Dear Leawood Families,

We are ending our fifth week back at school this year and wow all the things that have happened this year. I want to start off with a special thank you to Eric Orton the Carnival Chairperson, PTSA, and all of our parents who helped put on and support a great welcome back carnival. It is such a great time to see all the students and parents running around having a blast. This year, after the school year started, we were granted an additional second grade teacher through the EduFunds grant from the Federal government. This is a one year opportunity for Leawood which resulted in smaller class sizes for our second graders. Also, since Leawood has increased in enrollment, our enrollment numbers qualified us to have full-time Art, Music, and PE teachers for this year. So lots of quick changes happened early on this year. I am pretty sure that the rest of the year should be smooth sailing!!!

I want to highlight a few upcoming events. On Monday we will host the Ovation Company to hold an all day intensive bully-prevention seminar for our 5th and 6th grade students. This opportunity will allow our students to learn to accept others for who they are. It is a powerful day and I invite parents to drop by to see what it looks like. Wednesday, September 29th we will have our first School Accountability meeting. At this meeting we will highlight last year’s CSAP scores, the new state accreditation process, and redefine what the Leawood accountability committee roles will be to support our school. After Accountability, we will have our PTSA meeting. I encourage you to join us for both of these great committee meetings. These meetings really are the root of what supports the Leawood community and environment. On the same Wednesday we have our first early release day. Students will be released at 1:15pm. All of our magnets and calendars say 1:45pm and that is wrong, students will be released at 1:15pm. Sorry for the confusion. On Tuesday October 3rd we will have our annual track meet for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at the Jeffco stadium. We will host parent-teacher conferences the week of October 11th. You must sign up for these conferences. The fall conferences are required for all families. Please help us out by making sure to sign up for a time so we do not have to call you! At these conferences, grades 3-6 will receive last year’s individual CSAP results. All sixth graders will be attending outdoor lab school the week of October 18th. Columbine High School will host a Columbine Area School accountability meeting on Monday October 18th. And our reflections reception will be on Thursday, October 18th. Finally, I want to highlight our Silent Auction Fundraiser. It will be on Friday, November 5th. I hope that all parents can attend this fun night out. This opportunity raises tons of money for the Leawood kids. This great night helps us support all the great activities and resources that Leawood provides for your students.

Within our classrooms, students and teachers are finally getting into solid routines with teaching and learning. The first month of school is always a challenge as we begin the year with our assessments days to identify starting points and skills for our students and reading. During the first 6 weeks of school, we fit in multiple first benchmark assessments. Our K-3 students are measured on the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). This is an assessment which identifies early skills for successful reading. In addition, in grades 3-6, we administer the Acuity assessment. This assessment is a beginning of the year benchmark that identifies math and language arts skills. These first benchmark assessments help our teacher identify where each student is and help us plan individualized learning targets and goals.

Finally, I wanted to focus attention on before school. I cannot stress enough to parents and families that we do not have any outside supervision until 8:50 AM. I am asking you please do not drop off your students before this time. With our increased enrollment and large number of students, I feel that it is not safe for our kids to be dropped off without supervision and boundaries. We have had numerous accidents among students running into each other and getting hurt while playing around this year. If you have to drop your child off before this time, we have a before and after school care center that is flexible and inexpensive. Please use this resource if our school start hours do not fit your schedule. In addition, I would like to highlight a change in our morning line up procedures. When we have an inside morning, we will not be using the gym. Again, we now have too many students and it is not safe to have all the kids line up in the gym prior to the bell ringing. On mornings when it is raining or below 20 degrees, students will be let into their classrooms at 8:45 am. Prior to 8:45, students will be outside. So please do not drop them off early on days with inclement weather.

It has been a great year so far. Have a great October Leawood Lions!

Ari Goldberg

Welcome Back!

Dear Leawood Families,
Welcome to the 2010-2011 school year. I am so excited to start this school year. It is so exciting to reflect on all the wonderful things that Leawood offers students and families. I know that Leawood is doing something right. Over the past three years that I have been at Leawood our enrollment has continually increased every year. This year we are starting off the school year with 406 K-6 grade students. We ended last year with 389 students. This does not include any preschool numbers.

I am so excited for our students to begin another year of learning and education. We have a ton of exciting things planned for this year. One of the things I hope to do more often is update my blog site. I do plan to have at least a monthly topic to bring to parents.

As I typically do, I always like to ask about fun summer vacations. Please feel free to let me know about anything fun that you did over the summer vacation. For my family, we took a trip to San Diego. We got to experience Lego Land. Wow what an awesome place for kids. We also took two shorter trips to Grand Lake and Glenwood Springs.

Please check back to this site often as I will try to have more meaningful post more often.

See everyone on Monday!

Pennies for Patients School & Youth Program

The Leawood Lions have joined the Pennies for Patients School & Youth Program. We will be collecting pennies for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). If the students of Leawood reach their goal of over 1400 dollars, I promised the students I will kiss a pig. The challenge is on.

I hope that everyone can be a part of this great event. Visit our website at http://www.leawoodlions.us/ or http://www.schoolandyouth.org/ for more details.