear Parents,
Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break
and that you and your family found a beautiful spot to just sit, relax, and
read! It is our final push, with quarter
4 beginning in just over a week – can you believe it?
The Friday before spring break, I
presented to the PTO on a number of items. The power point I used will be up on our website soon. I appreciate the comments and questions. I will do my best to answer all questions as
answers are found and update you through the Panther Press. One clarification I need to make is regarding
chronic absenteeism. I misspoke and
stated that unexcused and excused absences counted towards chronic absenteeism. I should have said that unexcused absences
only count towards chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is a term used for a student who has more than 18
unexcused absences.
I spoke a bit on safety and
security but did not directly comment on an on-going issue we have at Spring
Hill: Kiss N Ride and parent
parking. We understand that our school
has a difficult and inconvenient kiss and ride, bus loop and parking for staff
and visitors. We have worked with the FCPS Office of Safety and Security and the
Office of Transportation to make our system as safe, secure and efficient as
possible. Some things are just out of our control. Several years ago our
parking area was increased to what we have today as a result of the new
addition where we have third grade and SACC. FCPS increased our parking to the
maximum allowed. We need everyone’s cooperation and patience when visiting our
school or dropping off and picking up children.
We have a total of 119 available
parking spaces and 6 handicap spaces on our campus. Of those spaces our staff
occupy 105. That leaves only fourteen available parking spaces for all of our
families to use. There are times staff members leave for appointments and
meetings and return to find there is no available parking.
Currently we have over 1,030
students who attend our school. If we have an average of three children per
family and we have only one car per family that means we have a possibility of
over 343 cars needing to access our parking and student drop off and pick up
areas daily. Plus eleven school buses and one special education bus that uses a
different loading area from the other buses. Combine that with over 100 staff members who
need to park in order to work here.
Consider this - we dismiss over 1,030
children between the ages of 5 and 13 every day without injury or accidents.
Each of these children arrive home safely for 180 schools days every year. This
is a tremendous task for our staff to accomplish. In order to continue this we
need the cooperation of every parent, student, guardian, relative and staff
member to follow the rules and signs we have established to ensure the safety
of our children.
We understand that you have an
appointment to get to and that emergency situations happen daily for all of our
families. However, our focus and energy goes to making sure all our children
are safe and secure. We can only accomplish this with your cooperation and
understanding.
I appreciate all the support parents, the PTO
and the community give to our school and thank you in advance for ensuring that
the policies, rules and regulations are followed. Have a great weekend
Sincerely,
William
Olk, Principal
Library Book Fair Next Week
Students will have the opportunity next week to shop for
books at the Library Book Fair. Flyers and your child’s scheduled time will be
coming home in this week’s Thursday folders. Students will also have the opportunity
to purchase books by Jarrett Krosoczka in preparation for his visit to Spring
Hill on May 3. The library will be closed for student check-outs next week.
Please contact Mrs. DeVylder if you have any questions.
Library Book Fair Hours:
Monday, April 9: 12pm-4pm
Tuesday, April 10: 8am-6:30pm
Wednesday, April 11: 8am-4pm
Thursday, April 12: 8am-4pm
Friday, April 13: 8am-12pm
On April 3, 2018, Spring Hill ES launched a newly
designed website, which offers several advantages including:
- A constantly updating calendar of events
featuring both Spring Hill and FCPS important dates/events
- Enhanced announcements, including an
automatically updated archive of all past News You Choose broadcast e-mails
(including the Panther Press)
- Photo galleries of day-to-day school happenings
and special events
- Featured art work and writing samples from
current Spring Hill students
- An online attendance form for submitting student
absences
- Compatible display on mobile devices, an
important feature because so many of you are coming to the site through cell
phones
- Easy sharing of content between our school and
Fairfax County Public Schools (for example, emergency alerts about weather
closures etc. from the main site will be promptly displayed on the school site)
- Consistency across FCPS school sites with
similar layouts and menus, making navigation of sites easier for parents as
children progress through to middle school and beyond
- Accessibility to all users with disabilities
(508 compliant)
If you are not able to find the information you need on our
home page, you can use any of the following:
- Search Function, similar to the way you would
look for information on Google
- Top Menus, which links to main topics
including General information about SHES, Academics, Family Resources, and
Contact Information and commonly accessed sites like SIS, FCPS 24/7
(Blackboard), MySchoolBucks, and Library Resources
- Full Menu (Hamburger Menu), in the upper
left hand corner of the home page, which shows all the sub-pages within the
main topics
If you have bookmarked our current website at http://www2.fcps.edu/SpringHillES/,
be sure to update that with our new website address https://springhilles.fcps.edu.
While we have tried to include all of the information from our old site
that you have come to rely on, there may be something that we have forgotten.
If that is the case, feel free to contact Bill Mosher at wkmosher@fcps.edu. Thank you.
