Friday, May 4th
-Last Day to turn in Fun Run T-Shirt designs
-FSE Spirit Assembly at 3:30pm in the gym
Monday, May 7th-Friday, May 11th
-Book Fair
-Staff Appreciation Week
Monday, May 7th
-Paws for Books with Canine Friends 6pm
Tuesday, May 8th
-Seussical the Musical at 3:15pm and 6:00pm in the gym
Friday, May 11th
-Muffins for Moms from 8:00am-9:00am in the cafeteria
-FSE Spirit Assembly at 3:30pm in the gym
End of the Year Final Thoughts
It is so hard to believe that the school year is coming to an end, these months certainly fly by! Thank you so much for all the families that filled out the community (FSE report card) survey to let us know how we are doing. Our School Accountability Committee will take these survey's and compile the data so we can get a comprehensive view of things we are doing well and things we need to improve on, so thank you for taking this time to give us your thoughts.
Our staff is in the middle of planning for next year, part of this planning is to reflect on our instruction and make new goals based on our commitment to improvement. As you know, we focused quite a bit of attention on our math instruction this year with the purchase of our new math program. As a K-6 team, we have identified standards at each grade level that we believe students MUST master to be successful in the next grade and have tailored our instruction around these. As a school, we feel our math instruction has never been stronger thanks to the partnership that our students' families have had with us in supporting your children in math and our continued growth and reflection on best instructional strategies.
Next year we will continue to support high-level learning in math while adding a similar focus to reading instruction. We have been working hard this year to select titles for a new book room that will be available for teachers and students this August. This book collection will have hundreds of new titles, leveled to students specific personalized reading and instructional levels and will be used by teachers to instruct critical pre-reading, reading and fluent reading skills in all grades K-6. We are excited to re-define our grade level literacy framework K-6, laying out specific mastery level expectations for each grade level.
In addition to reading and math, our staff and community have had many discussion on the social-emotional well being of our students and staff. We believe as a district and as an FSE community that school safety includes not only the physical safety of our students but the emotional safety of them as well. Over the last several years, with the increase in social media, texting and online gaming we have seen a significant increase in the amount of conflict between students. Although we do not allow students to text, use social media or connect with others online through gaming sites at school, many of them are doing it at home and bring these conversations into school. We are in the process of hiring an elementary school counselor that will work closely with our school psychologist to identify specific areas of concern that are causing students to have conflict with one another while identifying instruction to support our teachers during this new age of technology. We understand that as the adults in our students lives we are the number one role models when it comes to digital citizenship, so we continue to appreciate your partnership as we move into this important part of our curriculum this coming school year.
Lastly, I want to give lots of props to my staff and parent community for a year well done. Our teachers and support staff are on the front lines every day supporting kids and families through another year of high-quality education. We have worked over the course of the last several years to keep our class sizes as low as possible (three years and running with no classes at 30 or above, our average is 25 students in a class with some as low as 22), and keeping resources in our classrooms for our kids, by supporting the needs of our teachers through our site based budget. I am also proud to say that our staff retention rate going into next year is well over 95% (this includes teachers and support staff), the highest retention rate since FSE opened in 2003, a true reflection to the continued work on our school and community climate.
As this school year comes to a close, take time to stop, enjoy, reflect and cherish this time with your kids, it goes too fast, way too fast!
#oneflagstone
Kelli Smith, FSE Principal
6TH GRADE FAMILIES
The FSE Student Council would like to honor your outgoing 6th grader during the month of May. All families should have received a letter in the mail regarding this project. Here are the documents if you did not receive them. The front office also has copies if needed. We encourage all students to participate in this annual celebration. If you have any questions please contact Karen Allen, Aly English or Kristi Swen.
- 5th Grade Tdap Letter
- 6th Grade Honor Wall
- Book Fair Volunteer Letter
- DC Libraries Summer Reading Program
- 2018-2019 School Supplies--Must order by June 15th a portion of the proceeds goes to the FSE PTO (1st Day School Supplies)
- Kid2KitLit Camp: Summer camp taught by our very own Mrs. Miller
- Camp Invention: Run by our very own Ms. Lossin
- Speed & Conditioning Camp
- Youth Football Camp
- Children & Adolescent Summer Program
- Tri the Rock
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