Posted October 30, 2023
November 2023 (Special Early Edition)
| LEADER LETTER |
| Dear SKCEE Families and Friends, Welcome to our Special Spooky Monday Edition! We couldn’t wait to share the amazing news with you that our PTA, together with your support, and our amazing students, raised $33,254! That is more than 3 times our initial goal. We are so grateful for your support. The plans for the playground improvements are in the initial stages. We have reached out to the district to learn about next steps and called an urban landscaping business that focuses on playgrounds for younger children that have a more natural focus. If you are the lucky winner of a physical item from the auction, you will receive an email indicating the pick up location and time. We know you are all curious about why we painted bits and pieces of the front door blue. Hang in there! We will have that PTA funded beautification project complete by the end of November at the latest. We definitely have the best PTA, family and student community anywhere. Thank you all for all you do to make SKCEE so amazing. We wanted to share with you an amazing opportunity that we will be participating in from November 3-11. The two of us, along with Michelle Morales and Kathy Kuskulis, are traveling to Reggio Emilia, Italy to participate in a study tour with learners from around the world including, our director, Eric Love, the DPS Associate Chief of Schools, Drew Coleman, the Director of Elementary Education, Kevin Greeley, and several managers from the district ECE department. Reggio Emilia is a town that spends 12% of their city budget on preschool and they are world renowned for their pedagogy. This will be a week of intense learning and thinking about how to implement the Reggio style at SKCEE. While we are away, our wonderful staff Dean of Operations, Leslie Kaplan, and our Office Support, Staci Becker, can help you with anything at all. Another fabulous opportunity is the week of November 13th when five of our teachers (Cory Starkey, Quinn Duvall, Grace Cochran, Hillary Hrgich, and Laura Schmidt) will travel with Aimee to Nashville, Tennessee for the National Association for the Education of Young Children Conference. This is the end all be all conference for early childhood educators and the district has graciously funded this opportunity. Lastly, on December 6th all of our classroom teachers, ECE and kindergarten, will be learning more about the Reggio approach when we visit the Boulder Journey School in Boulder. The district provides us with days that we can schedule to do our own professional development and we have chosen to take December 6th as one of those days. Please mark your calendar as there will be NO SCHOOL for any SKCEE student on December 6th. We are providing as many opportunities as we can for staff to expand their learning and grow alongside our students. In learning, Principal Shelley and Assistant Principal Aimee |
| INFORMATION, UPDATES, AND ACTION |
| Halloween: Halloween Parade and Party reminders: Halloween costumes should be preschool appropriate. No weapons or blood or huggy wuggy! We are celebrating on the 31st. The parade begins at 9 with classroom parties beginning after the parade. If you’d like to observe the parade, please sign in and then make your way back outside. Students will leave the building near room 115 which is the east side of the building, then they’ll proceed south on the blacktop and then come through the front doors, returning to their classrooms for their party. If you don’t want your children to participate they can come at 10, or come on time and there will be art activities to do during the party in Ms. Cookie’s room. Cold, Snowy Weather: We had a quick shift from summerlike fall weather to winterlike fall weather! A reminder that we will go outdoors every single day, in all types of weather. Please make sure your child is dressed for the snow, rain, sun, whatever Colorado may have in store for us each day! And if you have extra child sized snow boots, warm coats, hats, and mittens, consider donating them to us. The threshold is 25 degrees or below, we will stay exclusively indoors on those days only. Light: The ECE rooms will be studying light this December. We believe this study will connect beautifully to celebrations of light. Almost all cultures have a celebration of light in, or near, December. We want to honor all the cultures and traditions at SKCEE. If you have a celebration or tradition that celebrates light, share it with us so we can share it with our students. Submit this simple survey to help us better plan. Reach out to Aimee if you have questions or want to connect: aimee_justice-lundt@dpsk12.net. Your Voice / Tu Voz: The DPS “Your Voice/Tu Voz” Family Survey opens next week on Wednesday, Nov. 1 and will close Wednesday, Nov. 15. Families who complete the survey between Nov. 1-15 will be entered to win one of 10 $20 King Soopers gift cards! Preview the questions and review the FAQ before the survey officially opens. Responses to the survey inform decisions on how we can better serve our DPS community, so we want to hear from all our families. Unlike previous years, DPS will administer the survey to families once in the fall and will administer to students once in the spring. Click here for more information and to see last year’s survey results. |
| SKCEE PTA |
| Scamper – THANK YOU! We are humbled and beyond grateful for the outpouring of support from our community! This 2023 SKCEE Scamper was a HUGE success thanks to YOUR involvement! We exceeded our modest fundraising goal of $10,000, and hit a new SKCEE record of $33,254! This, combined with our $20,000 contribution from last school year, will provide new outdoor education improvements at SKCEE! Some of these improvements have already been approved and you will start to see them on campus in the near future. Auction Item Pickup- This Thursday, 11/2, 5:30-6:30pm ALL auction items will be available for pickup on Thursday, Nov. 2 from 5:30-6:30pm. Detailed instructions will be sent to the email address auction winners registered with. November Dine Out – 11/8 The November dine out is on Wednesday, November 8th at all Birdcall locations. Use code SKC118 at checkout and 25% of your order will be given to the SKCEE PTA. Stock the Lounge – 11/15 The next Stock the Lounge is scheduled for Wednesday, November 15th for Group 3: Phuong, Schmidt, Havenar, Perez, Mathiebe, C. Gurule. Please bring in individually-packaged snacks and drinks like granola/protein/cereal bars, crackers, and cookies. We will collect donations outside of the front office, at the drop-off line for kiss-and-go Kindergarten parents, as well as the Cory bus stop. Next PTA Meeting and cancelled CSC The next PTA meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 9th at 5pm in room 101. Childcare will be provided. There will be no CSC meeting in November. |
| COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS |
| Election Day is November 7! Here is a link to the Colorado Secretary of State election page. |
| IMPORTANT DATES AND EVENTS |
| October 31, 9 am: Halloween Parade November 1: Picture Retake Day November 7-9: Vision and hearing screening November 3-10: Reggio Emilia Study Tour November 14: Thanksgiving lunch November 14-18: NAEYC Conference November 19-25: Thanksgiving break November 27: Students return to SKCEE December 6: NO SCHOOL for all SKCEE students |