TLES Updates 6/16/20
Fairfax County Public Schools sent this bulletin at 06/16/2020 08:40 PM EDT
Dear Timber Lane Families,
As we close out the 2019-2020 school year, I want to say a special thank you to every one of you for your partnership this year. Although things ended unexpectedly, it was a wonderful school year and I am honored to be your principal! We couldn’t have yielded the success we had without the incredible learning on the part of our teachers, the flexibility and understanding of our parents, and the love of learning (by any means) by our Timber Lane Tigers.
In terms of our plans for the fall, the school board will be deliberating on proposed plans throughout June and hope to have a plan to communicate to staff and families by the end of the month. Currently, three approaches are being considered, you can read a little about each one here: FCPS Return to School: Fall 2020. As you can imagine, whatever approach is chosen will set in motion even more strategic planning at the school level to guarantee your children are safe and getting the instruction and challenges they deserve at Timber Lane.
By the end of the month, students currently in grades K-6 will receive both a Mathematics and a Language Arts Essentials Summer Practice Book in the mail. Digital versions of the books will also be posted on the Continuity of Learning Blackboard page. These books will provide recommended practice activities for students to review essential content from the 2019-2020 school year; they are not intended to preview content from next year’s grade level but rather reinforce essential learning from this past year.
As students access these activities from July 6 to July 31, they will also have the opportunity to join Timber Lane teachers for summer learning. In collaboration with teachers from Pine Spring Elementary and Graham Road Elementary, our teachers will use the summer workbooks as guides to plan additional live learning opportunities and hold office hours where students can ask questions and interact with teachers and other students their age. Our schools are working collaboratively this summer to provide all of our students an opportunity to learn and grow together. Any student interested in attending is welcome. We have previously sent out a survey to all of our families. If you were unable to complete that survey but are interested in taking part in this learning opportunity, please email bjchiet@fcps.edu.
I hope you all have a wonderful summer and I hope to see you all in our building this August.
Ben Chiet, Principal
Progress Reports (all grade levels)
Final progress reports will be sent home to families centrally from FCPS. You should expect to receive them a few weeks after school has finished as they are tentatively scheduled to be sent around June 25. As a reminder, there will be no grades for the fourth quarter; only final mark on the progress reports. Beginning June 16 at 6:00am, you can access the progress reports through your parent SIS account.
Well Wishes To Departing Staff Members
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish our cherished staff members the very best in their future endeavors. We have a number of retirements, out of state moves, changes in positions, and some folks pursuing opportunities outside of education. Staff and administration would like to share the following updates with you:
Retirements: Mary Wurl, Kristi Johnson, & Marlyne Tramble-Foster
Inter-&-Intra-State Moves: Sydney McKinney, Laura Wertheimer, Latowia Mason, Kelley Higgins
New Positions: Sue Culpepper, Christie He, Mike Gerber, Adair Grandchamp
New Opportunities (staff at TLES for one year only): Jenni Lent, Kait Dight, John Simpson, Pamela Goodwin, Gabby Payabyab, Emily Schauss, Ebony Buraimo
Thank you for your sincere dedication to the students of Timber Lane. Whether your time at Timber Lane was a short or long while, you have left an indelible impression on our hearts. To those who are starting in a new position, we are incredibly excited to support you in your new journey!
What Factors Determine Class Placements At Timber Lane?
We wanted to take the opportunity to discuss the many factors that go in to our class placements this upcoming school year. First of all we trust the thinking of our grade level teams (including counselors, ESOL, SPED, AART, and classroom teachers) who know our students best (second to you all) and who have worked to put students in the best setting. We are committed to creating classes that support academic growth for all students and are very well balanced considering the following factors:
- Tier 1-3 academic levels for both Reading/Math
- DRA levels (for forming leveled reading groups)
- Social-emotional needs
- English Language Proficiency levels
- Students with receiving special education services
- Students of various backgrounds and experiences
- Advanced academic levels
- Strengths of teachers
- The benefit of student pairings or changes from current class make-up
- Students with interrupted schooling
- Previous years’ experiences
Again, we are committed to creating classes that will support growth for every student and strive to achieve a balance of all the above-mentioned factors.
Thank You To Our 2019-2020 PTA Board Members!
There will be some changes to next year’s PTA Board and we wanted to extend a huge thank you to this year’s 2019-2020 Board. In a year unlike any other we have had before; you all did a phenomenal job supporting the students and staff of Timber Lane. Thank you for all the time you put into helping to make our educational environment and opportunities for families a great one!
Thank you to:
Marnie Lewis, President
Meera Natarajan, Vice President
Angela Torpy, Secretary
Jeremy Jester, Treasurer
Molly Patton, Social Media & Communications
Laptop Update
As of just a few weeks ago, every family that could benefit from a laptop at home for Distance Learning was offered the opportunity to receive one. All students in PreK-6 can keep laptops through the summer. We plan to use them at home most likely in the fall. We encourage students to continue to access some great reading practice through some of our digital content providers, such as MyOn, and continue their work with some fun math practice on Dreambox. Students who have been accessing Imagine Learning or Lexia are encouraged to continue with those as well! Towards the end of the summer, we plan on collecting our sixth-grade laptops, but I hope they too will continue to use them for some daily reading and math practice!
Yearbook Update
Recently yearbooks arrived at Timber Lane! However, they arrived with another school’s cover. ☹ Luckily Lifetouch has agreed to reprint our order so we can honor the student artwork and the staff efforts that went into creating our spectacular cover! Please stay tuned for an announcement in the coming weeks about when those yearbooks will be made available. We will plan to mail yearbooks to sixth-grade students with promotion certificates; all other yearbooks will be made available for pick up outside our main lobby at a date that is still to be determined.