Welcome back to all of our families. I hope that you had a restful and relaxing winter break with your family and friends. We are now in the thick of the winter and have a lot of work ahead of us to begin the push for the second half of the year. The new year brings with it resolutions, goal setting and a refocus. As we evaluate the gains from the first part of the year, we are going to do the same here at school. We will be focusing our attention on maintaining our pacing with our curriculum frameworks, but also continuously evaluating areas that need more attention. Once again, it starts with having our students present every single day. We need everyone to show up for our work to pay off.

Wishing you all the best for the start of our New Year!

Each year, in January, all students who are considered English Language Learners are required to take an annual assessment to measure their current levels of learning. Our window will be from January 15 through the beginning of March.

What is ACCESS?

ACCESS for ELLs (ACCESS) is the collective name for WIDA's suite of summative English language proficiency assessments. ACCESS is taken annually by English learners in kindergarten through grade 12 in WIDA Consortium member states.

Parents,

Please utilize the Parent Portal to stay up to date with your child's progress. Grades, attendance, and other school communication can be found here. It is a valuable resource for our parents.

If you are not connected through your Parent Portal account in PowerSchool, you can always reach out to the main office with any questions. (847-599-5362)

Students and teachers were able to enjoy some winter festivities and activities before going home for winter break.

Below are the details for the clubs that have been started this year at Howe.

Chorus

• Tuesday mornings

Student Council

• Tuesday 4:00-4:50 PM

Art Club

• Wednesdays 4:00-5:00 PM (starts in November)

Soccer

• Mondays 4:00-4:45 PM (11/4-12/2)

Game Club:

• 2nd & 3rd grade: Tuesdays 4:00-4:30 PM

• 4th & 5th grade: Wednesdays 4:00-4:30 PM

January

6 - School Resumes

7 - SIP Early Release (1:45 pm)

13 - RtI New Intervention Groups begin

13 - Board Meeting @BPMS (6:30 pm)

16 - PTO Meeting @Howe (5:30 pm)

20 - No School (MLK Jr. Day)

24 - Progress Reports available Parent Portal

30 - 5th Grade Science Fair @Howe (6:00 pm)

31 - Spelling Bee @Howe

February

4 -SIP Early Release (1:45 pm)

Our students need to be at school everyday! Please help us in fighting Truancy as a team. We need to teach our students the importance of their education as well as learning the lifelong skill of showing up. School becomes increasingly difficult the more a student is absent, which reduces confidence and brings anxiety. Let's help them succeed by sending them to school everyday.

Congratulations to 119 Bears who received perfect attendance in the month of December!

Families,

A child's attendance at school has one of the largest impacts on their development for so many reasons. First, we are teaching them the importance of an education by making it a priority to attend daily. We teach them routines that they will carry through life, such as being punctual, present and focused on a purpose. Also, looking at our district's trends, attendance has become an area of concern and focus, as we have had a large increase in absences since recovering from schools being closed down. The truth is that we have to recover from this trend and make school a priority again. Below is a comparison of the percentage of students who are Truant as compared to the state average. Truancy is defined as the problem or situation of children being absent from school regularly without permission. (Cambridge) The numbers in the chart mean the following, based on our current student count of 375 students. If we have a truancy rate of 30%, that equates to saying that over 113 students attending Howe school have been absent a minimum of 9 school days. That is 1,017 school days missed (113 X 9). That is 6,610.5 hours of instruction (1,017 X 6.5). When students return after just one day of being absent, we know that it can be hard to catch up and not get frustrated because they missed the day before. We need our students in class to receive all of the support that we have prepared so that they grow as much as they can each day.

At the end of the year, we are required to submit all absences to the state, regardless of being excused, or not. Our goal is to reduce the number of students who are absent from school. This does not mean that we want, or expect students to attend students if they are ill.

We are going to encourage attendance for our students by recognizing students with Perfect Attendance for the first trimester during our monthly celebration in November. We are going to continue promoting Perfect Attendance each month after that, creating the opportunity for our students to reach this status with attending school each day.

Reminders for what you can do at home to help with having students ready to come to school and learn each day is to start with creating regular routines for bedtimes. Help them turn screens off an hour before their bedtime so that their bodies unwind and are ready for rest. Get them up at a regular time and make sure you feed them breakfast, or that they participate in getting breakfast at school each day.

Thank you for your continued partnership in your child's education.

Please review additional directions for pickup procedures to ensure safety for all.

• For Safety, cars may not park in lanes of the turnaround lot until 3:30 PM. This has to remain open in the event of an emergency.

• All student pickups will take place inside our fenced blacktop area, directly outside of the cafeteria. (Please see the map below)

• All Parents/Guardians are required to have the Student DriveLine Pass displayed in their window. If you do not have it, you must contact the office to arrange for a replacement during the school day. All other students will be sent home on the bus.

• Any changes to arrange for a student pick up at the end of the day must notify the office prior to 3:00 PM.

• No cars can be in the front Bus Line after 3:00 PM, as it will block the buses arriving.

• Students will begin being dismissed at 3:40 PM.

Daily Schedule:

Students enter: 8:55-9:05 AM

School Day begins: 9:05 AM

School Day ends: 3:45 PM

SIP Day Schedule (Early Release; The first Tuesday of every month):

Students enter: 8:55-9:05 AM

School :Day begins 9:05 AM

School Day ends: 1:45 PM

Reminder about making adjustments to your child's transportation.

Parents/Guardians must call the office BEFORE 3:00 PM if you are planning to pick your child up and they normally take the bus. There are a lot of moving parts at the end of the day and this must be arranged ahead of time. If you show up at the end of the day and ask to take your child home, we cannot pull students from the bus because it causes major delays in our end of the day systems which will not be permitted. They will be sent home on the bus. We appreciate your support in helping us get our students home safely.

Each month, the district has an early release day for our buildings. This means that at Howe, we dismiss 2 hours earlier at 1:45 PM. When our students leave, our teachers receive Professional Development to look at teaching practices and review building data.

During the school day, we change things up completely for our students. We focus on community and team up with Buddy Classrooms where our students can meet new friends and learn with other teachers. We start the day off by having a full-school assembly to review expectations, discuss our progress and celebrate all that is going well in our school. For the rest of the day, they have opportunities to do many activities, which include buddy reading, math games, SEL activities, Team Building, and Specials. They even eat lunch and have recess together. It is a chance for them to do something different and to do it with others.

In case you didn't hear, we wanted to make sure you heard that Howe School has moved from a Comprehensive status on the Illinois School Report Card to the status of Commendable. The staff of this building are amazing and work very hard to provide the best education for your children everyday. It takes a team to reach this status, which includes the support of our families. Congratulations to our community. We should be proud.