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Creekside Newsletter
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April 17, 2016
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April
18-22 | Celebrating our Differences Awareness Week | | April 20 | Run Club,
7:30 a.m. @ Field
| April 20
| Volunteer Tea, 1:15-2:15 p.m.Library | April 27
| Health & Wellness Fair, 5-7 p.m., MPR |
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We are excited to announce that Creekside has been named a California Gold Ribbon School! In the Fall of 2015, the Creekside staff wrote an application for this award for the work we have done in reading instruction. Our application focused on three main model practices around supporting ALL students learning to be exceptional readers:
- Professional development: Our teachers have been working for the past two years with Columbia Teachers' College learning best practices in reading and adjusting instruction to meet the needs of each reader in their reading workshop.
- Response to Intervention (RTI): For students who need more support than what is available in the classroom, we provide those students additional assistance within the school day.
- Community support: Our Comet Fund, thanks to your support, is able to provide funding to allow us to offer professional development for our teachers and Response to Intervention for our students.
Required as a part of the application, our team needed to demonstrate these model practices supported student learning. To do this, we examined our state testing data available to us in 2015. In each grade level tested, a majority of students performed above grade level (level 4) and a huge majority of students were above standard (level 3 and 4 combined). Please see the table.
Additionally, we examined a cohort of students who were struggling in order to see how our program impacted students over time. When looking at this data, 81% of our students who had previously been identified as "not meeting school benchmarks" were meeting the benchmark on 2015 State Testing thanks to our model practices in reading!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our staff, students, and school community for their hard work, learning, and support. This award is a reflection of the incredible work our entire school community does each and every day. I am very proud of Creekside and am excited that we are being honored for our work in supporting students and their learning.
If you would like to read the entire application or learn more about our model practices in reading, please click here.
 Sincerely, "Mr. T" Aaron Tarzian Principal |
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A Message From Our Comet Fund President
Creekside Families,
We hope that you all had a pleasant and relaxing spring break last week. The board of the Comet Fund would like to provide the following update:
Read-A-Thon
Many thanks to Carin Hubins and her team for leading our inaugural Read-A-Thon from Feb. 27 - Mar 2. In addition to encouraging our students to read, the event included a book exchange with over 200 attendees where over 1,000 books were exchanged and donated. The event also included a "read-in" that featured refreshments and three local authors reading their published books to the many students and families in attendance. Ultimately, the results for the read-a-thon are simply amazing:
- Participating Students: 396 or 53% of our school
- Minutes Read: 326,272
- or, 5,438 one hour yoga classes
- or, with an average wait time of 2.5 minutes, the time it would take to wait for 130,509 Starbucks drink orders (which is one latte a day for 358 years)
- Fund Raised: ~$8,000
- Grand Prize Winner: Samudh Lyer, 5th Grade, Mrs. Loya - 7,389 Minutes read
2016-2017 Comet Fund Board and Budget
The Comet Fund nominating committee has identified and is currently vetting a new slate of candidates for open board positions for the 2016-17 academic calendar year. We expect this process to complete in time to announce the new board in May. The sole purpose of the Comet Fund is to raise funds for the benefit of Creekside Elementary School. If you have an interest in serving on a committee or just rolling up your sleeves to help our school the Comet Fund is a great way to get involved. Contact Aaron Tarzian or Chris Thompson if you think you would be interested in learning more and getting involved in the amazing work done by this team to support our students.
We have also begun work on the 2016-17 budget. One of the challenges of the Comet Fund is that we have to commit to a budget, and then go out and raise the funds the following year. We are fortunate to be in such a supportive community that has put a stake in the ground declaring that our kids education and our school are important. We look forward to your continued support as we continue our efforts next year through innovative FUNdraisers and events to support our Margin of Excellence programs.
Thank you for your continued confidence and support. 
Sincerely,
Chris Thompson
President, Comet Education Fund
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SECOND CHANCE AUCTION for TEACHER TREATS!
Maybe you forgot, missed the deadline, got out-bid or feel badly for letting your kid down. Well, we have decided for the first time EVER to offer a SECOND CHANCE on some unsold experiences. We are so excited to be able to offer these items to you! All are on a first come, first served basis, so don't delay! Child must be in the class indicated on the slot.
Once you sign up, please deliver a check to "Creekside Comet Fund" in the appropriate amount by the date it is due:
- $45 for Dr. Dodge-ball, funds must be received by 4/21
- $30 per student for 2nd and 5th grade treats, funds must be received by 4/26
- $45 per student for 4th grade movie, funds must be received by 4/26
- $20 per adult for Core Power Yoga spot, funds must be received by 4/29
*Deliver funds to the school office (to be put in the Comet Fund safe) in an envelope labeled with: participant's name, teacher name, and item being purchased.
Thank you for your continued support!
The Creekside Comet Education Fund Auction Committee and Board of Directors
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Health and Wellness Fair
April 27, 5-7 p.m. MPR
Join us for an evening of healthy fun at Creekside! Over twenty-five local health and wellness vendors will be onsite with resources and tips on nutrition, health, fitness, injury prevention, safety, wellness, and more to help keep your family safe, fit and strong.
