Monday, October 30, 2023

Dear Elementary Parents,
We are happy to be back on campus with your children after the surprise ending to last week. We are in "rescheduling mode" now, and busy re-calendaring events while continuing to forge ahead into November and the remainder of Semester 1 of the 2023-24 school year. Please read on for some news regarding these rescheduled events and other events to look forward to:

Halloween Costume Parade: Our Halloween Costume Parade has been rescheduled for Wednesday, November 1st from 9:30 to 9:50 am. Parents are welcome - the event will take place on the Elementary Quad and parents will be asked to be on the stone walkways to observe the parade. Thanks!

Halloween Fair: Last Friday's Halloween Fair has been rescheduled for this Wednesday, November 1st. This was the ideal date since we do not have school on Thursday, November 2nd for All Saints Day. The event will still start at 6:00 pm and run until about 8:30 pm. The costume contest announced will also be taking place there. 

Parent Coffee: CFG Edition - Developing Skills to Help Children Regulate their Emotions is still on for tomorrow, from 8:15 until 9:15 am. The event will take place in the ES Library. Please register by clicking on the poster below. We really hope to see you there!

Kindergarten 3 & 4 Showcase Rescheduled: Our planned event for prospective parents of Kindergarten 3 & 4, for immediate placement or for the 2024-25 school year, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, November 7th at 8:30 am. We would greatly appreciate your help in getting the word out to your friends with 3- and 4-year-olds! 

Grade 5 Author Visit: Our Grade 5 writers are studying graphic novels in Writing currently, and who better to learn from than a local, published, award-winning graphic novelist! Today, 

Thanks so much for reading! I wish you an active and energetic week! 

Sincerely,

Eric Crabtree
Elementary Principal

Monday, October 23, 2023

Dear Elementary Parents,
I hope you had a nice weekend with your family. We have a busy few days coming up, please see below for all of the information:

Halloween at ACS: On Friday, October 27th, we will have a Halloween Costume Parade on campus during the day. From 9:30 am until snack recess, students from KG3 through Grade 5 will be participating in a parade to show off their Halloween costumes in the quad by our amphitheater. Parents will be allowed on campus to watch the parade - it should last about 20 minutes.

To help our entire student body have great fun on Halloween, we are asking for parent support in helping your child pick an appropriate costume for school. We ask for costumes to not be graphically gory or overly frightening. We also ask for your support in not allowing costume weapons (guns, blasters, swords, etc.).

In the evening of Friday, October 27th, following our Halloween Costume Parade, ACS will be hosting our annual Halloween Fair starting at 6:00 pm. More details on this event will be coming soon! Thanks so much for your support!

MAP Parent Coffee: This past Friday we hosted Grade 1 through 8 parents at our Parent Coffee: Understanding Your Child's MAP Scores. We would like to thank everyone who was able to make it, and we remain available for your questions on how to read MAP scores, or how you can support your child's learning and growth at home! You can view the presentation here. 

Upcoming Parent Coffee CFG Edition: Developing Skills to Help Children Regulate their Emotions. On Tuesday, October 31st at 8:15 am, we are so happy to host our second Parent Coffee. We will be giving a presentation on ACS' approach to helping children label, understand, and regulate their emotions, and share some ideas on how you can support this learning at home. Following the presentation we will use a protocol or structured conversation to support parents in developing skills to help their children with their emotions with some especially challenging scenarios. To join, please click the poster to the right and scan the QR code. We hope to see you there!

Call for Recycled Materials for our Makerspace! We are collecting Makerspace materials! Our

Makerspace is a place where classes come together to practice creating, designing, building, and solving problems collaboratively. Our students develop mindsets of optimism, flexibility, resilience, and perseverance they take ordinary objects and build extraordinary creations!

