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Message from the Principal, Michael Chipman: Red Ribbon Week and The International Festival First off I would like to thank Elena Veta and Lorraine Bockman for the tremendous amount of effort they put forth in planning another successful Red Ribbon Week! Also, I would like to thank International Festival Committee Chairs Kiran Pingali and Traci Perdue, along with the many volunteers that helped, for all the thoughtful work that went into feeding our staff an international cuisine and coordinating, what is sure to be, one of the best International Festivals ever at Willow Creek! One of the outstanding programs that was included in our Red Ribbon Week’s pro-grams was a Kaiser-Permanente sponsored presentation about healthy choices. The focus in the intermediate grades was handling bullying situations. It was a powerful message, one in which I want to engage the community through the PEEK this month. Bullying vs. Normal Conflict One of the most common misconceptions among adults and children is the differ-ence between normal conflict and bullying behavior. Children get in disagree-ments, call each other names, and even get physical at times with their peers. While there are consequences for this behavior, this is normal conflict and these situations, although tough to deal with in the moment, help our children navigate relationships as they learn how to work and play with one another. Bully behavior is different from normal conflict. It is defined by aggressive behavior that involves a real, or perceived, power imbalance. Bullying is targeted to a partic-ular individual or individuals, is planned and repeated. Systematic Approach to Eliminating Bully Behavior: Student Response There are several ways in which we engage students to deal with bully behavior at Willow Creek. The following strategies are discussed at length through our Bully-Proofing 2.0 Program:
Stand up for yourself with words and walk away
Use humor to show you aren’t bothered by what the bully says
Use self-talk to help you stay calm, make good choices, and stay positive
Get a friend to help
Notify at least two adults you trust to help
We also focus on bystanders. Bystanders are those who witness bullying behavior and have a choice to stand up to the bullying or not get involved. We encourage students who see bullying to stand up for those being targeted by asserting them-selves to the bully, escorting the victim away from the situation, and getting adult help. Parent Response Parents, too, have a role in the process of making sure bullying does not become a problem at our school. If your child brings an issue to your attention that fits the description of bullying, it is important to not only reinforce the message of standing up to bully behavior, but also to bring it to the attention of your teacher, and the principal immediately. Teacher/Administrative Response Once behavior has been deemed as bullying, the school will take steps to ensure it gets dealt with immediately. Disciplinary actions include parent contact and loss of privileges with any disciplinary referral. However, bullying can lead to 1 day and up to 5 day suspensions depending on the situation. The key to stopping bullying in its tracks depends on students, parents, and school staff working together through the process. Communication is crucial!
Parent Bulletin #7 February 5, 2015 Willow Creek Elementary School 7855 South Willow Way Centennial, Colorado 80112 A Cherry Creek School Phone: 720-554-3900 Michael Chipman, Principal 720-554-3900 Kathy Carmel, Office Manager 720-554-3903 Beth Perron, Secretary 720-554-3901 Deborah DuBois, Nurse 720-554-3907 Alex Bowar, Food Services 720-554-3965 Christa Seaman, Director Willow Creek Cares for Kids 720-554-3966 Mike Collins Building Engineer 720-554-3964 Fax Number 720-554-3988 Weather Hotline 720-554-4701 Website http://willowcreek. cherrycreekschools.org
Attendance Line 720-554-3995 If your child is going to be ab-sent or late, please call by 8:45 a.m. In addition to notifying your child’s teacher, you must also call the Attendance Line. This is a 24-hour open line. Thank you.
Mark Your Calendars!! Do you know…..
Out of all the natural lakes in the world, more than 50% are located in Canada
It is forbidden for aircraft to fly over the Taj Mahal located in Agra, India
Mexico City is the oldest capital in the Americas
Great Britain is comprised of only Eng-land, Scotland and Wales
The United Kingdom refers to the union of what were once 4 separate countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland
Want to learn more? Please join the fun on Saturday, February 7th, from 11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. in the Willow Creek gym and cafeteria to celebrate our annual International Day! For more information, contact Kiran Pingali at [email protected] or Traci Perdue at [email protected]. CCSD Chess Tournament The CCSD Chess Tournament will be held at Overland High School on February 28th. The tournament is open to any Cherry Creek stu-dents, grades K-12. A completed registration form and fee of $15.00 must be received by February 22nd. Participation is limited to the first 200 students that register. The registra-tion form and tournament details can be found on the district website: http://www.cherrycreekschools.org/GT/Pages/Chess-Tournament.aspx. For more infor-mation contact the tournament coordinator Todd Bardwick at [email protected]. Lunch Money Our cafeteria manager, Alex Bowar, has brought to our attention that there are a num-ber of students who are putting cash into the brown wooden box next to the kitchen door for their lunch accounts. This cash, from un-known students, cannot be deposited into the appropriate student’s account since it was not in an envelope. Parents, please make sure you instruct your child(ren) to use the white envelopes next to the cash deposit box to put their lunch money in along with writing their name, teacher and grade on the envelope. This should alleviate any more confusion for the cafeteria crew. Thank you!
