 Students were serenaded this week by Ms. Reilly and the Rolling Strings.
Important Upcoming Dates
12/20 - 12/31: Winter Break; Office Closed
1/3: Return From Winter Break
1/17: Martin Luther King Day; no school
1/20: 2nd Quarter Ends
1/20: 2 hour early dismissal
1/21: Student Holiday
1/24: Student Holiday
1/25: Quarter 3 Begins
1/27: Frost MS Virtual Orientation for Rising 7th Graders
2/1: Progress Reports available to families
2/16: Frost Family Festival for Rising 7th Graders
2/21: Presidents’ Day; no school
IN THIS ISSUE
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FVES Happy Holidays Message
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FVES Office Hours For Winter Break
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NEW: Get Your Child’s Online Activity Report
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Kiss and Ride Number Signs
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Morning Kiss and Ride
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Arrival Reminder
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Mask Reminder
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NEED YOUR HELP: Copy Paper Shortage
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iReady Assessment Window
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Testing Results Information
- Rising 7th Grader Activities at Frost Middle School
- Monday & Friday Fairfax Villa Clothing
- FCPS Daily Health Screening Reminder
- PTA News
1.FVES Happy Holidays Message
Greetings Fairfax Villa Families,
December is upon us and with it comes all the excitement that the season brings. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our students, staff, and families for their continued support. Our school is truly a small school with a big heart and it is at this time of year when the closeness of friendship shines in everyone's faces.
Similar to last school year, we are so proud of ALL of our students and staff members for their resilience and their ability to adapt to difficult circumstances. We are happy each day to see our students and staff in our building.
School is important but so is your health. Please remember to take care of yourself and each other during your winter break, of course from a safe distance. We wish you all peace, joy, hope, and happiness during this holiday season and throughout the New Year.
Our warmest wishes,
Dave Gerstner, Principal
Shelia Sobeski, Assistant Principal
Barbara Schmidt, School Based Technology Specialist
2.FVES Office Hours For Winter Break
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The Fairfax Villa office will be closed Monday, December 20 through Friday, December 31 for the winter break.
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School will resume on Monday, January 3.
3.Get Your Child’s Online Activity Report
FCPS has new tools to help parents and guardians know more about their child’s activity on any FCPS device. These tools are provided by Lightspeed, our internet content filtering service, at no cost to families.
You may sign up for a weekly Parent Report, which will provide a list of the top sites your child visited. If you want more detailed information, sign up for the Internet Use Parent portal and log-in anytime to see more detail about your child’s browsing and “pause” access to the internet during non-school hours.
Find out more and sign up for these services on our website.
 Ms. Nelms’ 2nd graders used math to design their snowmen.
4.Kiss and Ride Number Signs
Please use your Kiss and Ride green number signs when you are picking up your children in the afternoon. The use of these numbers greatly shortens the duration of time that you have to wait in line.
Below are the details about how to obtain a number sign if you don’t have one and the regulations for Kiss and Ride.
Parents may once again use the Kiss & Ride line this school year as a transportation option for students. Full instructions and rules about the Kiss & Ride transportation can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16xYsZxlnlNpu6klzWB0EtFs7cs5SeKDc1Noi0pLPZ6o/edit.
To register for Kiss & Ride, please complete this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1MKgevpPyX3GZJN5dv5KUDnqN_kgRZ6LwFB2iBTR8z9E/edit.
A number will be assigned to your car to expedite the drop-off/pick-up process.
5.Morning Kiss and Ride
Please do not start arriving and lining up for the morning Kiss and Ride until 8:45 AM. The families who are dropping off students for SACC (as early as 8:30 AM) are getting stuck in the parking lot and need to be able to safely exit without getting blocked behind the Kiss and Ride cars.
Since our Kiss and Ride doors don’t even open until 9:00 AM, arriving at 8:45 AM still gives the Kiss and Ride families a 15 minute window of time to get in line. We will be placing a sign at the Kiss and Ride entrance saying, “One way exit. Please do not line up until 8:45 AM.” Thank you for your understanding.
As a reminder, parents arriving after 9:15 AM must park and escort students to the main office to be signed in by a parent.
6.Arrival Reminder
We have been having more and more “early birds” arriving at school prior to 9:00 AM. Students should not arrive or be dropped off prior to 9:00 AM since there is no supervision before that time. Adult supervision is required before and after school to ensure students are kept safe while on school grounds.
As a reminder, our doors close at 9:15 when the bell rings. If your child is arriving after 9:15 and the Kiss and Ride (door #8) is closed, please park your car, walk your child into the front office, and notify one of our office staff that your child is tardy/late so the office staff can direct you to the sign in sheet to acquire your signature.
7.Mask Reminder
Please remember to send your child to school with a mask each day as well as extra masks to keep in their backpacks. We have had an increase in the number of students each day needing masks from the main office. Thank you.
8.NEED YOUR HELP: Copy Paper Shortage
Pandemic-related disruptions continue to affect supply chains and are fueling a serious shortage of paper nationwide which also means that prices are steadily going up due to the shortage. Virtually all paper products are in short supply as paper mills struggle to keep up with demand, and shipping bottlenecks are compounding the issue due to delivery delays.
As a school, we are already considering whether printing is necessary for each task and choosing to double-side print when possible. Conserving paper will help us mitigate the paper shortage, save money, and reduce FCPS’ environmental footprint.
