Greetings Dunwoody Elementary Parents and Community!

We have reached our first 4.5 week grading period! As always, the beginning of the year flies by with much excitement and activity. I know that many of you are curious about when you can begin checking the Parent Portal for your child's grades/assignments, and I'm pleased to report that the system is up and running this week. The Portal relies on the schedule being uploaded into eSIS which generally takes approximately 4 weeks from the start of school. Progress reports will go home this Thursday with parent conferences on Wednesday. Please reach out to your child's teacher if you feel that a conference is in order. Otherwise, teachers schedule to meet with parents of students with priority needs.

Parents are doing much better getting children to school on time this year - congratulations! However, I feel that we can still get even better. Numbers for August show that first grade has the most students tardy while PK is doing well with only 3 students tardy for the whole month. Here are the numbers:

PK - 3

K - 25

1st - 50

2nd - 26

3rd - 16

4th - 14

5th - 6

Parents, please remember that you must walk into the building if your child arrives at 7:45am or later so that you can sign-in your student(s) for class.

We are excited to announce some winners at DES this month! Taylor Fenmore, second grade student, won a Kindle for reading the most minutes in conjunction with the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. Mr. Jerry Stallworth, SPED paraprofessional, won a $1,000 grant from Wal-mart to be used for the WDES Broadcast. Congratulations to these two individuals!

Did you know what day it was on August 30?? It was STEM Day! Did you ask your child about his or her project? Students were challenged to build the highest tower possible using 18 pieces of spaghetti, and the tower had to support a marshmallow. We learned that some of our students have a lot to learn about the design process while others are well on their way to becoming engineers! Overall, the students seemed to have a wonderful time and loved having the ability to plan with peers and then create. The front hallway bulletin boards are full of pictures showing the excitement of the students on STEM Day. This week, the students are harvesting sweet potatoes from the organic gardens. Did you know that it takes over 100 days for a sweet potato to mature? Our students are going to have fun digging in the dirt to find their potatoes which they will later roast for sampling.

Thankfully, our district has provided us with lots of wonderful materials to support our efforts with STEM. The last item to arrive was a laptop cart with 10 computers loaded with software for the Lego Robotics. Mrs. Mattison is working with all students in the lab and has become our Robotic expert! Additionally, we have been provided with Engineering is Elementary kits for every grade level. Mrs. Taylor is exploring the kits with your children during their STEM lab time each week. Additionally, the district will pay for three DES teachers to attend STEM training this month. They will share the ideas for classroom science lessons with the rest of the staff.

Thanks to all the parents and community members who have provided support for our STEM initiative. I think it's an exciting journey for our school and students!

Jennifer P. Sanders

Principal
Dunwoody Elementary School
1923 Womack Road
Dunwoody, GA 30338
Phone (678) 875-4002
Fax (678) 875-4010

From the PTO Co-Presidents

What a great week we have had! On Tuesday, our School Council got off to a running start with their first meeting and we had an outstanding Spirit Night with Chick-fil-A. On Wednesday, our picture day was a smashing success, and we had 57 families attend our first All Pro Dad breakfast on Friday!

As we find ourselves in the middle of September, we look forward to fun and exciting days ahead. We have two Spirit Nights coming up at local businesses, our Tour de Dunwoody and Family Events committees are gearing up for our big events in October, and we are preparing for our STEM Friday for this month.

We have lots of exciting things happening at DES, so don't forget to ask your children what they did at school and check the PTO website for upcoming events!

Amy LeVasseur & Amanda Rountree

PTO Co-Presidents

amylevasseur@gmail.com

akrtree@gmail.com

Upcoming Events

Ali's Cookies Spirit Night

Sunday, September 22, 12-5pm

Mad Italian Spirit Night

Monday, September 23, 6-9pm

Serve Day - Organic Garden

On September 28, Dunwoody Elementary School in cooperation with the North Atlanta Church of Christ, will have a Grounds Serve Day. Please help clean up and fix the organic garden beds, work on the drainage issue in the playground, rebuild the compost bins, and other great projects. Please plan on coming out and helping to get DES into shape. If you have any questions please contact Tommy McNeese, tommy@tmcneese.com.

