We hope all is well for your family. For our family, 2020 continued to be full of surprises, but it also reminded us how lucky we are to be part of this wonderful Swift Creek Community!
There is lots of information this week, including great social and emotional resources from Mrs. Hill, our school psychologist, and Mrs. Chadwick, our school counselor! Be sure to scroll to the end!
Have a great week! If you need anything, please let us know!
Your PTA Executive Board,
Marie, Deb, Sarah, Dana, and Lauren
Istation Letter from Mrs. MailhotOne of the sessions at Tuesday night's Virtual Open House will be about Istation.
Instructional Support -- https://meet.google.com/kyt-sdkv-qim
What is Istation? What did it measure? What now?
Mrs. Mailhot & Mrs. Hizer
Please read this important letter from Mrs. Mailhot:
Swift Creek Families,
First and foremost, I would like to thank you for your dedication in implementing our beginning of year Istation assessment. For some, I know that this was no easy feat. Thank you for your patience, persistence, and time.
Istation’s assessment helps teachers understand many different aspects of your child’s reading capabilities: their phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, reading comprehension, and reading fluency. Every reading assessment, whether it be performed online or in person, has its flaws. Nothing replaces the valuable information a teacher receives from sitting one on one with a student and listening to them read. We can’t wait until we’re able to do this again.
Parents and teachers can be wary of some of the scores Istation may assign a student. An Istation score will never be used as a grade - it is simply one tool that a teacher may use to help design instruction for your child. Teachers are trained to look at different Istation subtest scores and spot inconsistencies. These inconsistencies can include many different things, such as technology issues, confusing test questions, lack of understanding of directions, etc. Once these inconsistencies are spotted, teachers can provide instruction such as modeling of specific subtests to ensure students understand directions, remediation if other data sources point to the same lack of understanding, and practice around all skill sets being assessed. We understand that Istation is simply one point of data and that to accurately assess a child, we need many different data sources to prove the validity of this assessment.
We’ve collected feedback from teachers and parents alike and understand that implementation of the Istation assessment may have caused some stress to students and families. We sincerely apologize for the stress this may have caused. While some of this was simply beyond anyone’s control, such as having to download the Istation application to personal devices, we will continue to work on our middle of year implementation to ensure a smoother assessment period.
Support staff will be hosting a virtual open house much like the teacher’s open house a few weeks ago. If you’d like to learn more about Istation, how to read reports, and what it all means, please join us for a session. Our virtual open house will be on October 13th from 7:00-8:00pm. I’m looking forward to seeing you and answering any questions you may have!
Sarah Mailhot [email protected]
Virtual Academy Contact
Instructional Facilitator & Literacy Coach
New Social and Emotional Resources for Returning to School
As many of our kids prepare to return to school, you might be wondering how you can help them with this transition. Wake County has a page of resources to check out.
These resources include social stories that will help your child understand what to expect when they return. Videos include:
- Handwashing
- Social distancing
- Health Screenings
- Face Coverings
See them at https://www.wcpss.net/domain/17142.
Thanks to Mrs. Hill, our school psychologist, for sharing this information with our families!
Virtual Learning Resources for Families
Our awesome support staff has heard your questions and concerns about virtual learning. They have created some awesome new resources for you to try at home!
- Tips for Supporting Your Child's Physical Well Being During Virtual Learning -- get tips on posture, eye care, movement, and sensory.
- Calming Tools -- need some tools to help your child. Check out these ideas.
During morning announcements every day, students recite the ROAR pledge. Mrs. Chadwick has created a way for you to create ROAR expectations at home.
1.
Open https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jYKUMh4EfgumDZKVYjenxS0MKWIYIrtWU7fO3nJAV-Q/copy
2. Log in with your child's Wake County ID.
3. Click Make a Copy.
Now you have a copy of this Google doc that you can use to create ROAR expectations for your family.
All these resources are available from the FAQ page of the PTA Website for future reference!
Positivity Project: Being Present and Giving Others My Attention
This week in the Positivity Project, students will be learning about one aspect of the Other People Matter mindset: Being present and giving others my attention.
Tuesday, Oct 13: PTA Meeting and Virtual Open House
- 6:30pm - 7:00pm October PTA meeting: Join us at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84647420301?pwd=TEJzbnlDOVRGQnIzMHVKc3BOaVJ0dz09
- 7:00pm Virtual Open House Part 2 -- Come meet with our specialists (music, art, PE), counselor, Special Education, ESL, and intervention support staff. For the links, see https://bit.ly/30QKzR1. These sessions will be recorded and posted on the school website for future viewing.