Yearbook Pictures
We are half way through the schoolyear and by now you have probably accumulated lots of great Willow Creek stu-dent photos on your memory cards. It is now a good time to upload those photos to make room for your family holiday photos. If you have great photos of your child/children and other Willow Creek students participating in any club, activity or neighborhood sports team, the Yearbook Committee would love to see them for possible use in the 2014-2015 yearbook. The only requirements are:
Photos including multiple students are preferred
High resolution .TIF or .JPG files only
All children in the photo have their full name and grade listed in the description section of the photo to be uploaded.
It’s so simple! Just go to the following link: https://images.schoolannualonline.com/401854615, Select the photos you want to upload, enter your full name and e-mail contact, list your child’s name and grade and include each child in the photo’s names and grades in the description section. You may revisit this link until March to upload any photos you would like to share. If you have questions or are interested in helping out with yearbook pho-tography or layout this year, please contact Cara Venable at 303-905-9357 or e-mail her at [email protected]. Willow Creek Spelling Bee Please see page 6 of this month’s PEEK to read about the Spelling Bee held at Willow Creek on January 21st and which students advanced to the CCSD Spelling Bee to be held on Friday, February 6th. Willow Creek Wellness Parents, please see page 7 of this month’s PEEK for the Wellness Committee’s informa-tive February newsletter.
Dates to Remember ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sat. Feb. 7 International Festival, Gym & Cafeteria, 11:00 a.m. Tues. Feb. 10 Heart Healthy Valentine’s Day Party, Gym, 3:30 p.m. Fri. Feb. 13 CMS Counselors to Visit 5th Grade, 1:15 p.m. M.-Tu. Feb. 16-17 NO SCHOOL, President’s Day Holiday Mon. Feb. 23 4th Grade to Lone Tree Arts Center, 9:15 a.m. Tues. Feb. 24 Accountability Meeting, Library, 6:30 p.m. Fri. Feb. 27 Kindergarten Circus, Music Room, 9:45 a.m. and 3:05 p.m. M.-W. March 2-4 National School Breakfast Week Wed. March 4 5th Grade Science Fair, Gym, 2:00 p.m. Th.-F. March 5-6 NO SCHOOL, Parent Teacher Conferences
Attendance Line–Please Call by 8:45 a.m. Parents: If your child is going to be absent or tardy, please call the Attendance Line at 720-554-3995 by 8:45 a.m. This line is open 24 hours a day. In addition to contacting your teacher regarding an absence, please call the Attendance Line. Please Note: Kindergarten Enrichment stu-dents must also be called in if they will not be in attendance at the start of the a.m. or p.m. school day. We appreciate your help in the matter. Tardies ... are very disruptive, not only to the late student, but to every student and teacher in the classroom. School starts at 9:00 a.m. Students should be at school by 8:50 a.m. and in their seats by 9:00 a.m. ready to learn. Early Dismissals… are strongly discouraged after 3:15 p.m. as this is a very busy time for teachers and stu-dents as they give final instructions and pre-pare to leave for the day. School Grounds Supervision… is only available beginning at 8:45 a.m. un-less your child is eating breakfast, which be-gins at 8:30 a.m. Supervision ends at 3:50 p.m. after school. STUDENTS SHOULD NOT BE ARRIVING TO SCHOOL BEFORE 8:45 A.M. AND SHOULD BE LEAVING BY 3:50 P.M. EACH DAY, unless you are en-rolled in daycare, eating breakfast, attending intramurals, choir/band or in a morning club.