- Free chair massage
- CPR training by San Ramon Valley Fire
- Active demonstrations and mini group exercise classes for the whole family
- Creekside Olympics for kids
- Health and wellness prizes and give-aways
- Kick-off Month of Movement - pedometers for the first 100 Creekside students at the Health Fair
- Food trucks on-site with a variety of choices
Bring the WHOLE FAMILY for an evening to be aware, be healthy, and be involved!
Thanks to our sponsors: Arachano Rao Ayurvedic (Holistic) Practitioner * Big 5 Sporting Goods * Blackhawk Family Dev Center * SRVUSD Child Nutrition * Crunch * Dr. Richard Anthony * Early Nutrition * Eye Q Optometric Designs * Farmigo * FIT Studio * Hilary Kokes - Essential Oils * Jamba Juice * Total Vitality Health * Kids Tooth Doctor * Menchie's Yogurt * Modern Recess * Palo Alto Medical * Plaza Chiropractic * Pontious Chiro * San Ramon Club Sport * San Ramon Valley Fire * Sport Authority * Sprouts * The Studio * Town of Danville
If you are able to help with the Creekside Health Fair and Wellness Night please use the link above or Sign Up Genius below to sign up. We appreciate all the help to make this evening a success!
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 Calling All Comet Volunteers for the 7th Annual Field Day June 3, from 8:30-11:30 a.m.
It's the most exciting even of the year! The kids will be playing great games and having tons of fun! We are looking for awesome volunteers to help make this event a success. Ideally, we need about 45-55 parent volunteers who will be in charge of running each of the stations, being timers for their section of the field, running to fill up water buckets, etc.
The students look forward to this exciting event all year, but in order to make it another memorable event we need a large group of parents. If you are available anytime from 8:30-11:30 a.m. on June 3, please fill out the sign-up sheet with your name, email address, time you can volunteer, and what grade your child is in (or children) so you will be assigned to a station that is in your child's designated area of the field.
Additionally, did you know you can visit my webpage to see what activities we are up to in P.E.? It is updated on a weekly basis, so please take a look.
Thank you,
Michelle McConnell, Creekside Physical Education Teacher 925-314-2050 |
Farm-to-Creekside Elementary
Local food, from people you trust.
We just found this innovative company called Farmigo that we think could bring a great benefit to our school community. Farmigo is an online farmer's market where you can shop all the best food from amazing local farmers and food makers, like sweet organic kiwis from Wild River Farms in Marysville, beautiful organic baby carrots from Happy Boy Farms near Watsonville, or creamy ricottage cheese from Orland Farmstead Creamery. Partnering with Farmigo is a fantastic way for all of us to eat right, support small farms, and build a sustainable local economy. Plus, with enough orders, Farmigo gives back 10% of the total sales to the school to fund initiatives of our choice!
In order to make this happen, we need a leader in our school community who really wants to create a better way to eat. A Person who is a champion for local, sustainably produced food, supporting local farms, and accessing the healthiest farm-fresh food available. IS THAT YOU?
As the Farmigo Organizer at Creekside you will be responsible for overseeing the order pick-up window once a week at the school. For that you will receive a discount on every order you place. If interested, contact Sharon at sharon@workplace-wellness.com.
Additionally, please consider responding to this quick poll about Farmigo and express your interest in participating or ordering.
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 Celebrating our Differences Week - April 18-22
Our school is excited to embrace the San Ramon Valley Council of PTA's Ability Awareness program! We will be embarking on this journey this week: April 18-22. The week will be titled "Celebrating our Differences." All students will have an opportunity to engage in lessons in their classrooms that will demonstrate how we all have different abilities, and that is what makes our world interesting!
What kids want more than anything else is to belong, to be part of the group, to be asked to play at recess, to be asked to join others for lunch. This program has the entire student body go through hands-on exercises that will help them appreciate the frustrations of various challenges. There is a discussion of how we all have different abilities - better at some things and worse at others. What we emphasize is that everyone has some quality or talent that is worth discovering and enjoying through friendship. In this exciting, fun-filled week students will have the chance to experience fine and gross motor, as well as visual and auditory processing and communication activities. We will also be enlisting your help - look for the handout for Sh-h-h-h homework sometime in the next week or two!
And did you know that April 2nd was Autism Awareness Day? And that April is National Autism Awareness Month?? Creekside will be honoring this special day on Friday, April 22 - please encourage your child to WEAR BLUE this coming Friday for Creekside's own Autism Awareness Day!
We are looking forward to learning a lot this week. If you have any questions or are interested in assisting, please contact Julie Promes: jpromes@srvusd.net.
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 Creekside Bike Rodeo We are very excited to welcome Street Smarts back for our rescheduled 2016 Bicycle Rodeo! Come out and join us on Wednesday, May 4 1:00-2:15 pm. The Bike Rodeo is an after-school bike skills training program on the blacktop. Have your child bike to school, or you can bring their bike! - Complimentary bicycle checks and helmet checks
- Obstacle course to teach:
- bike handling skills
- the rules of the road
There will be games, giveaways, and more. Please don't forget to send a water bottle with your child.
We are looking for 8-10 volunteers.
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The Comet Flash is produced by Creekside PTA in the effort to keep the parent and teacher community informed of upcoming events at the school, in the district, and in the community. All newsletter submissions must be approved in order to be included in an upcoming Flash.
To submit information for this weekly bulletin, please email your article or announcement to:
School Information atarzian@srvusd.net
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