Families,
Thursday, June 6th is the last day of the 2018-19 school year:
- 8:00 AM School Starts
- 5th graders must be in line at 8:00 AM
- Families of 5th graders: Please wait until 8:05 to park and walk onto campus.
- 8:30 AM 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony in the outdoor amphitheater
- After the ceremony and a short reception with treats, 5th graders may go home with families.
- 12:46 PM Upper Grade Dismissal
- The 4th graders’ day ends at 12:46. 5th graders who were not checked out may stay with their class for a final cleaning day and the class movie.
Before Summer Starts….
- Report Cards
- Final report cards will go home with your child tomorrow. If yours is misplaced or you need duplicate report cards, please email me at sseyan@sjusd.org, and I will reply with a soft copy. Please note that the soft copy is a non-editable PDF and official report cards are saved online.
- NOTE TO 5th GRADE FAMILIES: I did NOT choose the new letter grade option for 5th grade report cards. Your child’s report card still follows the 1,2,3, 4 scoring format.
- Final report cards will go home with your child tomorrow. If yours is misplaced or you need duplicate report cards, please email me at sseyan@sjusd.org, and I will reply with a soft copy. Please note that the soft copy is a non-editable PDF and official report cards are saved online.
- “Silver and Gold Awards“-5th grade only
- 5th Graders may receive Silver or Gold awards for academic excellence. Silver awards go to students with scores of 3 in all academic subjects and solid ROARS behavior. Gold awards may go to students with at least 1 score of 4 along with all those 3s, and great classroom citizenship.
- Grades are based on a variety of measures across curricular domains, over time. One of the measures we use is a student’s Lexile reading level as measured by the Achieve 3000 LevelSet. Students in 5th grade whose Lexile reading level is 850 or above are considered “at” or “above” grade level in reading, with scores below that “approaching” or “below”.
- In order to provide consistency across classes, we have made sure to adhere as strictly as possible to the guidelines for these awards. That said, many students from both classes were often very close on one measure but just didn’t make it to a report card “3”, despite being incredible all-around students.
- My perspective for families: These awards measure students by grade level standards. This provides some objectivity when bestowing the awards and a clear value for each award designation. That also means that Silver and Gold awards do not tell us where students are now compared to where they were at the beginning of the year. It does not tell us how much your children have grown. It is a measure of scores, rather than your child’s heart. For this reason, please keep the Silver and Gold award presentation in perspective, and remember that all of these 5th graders are absolute GOLD in my heart! ❤
- Summer School and Tutoring
- Mrs Chitwood sent B7 families an email and letter home with an offer of a place in Summer School at Terrell Elementary for 5-10 students from our class. If you are interested in this opportunity for your child, fill out the form you received and get it back to us-either via email or by hand-ASAP. Please refer to the information you received for more details!
- If you are not interested in summer school but would like more support for your child, Mrs. Carroll will be offering 1:1 tutoring this summer. Please email Mrs. Carroll or myself if you would like to get more information. BTW, I also tutor, and will offer a $10.00 per hour discount for students from my class this year.
- Blended Learning Access this Summer
- The best way to access Blended Learning- Dreambox, Lexia, Achieve 3000-is through the Carson Blended Learning page. Today, Mr. K sent home information about how to find the page at home. For your convenience, I am linking it here.
- More about Blended Learning over the summer:
- Students can’t advance in levels over the summer (only during he school year), but they can get lots of practice!
- Have your child spend less time more consistently in these programs. 15-20 minutes 3 times per week will lead to better gains than 45 minutes once per week.
- When in Dreambox, please make sure your student chooses the AssignFocus lessons (the 2 icons with the desktop calendar icon next to them) first.
- Another tip for Dreambox: Make sure to complete a lesson before leaving that activity for another. That’s the only way to advance in Dreambox! It may seem too hard, or like it does not teach how to do the activity before assigning it. Think of the first foray into a Dreambox lesson as a pretest: Why wold it teach a student a lesson if they knew the material? When students dive in and try the tasks, the program adapts to their thinking and adjusts itself to the student for the next lesson. Give it a try and see what happens.
- Thank you!
- Thank you for sharing your children with me this year. ;o) Ms. Seyan
E-2 Excellence 