J. A. Coles School On Line

From the Principal
September 2005

Welcome to the new year! We are off to a smooth start. Thank you for supporting the school and making sure your children are ready for optimal performance each day. Because we are so safety and security conscious, your understanding about saying good-bye at the door is particularly helpful.

Healthy Nutritional Habits

We want to do our part to encourage healthy nutritional habits. There is currently a national, statewide, and local concern about obesity in children. At Coles, we no longer allow edible birthday treats or goody bags. (Teachers will handle birthday celebrations in their classrooms. Hard cover book donations to the school library or paperback donations to the classroom library continue to be welcome.) Fast food lunches are strongly discouraged. Healthy lunches and snacks each day are encouraged and welcome.

This year each grade level, one through four, will have common instructional time for reading, writing, and mathematics. Each year we review our practices and performance. Modifications are made to provide all children with opportunities to maximize their learning. You may hear more about in-class support because we have an increase in resource and BSI services offered in the regular classrooms this year. This is a team-teaching model that allows us to provide more individual and small group support. All classes maintain the grade level curriculum and standards without fragmenting children’s time with pullout programs.

Coles Student Parent Handbook

This handbook is available on the Coles School website (www.spfk12.org/coles). You are encouraged to review it.

Playground

While the weather is nice, the children want to enjoy the playground. It would be very helpful if you could reinforce the following safety-based playground rules with your child:

  1. Sneakers are needed for all climbing.
  2. Students must stay in front of bushes where they are visible.
  3. Reinforce school rule #5: Keep hands to self (No touching).
  4. Within the railroad ties around the playground, no running.
  5. On the slide, one at a time. Climb stairs, slide down with legs, feet, arms inside. NO running up slide or jumping off the top.
  6. The barrel: One student at a time. (No pushing another student on it.)
  7. The grade levels rotate so that one day they play on the blacktop, and the next day they play on the playground.

Back to School Night

Please keep the evening of Thursday, September 29 open. Coles will host a Back to School Night program. (Details are forthcoming.) It is a wonderful opportunity to visit and hear from the teachers. Remember, it will be a single session school day. We look forward to your participation.

Lunch Money

Please note that there has been an increase in milk prices. Lunch and milk service will both begin on Monday, September 12. In the meantime, please remember to send your child in with his/her lunch and snack.

home | principal’s memo list