School Lunch Menu The school lunch menu can be found on the Cherry Creek School Dis-trict website. Paper cop-ies will NOT be printed this school year due to the frequent changes that the Student Nutrition Depart-ment makes to them. Please view the breakfast and lunch menus at ccsdcafe.org. 2014–2015 CCSD School Calendar The academic calendar for the next school year can be found under “Calendars” at www.cherrycreekschools.org. Please refer to this before making any vacations plans for the upcoming school year. Weather Related De-layed Starts Please be advised that when there is a district issued delayed start at the beginning of the day, school will not start until 10:00 a.m. ALL activities that normally would occur before school starts will be cancelled due to the delayed start. Stu-dents should not be coming to school until 9:45 a.m. at the very earliest. We understand that this might cause conflicts with parents’ work schedules, but there is nowhere for students to stay prior to 9:45 a.m. unless you have signed up for WCCK PRIOR to the delay. Thank you. Willow Creek’s Website Willow Creek has a website, and we encourage parents to bookmark this site. There is always a wealth of information to be found here. Please find our site at: http://willowcreek.cherrycreekschools.org.
WILLOW CREEK LUNCH SCHEDULE
Kindergarten 11:45–12:35 p.m.
1st Grade 12:05–12:45 p.m.
2nd Grade 11:15–11:55 a.m.
3rd Grade 1:05–1:45 p.m.
4th Grade 12:45–1:25 p.m.
5th Grade 12:25–1:15 p.m.
Parent Information Network (PIN) “Why do Kids Act that Way?” presented by Dr. Nancy Buck, Founder of Peaceful Parent-ing, Inc., will be enlightening parents on this very important subject on Tuesday, March 3rd. Plan ahead to take a little time out of your day or take a few hours off of work and come to connect with other parents, be in-formed by local and national speakers, and get empowered to take a proactive approach to parenting. All parents, school administra-tors and community members are welcome. Presentations are held on the first Tuesday
of each month from 9:15–11:15 a.m. at the Student Achievement Re-source Center (SARC). SARC is located at 14199 Briarwood Avenue, Centennial, 80112 (south of Arapahoe
Road between Potomac and Jordan Roads). For further information please visit www.pinccsd.org. Wildcat Sports Stars Wildcat Sports Stars is a program designed to reward your student (KG-4th grades) for exercise similar to the 5th Gear Kids program for 5th graders. For every 30 minutes of athletic activity, excluding school gym class and recess, a student can color in a small star on the Wildcat Sports Star Track-er. Any physical activity such as team sports, individual sports or activities like jump rope, running, or playing outside can count. After the completion of 10 small stars your child has completed one large star. A parent must sign on the line provided on the tracker sheet to verify the student’s participation. On the last Thursday of the month, each student should turn in their tracker to their grade level collection box and they will be awarded priz-es the following week. Prizes are charms much like those of the PAWS program. Cu-mulative prizes will be awarded in June so get out there and exercise! Extra sheets are available in the main office, but only one sheet per child per month will count. The tracking periods are: February 2-26, March 2-26, April 13-May 7. If you have questions, contact Lara Turner at: [email protected].
Willow Creek Road Closure Announcement A very small portion of road will be closed in Willow Creek beginning the first part of Febru-ary due to a public improvement project in-
volving a culvert near the Willow One Pool. South Rosemary Way, just south of East Jamison Drive and to East Kettle Avenue, will be closed for approxi-
mately two months due to this project needing to be completed by the Southeast Metro Stormwater Authority. This is quite a long time and may hinder getting your students to school via the normal route that parents drive. This very small section of road is located at the Willow Creek One pool. Please make al-ternate plans for your route to make sure that your students arrive at school on time. CMAS Testing The spring CMAS (Colorado Measures of Ac-ademic Success) is approaching for 3rd-5th grade students. CMAS is made up of the English/Language Arts and Math assessment know as PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) along with science for 5th graders and social studies for 4th graders. PARCC, the replacement for TCAP, will be given online and administered under stand-ardized conditions to ensure reliability and validity of the results. This assessment allows us to evaluate our curriculum and instruction based on Colorado State Standards. While students have been practicing the online tests during their library time, parents and stu-dents can visit www.parcconline.org to see the grade-level specific practice test items. PARCC’s performance based assessment will begin in March for grades 3, 4 & 5. In April, grade 5 will test in science while grade 4 will test in social studies. PARCC’s end of year assessment will conclude in May. It is important that students are present on days of testing. Please avoid scheduling trips and appointments for your child during days that are listed on page 8 in this edition of the PEEK. We are excited about our students showing their knowledge. To this end, a good night’s sleep and well balanced meals are very helpful.