In the month of November, our PTA donated $800 for our next purchase of paper. Please make sure to thank Jennifer Snyder and the PTA board when you see them next time.
Lastly, if you would like to help, please consider donating packs of paper to Fairfax Villa ES. Remember, the IRS allows you to claim a deduction for the donations you make to qualified organizations, including public schools. The type of paper that works best in our printers is:
- Copy and/or Multipurpose 8.5 inch x 11 inch
- Bright white
9.iReady Screener Winter Window
The Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) School Board adopted iReady as an academic universal
screener for use with students in grades 1-6. The dates of the winter window are December 13-February 25. For this window, not all students will necessarily be assessed. Your child’s teacher will let you know the dates that the Reading iReady will be given.
The purpose of this assessment is to identify students who may have gaps in foundational literacy
skills. Based on iReady results, some students may require an additional assessment to further diagnose the specific learning areas that may need support. An example of an additional diagnostic assessment is the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). The iReady reading test, together with any necessary follow-up diagnostic assessments, also fulfills state testing expectations for primary grade students.
Additional information, including a short video, about the universal screener in FCPS can be found at
the iReady Universal Screener webpage (https://www.fcps.edu/us). If you have further questions
about this assessment, please contact your child’s teacher or the school’s test coordinators, Ms. Sobeski (sdsobeski@fcps.edu) and Ms. Schmidt (bdschmidt@fcps.edu ).
  Ms. Rivera’s 3rd graders work collaboratively on math problems.
10.Testing Results Information
Here is the FCPS schedule for the parent reports of the testing that students have had this fall.
- iReady: Fall reports were published to ParentVue this week for grades 1 and 2; for grades 3-6, the reports were published the week of November 29. Report letters will be centrally published to ParentVUE Documents. You may also view historical results in ParentVUE History. If you do not yet have a ParentSIS (ParentVUE) account, please email Ms. Schmidt at bdschmidt@fcps.edu for the directions you need to activate your account.
- SEL Screener: Fall letters will be mailed by FCPS to families by February 7.
- VGA: Fall results letters will be mailed by FCPS to families in January.
- VKRP: Fall letters will be mailed by FCPS by mid-January for PreK and Kindergarten students.
- CogAT: Fall results letters were sent home in backpacks on December 7 for students in grades 2 and 3 and select students in grades 4-6 who took the assessment.
11.Rising 7th Grader Activities at Frost Middle School
The Rising 7th Grade Orientation for current 6th grade students who will be attending Frost in the 2022-2023 school year will take place virtually on January 27th at 6:30 PM. We will also be having the Frost Family Festival (in-person) on February 16th beginning at 5:30 PM. This is a great opportunity to have dinner, get a school tour, and visit elective classes to help confirm desired course selections. Additional information will be sent out on both events next month, but please mark your calendars!
12.Monday & Friday Fairfax Villa Clothing
To celebrate being back in person, students and staff will be wearing the same clothing to kickoff and end each week during the 2021-22 school year!
- On Mondays, we will be wearing our Positivity shirts to highlight our character strengths and virtues that we will be learning throughout the school year. The Boosterthon team distributed these green shirts during the fun run. The shirts highlight our Villa dragon and Positivity logos on the front of the shirts.
- On Fridays, we will be showing off our favorite Fairfax Villa spirit wear. If your son or daughter has outgrown their Fairfax Villa spirit wear clothing, our PTA has some new ones.
13.Daily Health Screening Reminder
On a daily basis, please consider if any of the following are true for your child, and if so, please keep them home:
- Feeling feverish and/or having chills –documented temperature of 100.4°F or higher?
- Has there been any use of fever reducing medication within the last 24 hours?
- A new cough that is not due to another health condition?
- Nasal congestion or runny nose?
- New shortness of breath or difficulty breathing that is not due to another health condition?
- New chills that are not due to another health condition?
- A new sore throat that is not due to another health condition?
- New muscle aches that are not due to another health condition, or that may have been caused by a specific activity (such as physical exercise)?
- Fatigue (more tired than usual)?
- Headache?
- A new loss of taste or smell?
- Abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting?
- New onset of poor appetite or poor feeding?
- Have you had a positive test for the virus that causes COVID-19 disease within the past 10 days?
- Were you currently tested for COVID-19 because you were sick and are still waiting for the lab results?
- In the past 14 days, have you had close contact (within about 6 feet for 15 minutes or more) with someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19?
As a reminder, if your child comes to school with any of these symptoms, they will be isolated in the CARE room and you will be contacted to bring them home. They will need to see a doctor to verify a negative COVID test or alternate diagnosis before they can return to school. (NOTE: If you decide to keep your child home due to any of these symptoms there is no Return to School form requirement.)
Students who must remain absent for multiple days for COVID-related reasons will be provided asynchronous activities. Please communicate with us if your child tests positive for COVID and is isolating, or if your child is quarantining by order of the Fairfax County Health Department.
14.PTA Message
 The following message is sent on behalf of the Fairfax Villa ES School PTA. Its content reflects the views of the PTA.
The PTA would like to announce our new partnership with 1st Place Spirit Wear! 1st Place Spirit Wear uses what might be the new way of merch making – a printing process that’s on demand and requires no minimum orders. You browse the several pages of Villa merch options. You purchase 1 – 100 pieces of merch. They guarantee it arrives at your door within 10 business days. Simply go to https://1stplacespiritwear.com/ and type in our school’s name. 10% of all proceeds come to FVES PTA!
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