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Weekly News from Steele Elementary

02 18  2016   
Contents
From the Principal
School News
PTA News
Community News
Quick Links
Dates To Remember
From the Principal
PARCC/CMAS on the Horizon
I am glad to report that our students will have to do much less state testing than they did last year. I know that a lot of you wrote letters and made your feelings known about the excessive testing. Thank you for your efforts, it has resulted in a much more logical testing schedule for our students. Last year Tom Boasberg, our superintendent, testified to congress about excessive testing and pleaded for their to be a more balanced approach. This has been a team effort and our students will benefit from less testing, less pressure and more instructional time.
 
The purpose of the state test is to formally assess how students can perform in regards to grade level Common Core Standards. This is also an accountability measure to ensure that schools are adequately preparing students. We will receive the results in much more timely fashion this year. This will allow us to adjust school-wide instructional strategies at the beginning of the year. I am glad to say this is a much better set up than last year.
 
Our 3rd 4th and 5th graders will take 3 assessments in Literacy and 4 in Math. Our 5th graders will take 3 hour long Science assessments as well. At this time the state-wide testing window opens up on 3/19 and ends 4/29. Our tentative plan is to have our students take literacy and math assessments from, April 4th until April 15th and our 5th graders to take the science assessment from April 18th to the 22nd.    I will provide a more specific schedule in the upcoming weeks.
 
If you have any questions about testing please reach out to me via email or phone call.

School News
 Student Council Box Top Contest
Student Council is collecting Box Tops for Education! We are challenging each classroom to collect at least 100 box tops by March 24th. In addition, the class that raises the most box tops will earn
Box Tops for Education logoa pizza party (with a salad and pop) on the day before Spring Break, Friday, March 25th! :) 
We will continue a school-wide collection for the remainder of the year but any box tops collected between now and March 25th will be a part of the competition.
Containers will be stored in each classroom for students to put their box tops in.
If you have any questions please contact Michelle Parks, Room 306 or via e-mail at michelle_reedy@dpsk12.org  

Art News
 Rainforests are being built in the art room by the 4/5 grade classrooms. The students are integrating their new knowledge from the classroom to create their rainforests from all over the world. These will be on display at the annual art show. 
 At the end of February 4/5 graders will be viewing
their photography from the first unit of study in Visual
Arts. They will be selecting their picture that will be in the Leon Gallery Art Show, Thursday, April 28th. It is very exciting to imagine our students having their own photography show in a real gallery. Please reserve April 28th
from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at Leon Gallery,  
Address: 
1112 E 17th Ave, Denver, CO 80218
Phone:(303) 832-1599
Third grade students are continuing their study of collage in textiles by creating animal pillows and /or Dolls. One class is making paper mache animals to coincide with their classroom study of adaptation.
Second grade students are creating Fabric creatures
and sewing their own creations.
First grade and Kindergarten are learning about Pop Artists, Jim Dine and Wayne Theibaud.
Please reserve Thursday, May 12 from 6:30 to 8:30
For the annual Steele All School Art Show.
Thank you.
Miriam Ungar - Steele Visual Arts Teacher

Drama News
The third grade classes will be presenting Wizard of Oz. Here are the dates and times.
3rd Grade
Presents

The Wizard of Oz

308 - Tuesday, April 19 @ 5:30

211-Wednesday, April 20 @ 5:30

312- Thursday, April 21 @ 5:30

After School Enrichment
There are many wonderful after school programs being offered at Steele this spring to allow children to broaden their cultural horizons. Visit the Steele website for further details on these and other programs offered. 
 
PTA News
Steele All-School Winter Dance: February 19 
No Dates, No Drama...Just Dancing!!!! Tomorrow night, February 19 from 6-8pm in the Steele Auditorium.
Tickets are SOLD OUT!
Didn't get your tickets?  Add your name to the wait list in the school office for any that might be returned. 

Family fun, DJ entertainment and light snacks provided! 
Not a drop-off event; students must have an adult responsible for them present.
  
We could really use the help of a few parents to take down the decorations, clean up snacks and generally make the room presentable again.  Log into MySchoolAnywhere to volunteer. Questions? Email Crissy Lucado. 