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Please have your
child(ren) check the cafeteria for lost items (jackets, coats, hats, lunch
boxes and waterbottles).
All
unclaimed items will be donated on at end of day Friday, April
6th.
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March is Youth Art Month! Celebrate with us by viewing artwork by
Spring Hill students, March 21 (or March 23 in case of snow) through April 4,
at the McLean Project for the Arts’ MPA@ChainBridge Gallery, 1446 Chain Bridge
Road, McLean, VA 22101, located near the Giant Food in downtown McLean.
Please join us for a closing reception on Wednesday, April 4, 4:30-6:00 PM. The art show
features artwork by students at Langley High School, Cooper Middle School,
Churchill Road, Colvin Run, Forestville, Great Falls, and Spring Hill
Elementary Schools.
Our thanks
go out to the McLean Project for the Arts for once again providing a professional
art gallery space for our Youth Art Month exhibit. The gallery hours are
Monday-Thursday, 10 AM-9:30 PM, Friday & Saturday, 10 AM-4 PM, closed
Sunday.
The
following students have artwork on display in the show: Kindergarten: Alice Munford & Arjun Tengli; First Grade: Zarnie Htut, Claire
Widdifield, and Winston Yu; Second
Grade: Mia Gao, Nirosh Guphapriya Vasanthakamar, Sophia Lee, Eirena Liu,
and Shanne Zeng; Third Grade: Lucia
Kanazir, Samantha Li and Harper Minnis; Fourth
Grade: Karen Chen, Brooke Ambrose, Ryan Kang, Morgan Kass, Artem Kazhala,
Sophia Kelly, Taegyu Lee, Brendan Li, Natasha Mills, Page Scully, and Zaib Zahir;
Fifth Grade: Tara Akrami Khasraghi,
Sydney Chan, Lucia He, Andrew Mills, Pierce Pryce, and Matthew Tam; Sixth Grade: Mohammed Anam, Amanda
Chung, Katie Davis, Taylor Frankel, Cayla Freedlander, Hannah Gitau, Brianna
Harris, Kai Henryson-Gibbs, Arman Macchiavello, Sophie McMillan, Mira Mouasher,
Jack Muehlheuser, Anya Muehlheuser, Melina Nguyen, Dean Park, Vanessa Popsescu,
and Shaka Wainaina.
APRIL
21st
11am-4pm
DON’T
MISS OUT
-
Sign up to volunteer for
a shift during the fair on the HUB. All parent volunteers are entered to win a $150 cash prize.
2. Buy
tickets:
PRESALE: $1=5 tickets $5=25 tickets
$10=
50 tickets $20=100 tickets
****ON THE HUB UNTIL Friday April 13th
****IN THE LOBBY April 16th-April
20th
DAY
OF THE FAIR: $1=4 tickets $5=20 tickets
$10= 40 tickets $20=80 tickets
-
Start cooking up your cake ideas for the
popular CAKE DECORATING CONTEST on Friday, April 20th! The theme is “Positively Fun!” and the cakes
are used for the Fun Fair Cake Walk. More details on the HUB!
Two teams representing Spring Hill Elementary School achieved
Highest Honors in the recent
WordMasters Challenge™—a national
vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually. The
third grade team
scored
an
impressive 190 points
out of a possible 190 in the second of three meets this year,
placing first in the nation. In addition,
the
sixth grade team
scored 190 out of a possible
200 points, finishing third in the nation.
Competing in the
Gold Division of the WordMasters Challenge™,
third graders Henry Ahn,
Giovanna Di Rienzo, Max Kerzner,
Habib Khan, Jay Khodzitsky,
Sabrina Kim, Samantha
Li, Inger Logan,
Ryan Minton, Mackenzie Ross, Artin Safaie, Renee
Shi, Owen Singer, Aiden
ThHorsbury, Brianna Wang and Alian
Yee, and
sixth
grader Tommy Swartz each earned a perfect score in the recent challenge. Nationally, only 58
third graders and 31 sixth
graders achieved this
result. Other students
from Spring Hill Elementary School who
achieved outstanding results in the meet
include
third graders
Ansh Chadalavad, Edward Guo,
Rebecca
Harney, Rachel Ji, Lucia Kanazir, Cassandra Kuebler, Joshua Sterbutzel, Shveta
Sunkar and Audrey Zeigler, fourth graders Ryan
Kang and Lewei Shi,
and sixth graders
Zosia Henryson
Gibbs, Niki Hoffman, Collin
Le,
William Liu,
Trent McMichael, CJ Romani,
Abby
Smedberg and Shaka Wainaina.
The
students were coached in
preparation for
the WordMasters Challenge™
by their classrom
teacher.
The WordMasters
Challenge™ is an exercise in critical
thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with
a set of interesting new words
(considerably harder than grade level), and
then challenges them to
use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships. Working to solve the analogies helps
students learn to think
both analytically and metaphorically.
