Little Run: Successful First Three Hour Early-Release and Community Peers Open House is Tomorrow

Dear Little Run Family,

We want to express our sincere gratitude to our students, staff, and families for making our first three-hour early release day a safe and successful experience. Your cooperation and understanding were instrumental in ensuring a smooth transition for everyone involved.

We appreciate the patience and flexibility demonstrated by our families as you adjusted to the new schedule. Your support in helping your children understand and follow the early dismissal procedures was invaluable.

We would also like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our staff, who went above and beyond to ensure the safety and well-being of our students. Their efforts were instrumental in making the day a positive experience for all.

As a reminder, we are implementing early release days to provide our teachers additional planning, collaboration, and professional development time. Demands on teacher time have increased dramatically since the pandemic, with the adoption of new textbooks, differentiated support plans for students, required professional development for the new Virginia Literacy Act, new reading and math Standards of Learning exams (SOLs) from the state, and other initiatives.

By providing teachers with uninterrupted, in-person, and collaborative planning time, we aim to support their ongoing professional growth and development. A well-supported and continuously improving teaching staff will ultimately lead to better educational outcomes for our students.

Thank you again for your continued support. We are committed to continuous improvement and look forward to working together to make future early-release days equally successful. Your feedback is an important part of this process, and we assure you that we will consider it as we plan for the future.

To help us further improve our early release days, we invite you to provide feedback by completing this short survey.

Your input is valuable and will help us address any concerns and make necessary adjustments for future early release days.

Sincerely,

Christie Yarn, Principal

Lesley Hassen, Assistant Principal

Little Run Elementary is pleased to announce that we will have community peers in our preschool program again this year. The early childhood special education staff members have been investigating the possible opportunities for our students to participate in integration activities with typically developing peers. This will involve teaching preschoolers with delays and without delays in the same classroom. It can provide young children with a more stimulating environment, teach skills for coping with different situations, and provide the opportunity to learn appropriate social skills.

Our program will invite a limited number of community preschoolers (1-2 per class), who are age 3 ½ -5 years, to participate in our daily preschool activities. The children from the community will have the opportunity to make new friends and share experiences with current early childhood special education students. Our students will, in turn, benefit from being with community peers who can model appropriate language, motor, and social skills.

All children learn through their play. Intellectual growth occurs in a social context, influenced strongly by the quality of social interactions. The goal of this program is to encourage active learning and promote social interaction and acceptance through shared experiences between the community children and our preschoolers with special needs.

Please reach out to us directly by completing this form if you are interested in your preschool-age child participating in this program. Interested families will be able to attend an information session and playdate, and we hope to make selections some time in October. You can also reach out for further explanation of our program. We welcome your thoughts or suggestions, as we are all partners in this effort.

Little Run will host an Open House for any interested families on Wednesday, September 18 from 1:15-2 p.m.

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• September 18 - Preschool Community Peers Open House from 1:15 - 2 p.m.
• September 21-29 - Blue Star Welcome Week
• September 23 - Wear Blue
• September 24 - Wear Stars and Stripes (red, white, and blue)
• September 25 - Wear Camo
• September 26 - Wear Your Branch or Branch Colors
• September 26 - Fall AAP Parent Information Meeting at 5 p.m.
• September 27 - Wear Your Little Run Spirit Wear and Colors
• September 27 - Lake Braddock Homecoming Parade and Football Game
• October 1 - Back to School Night  6-7:30 p.m.
• October 18 - Woodson High School Homecoming Parade and Football Game
• October 25 - Fall Picture Day
• October 26 - Roadrunner Games