100th Day Fundraising Update
As many of your children celebrated the 100th day of school last week, our amazing PTA Treasurer, Kim Kobernusz spent some time crunching the PTA fundraising numbers to give us a crystal clear picture of how much money we have raised to date through all of our efforts: Stallion Fund, Carnival, Bike-A-Thon, Steele Dines Out, Sponsorships, Farmers Market, Grocery Card Program and 1st Day School supplies.  The total she reported was absolutely astounding--wait for it...$148,000!

We are all so fortunate to be part of this wonderful and generous community. While this number is beyond fabulous, our fundraising efforts are not over--we still have the annual Washington Park Home Tour taking place on Saturday, May 7th and our goal is to bring in at least $60,000.   As it stands, our fundraising goal for the year is $180,000 so if we hit our home tour number we're certain to blow that goal out of the water.  While $180,000+ is undeniably a substantial amount of money, the  reality is that we have every cent of the money raised this year allocated for the following school year to pay for second educators in every classroom, vital classroom resources, community events and programs that enhance our children's experience at Steele Elementary.

Please accept a very heartfelt "Thank you" on behalf of the PTA fundraising committee for your continued support. Let's not lose momentum, let's make this years Home Tour the most successful yet. Please don't forget to check if your company has a corporate matching program or pays for volunteer hours; let's not leave one cent on the table this year!

If you want to get involved with Steele Elementary Fundraising please feel free to reach out to Loren Rigney at Loren.Rigney@gmail.com or Kiki Lyons at krlyons@cisco.com. 
 

Communication Survey Results
We asked and you answered!  We have reviewed the responses we received on the Steele Communications survey and summarized them in case you would like to review the feedback we received and New PTA Logo understand more about our next steps and the ways in which we want to enhance communications.  We had 119 responses which is great - we thank those of you who took the time out of your day to provide your very valuable perspective.  Find the survey results here.
Community News

Are you interested in becoming a teacher? 
Steele has a long history of training skilled and dedicated teachers!
The Stanley Teacher Prep program is seeking intern candidates for placements at Steele, as well as other public school and private schools! Intern teachers gain an understanding of experience-based, developmentally appropriate education over the course of 1 school year.    They take on steadily increasing responsibilities as their skills and confidence grow, while working with a skilled mentor teacher.  With ongoing feedback and support from both their mentor teacher and educational advisor, interns participate in all aspects of the teaching process. They learn to help children with a wide range of abilities and share in celebrating diversity within the classroom.  Intern teachers take 225 hours of course work on Thursday afternoons in order to obtain licensure through the state of Colorado. For more information please visit http://www.stanleyteacherprep.org or email Jessamyn Lockhart at jlockhart@pebc.org.

South High School Sports Summer Camp
Denver South Athletics is excited to announce our new summer sports camp, 241Sports Denver South!  We have partnered with 241 Sports, a national leader in sport sampling to bring our community the BEST multi-sport summer camp experience in Denver!  At 2-4-1 Denver South, our Head and Assistant High School Coaches will offer top notch instruction along with our High School Athlete counselors who will bring the FUN and enthusiasm that make summer sports camp a great experience!
 
Please visit our website:  www.241denversouth.com
 
 
 

Sock Donations Needed
Girl Scout troop 67593 (4th and 5th graders from Steele) is collecting socks for the homeless.  Please leave a donation of new socks in the bin located outside the cafeteria and help some of our neediest neighbors.  Thanks in advance for your support!

Lacrosse for 1st and 2nd grade boys
Washington Park Lacrosse is seeking 1st and 2nd grade boys for their U8 lacrosse team.  Players must be born after June 1, 2007 to qualify for U8.  The Wash Park Lacrosse program is administered through Denver Parks & Recreation.  Any experience level is welcome, and beginners are strongly encouraged to join.  Please contact Robby Eder, Program Administrator, at washparklax@gmail.com, or call 720-865-3408 for more information.  Registration is open for the spring season.

Merrill News
To check out what's happening at Merrill Middle School, click here.
To submit information to this newsletter, send it in edited, final-draft format to the appropriate person from the list below by 5 PM on Tuesdays:
For all other questions, please email Cynthia Swanson and Liz Marvan (parent volunteers) at steelestallionpress@gmail.com.