Dunwoody Elementary School's Third Annual

Tour de Dunwoody

Family Bike Event

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Click HERE for more information and to register.

Get Involved

Earn Free Money for DES

Vote for DES in the "Give with Target" Campaign

Don't forget to place your vote for DES in the "Give with Target" fundraiser. Each weekly vote earns $1 for our school!! You can vote from all electronic devices and repeat your vote every few days to help get more money for the school.

Simply visit http://givewith.target.com/ and search for Dunwoody Elementary School to vote!!

DES Parent Volunteers needed for a Simple Task!

We need volunteers to come to school to count stickers for Spirit Events and put them in the homeroom teacher mailboxes.

If you are available to do this - it's a simple task that will take about 20 minutes - please click on the link and fill in your name next to one or more of the dates listed. Spirit Stickers Volunteers Sign Up

Thanks for your help!

Community Business Support Committee

Technology Wish List

We have a wonderful marketing opportunity for any of our parents who wish to advertise! We could not fund the entire iPad project, so we are offering the opportunity to you, our DES families, to sponsor and/or donate the cases to protect our new school investment. Please contact Jason Seitz, our Technology Committee Chair, for more information.

There are a few other items we are hoping our families will donate as well. Our Technology wish list is: null

3 Apple TV units ($99 ea.)

30 iPad mini cases ($20 ea. and business logo can be added to all cases)

Apps to run on each device ($1,000)

The apps are a necessary piece of the puzzle, and we know that the cases will be needed since our children will be utilizing this equipment during music class and STEM labs.

You might consider donating the price of a single app. For example, Garage Band is an app that the music department will utilize, and the cost to purchase this for all 30 iPad minis is $75 (a 50% discount for bulk purchase). Jason Seitz is heading up this project as well. Please email him at profseitz@gmail.com for additional details and to donate now!

Mandatory Volunteer Training

The State of Georgia Mandatory Reporting Law was revised expanding the listing of persons who are now categorized as mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect. This list now includes anyone who volunteers in a school.

To ensure that all school volunteers are aware of the new responsibilities and penalties associated with non-compliance, ALL VOLUNTEERS ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to go through a brief training presentation created by DeKalb County Schools on the mandatory reporting of abuse and neglect and what it means to be a mandated reporter.

The training MUST be completed before volunteering. You must also complete the certificate affirming that you have watched the video presentation and understand your obligations as a mandated reporter. Both the presentation and certificate can be accessed from the school website at http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/dunwoodyes under the "Parent Resources" section.

Volunteers must complete this training every year.

If you have any questions regarding the presentation or your obligations as a reporter, please contact the school's social worker.

School Social Worker - Isaura Roque
Phone: 678-676-7135

Tiger Talk Information

Tiger Talk Archives are Searchable!

Ever need to find an old newsletter to get an announcement? Tired of searching through your thousands of emails for it? Starting in the fall, 2013, all newsletters are archived, and searchable on dunwoodypto.com!

How to Send an Announcement Using Tiger Talk

Tiger Talk is the weekly e-newsletter of the Dunwoody Elementary School PTO. Every Sunday, we publish information that is pertinent to the students and parents of DES.

The submission deadline for each issue is 10pm on Tuesday.

All announcements must be brief and sent in writing as an email to Dunwoody.TigerTalk@gmail.com. Announcements will run for two weeks prior to the event or as applicable. If you have any questions about Tiger Talk, please contact the editors at Dunwoody.TigerTalk@gmail.com.

LIKE us on Facebook and Twitter!

If you are a Facebook user, we hope you are enjoying Dunwoody Elementary School's page. We also have a Twitter account to help disseminate information in a timely manner. You can even set up alerts to be sent to your phone. Follow @DESAlerts, and be sure to enable notifications!

Our school's Facebook page and Twitter account will be used to promote upcoming school events and communications. We will also allow comments from our DES community but through daily monitoring we will remove anything that is not appropriate. We're excited about this new opportunity to share all the good things happening at our school.

Quick Links

DES School Website

PTO Website

Facebook Page

DeKalb Schools Calendar

Thanks to our Sponsors!

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