Posted January 10, 2025
Dear SKCEE Families and Friends,
Happy November!
Thank you again for all you did to make this year’s SKCEE Scamper auction and fun run a huge success. Our PTA board worked tirelessly for months to make the event memorable and the biggest ever, and we are so grateful! Read more in the PTA newsletter below, and be sure to follow PTA on Instagram @skceefamilies.
We enjoyed seeing so many of you at our after school Halloween family parade, which had a record turnout! The costumes were amazing, and it was joyful to see children from different classes and ages walking together in their cuteness. Thank you for supporting us in trying something new, and for the feedback about the experience. This was the first time since I’ve been at SKCEE that we celebrated Halloween outside of the school day for many reasons. In our effort to be culturally responsive educators, we wanted to make the holiday an opt-in event instead of an opt-out event. Additionally, by doing the parade after hours it kept the school day predictable and calm for our little learners. It also allowed our working family members to participate at a natural time when they are here for dismissal already. We are always looking to adapt to best serve our students and our community, and my School Leadership Team (SLT) is grateful for the collaboration.
I also want to share how school wide decisions are made at SKCEE and in DPS per the DCTA contract. My SLT is a group of teachers elected by their colleagues annually. These representatives are assigned to gather feedback from our staff and come to consensus on all things regarding school operations and scheduling. We strive to consider all stakeholder voices and experiences, and are charged with making equitable decisions grounded in students first. We meet weekly to reflect on how things are going and to plan for the future. We embrace continuous improvement and adaptive leadership, and accept collective responsibility for decisions made. I share all this so you know that everything we do at SKCEE is done with intentionality.
As you may know, we also have a Collaborative School Committee (CSC) that also has an elected teacher that serves along with family and community members of SKCEE. We meet at least quarterly to collaborate around the school climate and the school budget, also making recommendations by consensus. We are also excited to collaborate monthly with our PTA, and are always looking to grow our membership. Please consider joining us November 14th at 5:00 in room 101.
Lastly, we invite your feedback through the annual DPS “Your Voice/Tu Voz” family survey. The deadline has been extended to Friday, Nov. 8! Thank you for taking the time to let us know what went well and how we can better serve you. Here is the link: https://survey.k12insight.com/r/3hYhCO
We went from 18% completion to 44% completion in just one day! Let’s aim for 100%! This has officially become a competition in DPS with financial incentives, and since we all know SKCEE is the best, we want DPS to know too! Please complete this survey this weekend, or look for the QR codes throughout the building. The survey can be translated into eight languages. We know you are so busy, but ask that you take just 10 minutes to complete this so we can continue to become better together, and celebrate all the amazing things we do here at Stephen Knight Center for Early Education!
In partnership and with love,
Principal Shelley Boberschmidt
Kindergarten Learning:
Kindergarten is now learning about plants, what they need, plant parts, the life cycle of a plant, pollination, and more after wrapping up their stories unit where they identified characters, plot and setting! They are also continuing to work on letter identification and sounds, as well are blending consonant – vowel -consonant (CVC) words like leg, bat, dog. In math they are working on counting up and down, and recognizing groups visually as well as sorting, patterns, and turn taking during game play. You can solidify these concepts with your children by continuing to work on them at home.
ECE Learning:
We hope you have heard lots about the trees learning we are doing in ECE! We are exploring trees on nature walks, and leaf and branch collections, and photography and more. Children are learning about what grows on trees, the parts of a tree, what lives in trees, and why we need them. It has been fun to witness the seasons changing while we learn about trees. In mid-November we will begin learning about gratitude and winter holidays as the three year olds begin to explore light, and the four year olds begin to learn about clothing. (Watch for Spirit Week and Fashion Show in December / January!)
November Fire Drill:
We took advantage of this beautiful weather today and completed our November fire drill. Kids did a great job, and even posed for a cute photo and video to thank you all for Scamper!
Scamper Update:
A heartfelt thank you to the SKCEE community and our supporters!
Together, through generous donations, the dedication of our volunteering families, the contributions of our amazing teachers and staff to the auction, and the incredible efforts during the Fun Run, we have surpassed our goal – RAISING… find out how much we raised by reading our PTA newsletter! 🙂
Save the Date: (find more details in the PTA newsletter)
CLICK HERE TO READ OUR PTA NEWSLETTER!
November 20: Thanksgiving Lunch (schedule here)
November 25-December 2: Thanksgiving Break and SKCEE staff workday.
December 3: Students return to SKCEE