Thursday, Oct 15 1-8pm: Spirit Night at Papa Murphy's
Take a break from cooking and help support the Creek! 25% of all sales during this time will go to Swift Creek!
Order a custom pizza from Papa Murphy's at 161 SE Cary Parkway, Cary, NC 27511. You can even get a pumpkin-shaped pizza to take home and bake! You don't need a flyer or a special code to participate.
Tell your family, friends, and neighbors to join in the fun!
And of course, we'd love to see your pictures! Use #ROARtoSoar on social media or send them to yearbook chair, Sarah Wohldmann at [email protected].
Thursday, Oct 15: Two Events from WCPSS
- 5:00pm. WCPSS Virtual Magnet Session: https://www.wcpss.net/magnet
- 5:30pm WCPSS Family Academy: How to Identify If Your Child is Suffering from CyberBullying: www.facebook.com/WCPSS-Family-Academy-277563949100964
Friday, Oct 16: Asynchronous School Day for All Students
To help teachers and staff prepare for the transition for Plan B students returning to school, Friday will be an asynchronous school days.
This is a regular school day. However, students will not have their class size Google Meets. Instead, they will have videos and other remote learning activities to complete. Student attendance will be taken by turning in assignments.
Wake County Public Schools has also added asynchronous days into the school calendar through January. Students will NOT go to school on these days, but instead, they will complete remote assignments.
All the asynchronous days are Wednesday. They are listed on the updated school calendar.
- Nov 18
- Dec 2
- Dec 16
- Jan 6
- Jan 13
Thanks to YOU, WE DID IT!!!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who donated to this year's Fun Run! We know it wasn't the same as being in person, but thank you for helping us reach our very important $10,000 fundraising goal!
In fact, when we looked at our final numbers we EXCEEDED our goal.
We cannot thank you enough for all your support! An extra special thank you to our Fun Run chair, Annie Pilz, who made this work happen! Now that we met our total, Mr. Propst's car will get a safari makeover! We can't wait to share those pictures soon.
October Fitness Challenge from Ms. Graves
Here is an important message from Ms. Graves!
Let's make October the best month yet. We are back in the groove with school but still at home and we all could use less screen time and more movement.
Here is a daily fitness calendar to add some movement to your day. I encourage you to get your family involved and complete some of these challenges. If not, I want to see you completing them each day.
Pick your level of spook to make them more challenging or to fit into the time you have. You could also use this as a brain break between classes
Have fun and don't forget to tag me
@fitforlifesces
#SCEfitfamilies
or email sgraves@ wcpss.net
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A8NmOv1yek09fVcjPoRQiuTJtGMDyoTL/view
Mark Your Calendars!
Oct 22 & 23: Material Distribution
The second round of material distribution will occur on Thursday, Oct 22 and Friday, Oct 23. This will be a drive thru pick up from 9:30-4:15 both days.'
Oct 23: Teacher Work Day
Oct 26: K-3 Cohort A (also called Cohort 1) returns to school
Interested in welcoming the students back? Sign up to help!
Cohorts B & C will be remote learning for this week.
Virtual Academy students will continue remote learning.
Mon Nov 2: K-3 Cohort B (also called Cohort 2) returns to school
Cohorts A & C will be remote learning for this week.
Virtual Academy students will continue remote learning.
Nov 5: STEM Night
One of our favorite fall events is STEM night. We cannot gather in person this year, but Lauren Nicholls and Ashley Elliott, our STEM night chairs, have been diligently working on experiments you can do at home.
We will have our virtual STEM night on Nov 5. Materials will be sent home on the Oct 22 & 23 material distribution days.
For more information, see http://swiftcreekeswcpssnetptahtml.weebly.com/stem-night.html
Advocacy Alerts:
Early Voting Starts Oct 15
Early voting starts on Thursday. If you didn't register to vote, you still can at an early voting site.
For locations and hours, see http://www.wakegov.com/elections/info/early/Pages/default.aspx
Candidate Forums from Advocacy Committee of Wake PTA
The Advocacy committee for the Wake County PTA has conducted several candidate forums. You can view these from the
WakePTA Advocacy YouTube Channel.