Thanks for reading, I wish you a week of joy and smiles,

Eric Crabtree

Elementary Principal

Monday, October 16, 2023

Dear Elementary Parents,
I hope this note finds you and your family rested and recharged after a week away from school. We welcomed our dog to La Paz this past week, and our family has been overjoyed to see him adjusting to the altitude and attitude of this beautiful, vibrant city. Though the remainder of October is only a few weeks, it will be busy. Please see below for announcements on what's to come:

Help ACS Win $10,000: They say that money doesn't buy happiness, but it does help schools offer cutting-edge & responsive programming to its students. A group of passionate secondary students, known as The ACS Carbon Cutters are entering a contest to collect old/broken electronic devices to be recycled. The winning school wins a BIG money prize! Bring in your old/broken electronic devices, cables, charges, etc. during the week of Oct. 16 - Oct. 20. Thanks for your support!

Announced Fire Drill Tomorrow at 9:00 am: Tomorrow morning, ACS will have its first Fire/Evacuation Drill of the year. This is a normal procedure and the students, faculty and staff all take part to ensure that should the unimaginable happen, we are prepared to get everyone out of our buildings and away from fire quickly. All students have been told about the drill, what to expect, and have been shared our critical expectation - that the drill is conducted in silence. Should a real fire occur, adults may need to issue instructions to a class of students, so silence is practiced & expected. This drill will be followed by an unannounced drill later this year, per standard protocol. 

Parent Coffee: Understanding Your Child's MAP Scores, this Friday at 8:15 am: We are pleased to invite parents of students in Grades 1 through 8 to the elementary auditorium this Friday to help you understand what MAP tests are, how they are used, what they measure, and how ACS teachers use and parents can use the data to support your child's learning. Join us for some coffee, tea, fruit, and learning on this important topic! No registration is necessary for this event. 

ACS Halloween Fair next Friday, October 27th at ___: Creepy, spooky, and oh so much fun! ACS will be hosting a Halloween Fair on campus. Students and parents are welcome to attend. There will be trick or treating, a haunted house in the elementary auditorium, and enough witches and goblins to give even Harry Potter a scare.  

Upcoming Parent Coffee: CFG Edition - Developing Skills to Help Children Regulate their Emotions - On Tuesday, October 31st we are so happy to host our second Parent Coffee: CFG Edition.  We will be giving a presentation on ACS's approach to helping children label, understand, and regulate their emotions, and share some ideas on how you can support this learning at home. Following the presentation we will use a protocol or structured conversation to support parents in developing skills to help their children with their emotions with some especially challenging scenarios. Registration is requested, to register please scan the QR code in the poster below:

Thanks for reading, I wish you a week of friendship & laughter,

Eric Crabtree
Elementary Principal

Monday, October 2, 2023

Dear Elementary Parents, 
Welcome to October! What a thrill the Family Day Picnic was on Saturday. I had a great time seeing so many of you, and your loving children enjoying this infamous community event. I very much look forward to our next big community gathering, our Halloween celebration. More details will be coming soon on that. We have Parent-Teacher Conferences on Wednesday and a weeklong break on the horizon. Please see below for more information on what's ahead:

Parent-Teacher Conferences: We are excited to welcome you on campus tomorrow, October 4th to meet with your child's teachers. If you still need to, please see your Class Dojo account for details on how to sign up. A few notes on PTCs:

1. Meetings are 20 minutes long. Please don't be late! Our teachers are packed with appointments all day, and will not be able to extend your meeting if you arrive late. If the conference does not cover all you hoped to cover, please feel free to request another appointment to continue the conversation.
2. Please do not bring your children to campus for these conferences; they are intentionally designed to be conferences between teachers and parents. 

Parent Coffee: CFG Edition this past Tuesday: We had 20 parents register for and attend this special edition parent coffee focused on raising independent and resilient children. We presented on the strategies that ACS uses to foster independence and resilience, and then facilitated structured conversations with the parents in attendance to talk through issues related to this topic. It was a great success and parents left feeling that they are not alone in the challenges they face within their families and with their children. Our next Parent Coffee will be on Friday, October 20th, focused on helping parents of children in grades 1-5 read and make sense of the MAP scores they'll be receiving that week. We will also have more details coming on our next Parent Coffee: CFG Edition in the coming weeks, we hope you will join us!

Report Cards will be shared, via email, on Friday afternoon!

Upcoming:

Thanks for reading, I wish you a week of clarity and action!

Sincerely,

Eric Crabtree

Elementary Principal