Although most vocabulary enrichment and
analogy-solving
programs are designed for
use by high school students, WordMasters
Challenge™ materials
have been specifically created for younger
students in grades three through eight. They are particularly well suited for
children who are motivated by the challenge of learning new words
and enjoy the logical
puzzles
posed by analogies.
The WordMasters
Challenge™ program
is administered
by
a company based
in Indianapolis,
Indiana, which is dedicated
to inspiring high achievement in American schools.
Further information is available at
the
company’s website: http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.
SPRING SCHOOL-BASED AAP SERVICES NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
ADVANCED ACADEMIC
PROGRAMS (AAP)
SCREENING FOR SCHOOL-BASED (LEVEL II-III)
SERVICES
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) offers a continuum of advanced academic services for all students in grades K-8.
Learning experiences are designed to develop higher-level thinking through enrichment, acceleration,
and
extensions of the Program of Studies (POS). Teachers, administrators, and advanced
academic resource teachers (AARTs)
work
together to provide the following levels of school-based
services in each elementary school:
Critical and
Creative Thinking Lessons,
Grades
K-6
(Level I)
All students in kindergarten through grade six receive level I services which consist of model
lessons that are designed to teach critical and creative thinking skills.
The lessons are modeled
in all classrooms by AARTs and the thinking strategies are then used throughout the year by
classroom teachers and other teachers who work with students. Student responses to these
model lessons are used as part of the identification process for AAP services.
Parents may also
practice the thinking strategies during family conversations and activities. A description of the nine critical and creative thinking strategies can be found at
https://www.fcps.edu/academics/elementary-school-academics-k-6/advanced-academics/critical- and-creative-thinking.
· Differentiated Lessons in Areas
of Academic Strength,
Grades K-6 (Level II)
The AART collaborates with classroom teachers to provide additional
challenge through lessons
and
resources that extend and enrich the POS.
Level II
services are part of a
talent development
pool. Students are rescreened annually to make decisions about the need for this level of
service.
· Part-Time Advanced Academic Programs, Grades
3-6
(Level III)
Students identified by a local school screening committee for part-time advanced
academic
services are challenged through models and strategies designed to extend and enrich the POS in the four core subject areas. Students receive
direct instruction from the AART at the
local school using curriculum from the AAP Curriculum and Resources
to Support the Differentiated
Framework. Students identified for Level III services continue to receive level III services through
grade 6.
Screening for school-based services can happen at any time during the school year but is done schoolwide in spring to determine services for
the next school year. Parents or guardians may initiate the
screening for school-based (level II and
III) services by submitting the AAP School-Based Services (Level II-III) Referral Form (available at https://www.fcps.edu/registration/advanced-academics-identification-
and-placement/elementary-school/current-fcps at the bottom of the
page in Forms) to the AART at Spring
Hill Elementary prior to spring screening by May 4th. Multiple criteria are used to screen students for all
levels of AAP services.
Parents or guardians
who submit a referral
will be notified by Spring Hill Elementary of their student’s eligibility status by the first week in June.
If a parent or guardian wishes to appeal an ineligible decision,
they may submit an appeal with new data for consideration by the local school screening committee.
This new information should be submitted to
the AART (Level III appeals only!).
If you have any questions, please contact Danni James.
4/4 Langley Pyramid Art Show Reception (4:30pm-6:00pm)-Mclean Project for the Arts:MPA @ Chain Bridge Gallery
4/5 Spring Hill Staff Basketball Game vs. Lemon Road (6:30pm-8:30pm)-Mclean HS
4/6 6th Grade Principal Coffee (9:00-10:00 am)- Lg Pod
4/9-4/13 Library Book Fair-Library
4/10 1st Gr FT (9:30am-1:30pm)-Mount Vernon
4/10 4th Gr Orchestra Concert (7pm)-Cafeteria
4/11 6th Gr FT (Burns, LeBlanc & Minutoli) (9:50-11:50am)-National Gallery of Art
4/12 6th Gr FT (Kenney, Papathanassiou & Smith) (9:50-11:50am)-National Gallery of Art
4/12 4th Gr FT (6:30am-7:00pm)-Jamestown/Yorktown
4/12 2HR Early Release
4/16 Student Holiday -NO SCHOOL-Teacher Workday
4/16 Kindergarten Round-Up (9:00-10:30am)-Cafeteria
4/19 Spring Individual & Class Group Photos (All Day)-Gym
4/20 Read Across America
4/20 5th Grade Principal Coffee (9:00-10:00 am)- Lg Pod
4/20 Spring Hill's Got Talent K-3 Performance (9:00-10:00am)-Cafeteria
4/20 Spring Hill's Got Talent 4-6 Performance (2:00-3:00pm)-Cafeteria
4/21 Fun Fair
4/26 Kindergarten FT (9:30am-12:00pm)-Frying Pan Park
4/27 PTO Meeting (8:30-11:00am)-Lg Pod
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