Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Weekly Blog 1/27

Dear Wines Families,
There are a lot of important items today. Sorry in advance for the long message…

International Night Tonight!!
Please join us for International Night tonight beginning at 6:30. We have more participants than ever this year!! I hope to see you tonight! 

Front Door Lock Update
As many of you know, a camera/buzzer system has been installed at Wines so that we can keep our doors locked during the school day. I’m pleased to announce that beginning one week from today, Wednesday, February 3rd, we will begin to have our doors locked. The doors will lock 10 minutes after the bell rings in the morning and will unlock 10 minutes before the end of the day. There is a buzzer right at the front door (disregard the yellow footprints, those were painted for a previous camera location). To enter the building, you ring the bell and there is a camera in the office. Robin is the primary person responsible for allowing entry. PLEASE NOTE: ROBIN’S PRIMARY RESPONSIBILTY IS THE WELL BEING OF OUR STUDENTS AND ALSO PLEASE NOTE THAT SHE IS NORMALLY ALONE AT THE FRONT DESK. AS A RESULT, THERE MAY BE A DELAY IN ANSWERING IF SHE IS WORKING WITH A STUDENT OR STAFF MEMBER. WE ASK THAT YOU ARE PATIENT

Parent Involvement Day
Our annual Parent Involvement Day in honor of National African American Parent Involvement Day takes place on Monday, February 8th. We invite parents to spend some or all of your day with us. A formal invitation is going home today in the Wednesday Folders. I will be sending out a digital RSVP later today or tomorrow. Please fill out the RSVP if you plan on attending. It is especially important if you are staying for lunch so we can make sure we have enough food for everyone.

Save the Date!!!
Save the date! We have decided to take our Silent Auction off site this year for a fun, casual, social, adult-only event. Please save the evening of April 30th on your calendar for this “not to be missed event”. The Raffle will continue to take place in conjunction with the Wines Country Fair on June 3rd. Stay tuned for further details. Anyone interested in helping out is invited to a meeting a 9:00 AM on Thursday, February 4th in the Wine Office conference room. If you would like to help out but cannot make that meeting, please email Amy Holland at amytholland@live.com.

No School Monday
As a reminder, there is no school Monday as teachers will be participating in critical staff development activities.

That’s all for this week!

David

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Weekly Blog 1/20

Dear Wines Families,
I just have two announcements today but they are both pretty important. One is a call for volunteers for International Night (we need you!!!) and the other is a description of our guest speaker’s topic at tomorrow night’s PTO meeting.

PTO Meeting Presentation: Be SMART: A Conversation about Kids, Guns, and Safety
An estimated 1.7 million American children live in homes with unlocked, loaded guns. Too often, child and teens access these unsecured guns, leading to tragedy. In 2015, Michigan had one of the highest rates in the U.S. of unintentional shootings by children.

Kristen Moore, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, will present "Be SMART: A Conversation about Kids, Guns, and Safety." We will discuss simple steps that all adults, gun owners and non-gun owners alike, can take to keep children safe around guns.

We hope you can join us at the meeting beginning at 7:00 PM in the Media Center. Free childcare is available on site.

Volunteers Needed! International Night
We still need about 15 volunteers for International Night. This is a wonderful school event and we can’t do it without you! Please go to click on the link below to volunteer.


David

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Weekly Blog 1/13

Dear Wines Families,

Below is a link to this month’s Wines Times Newsletter, so I’ll keep my additional announcements brief.

Wines Times Newsletter

Friday Floor Hockey is Back!!!
Our weekly Friday floor hockey games will begin this Friday. We will start this year at 8:15 AM. Adults, you are welcome to join the game (we have adult size sticks for you). Students who would like to play simply need to have dry tennis shoes (so wear your boots into school so you can have dry shoes). I am able most Friday’s to get the game started, but I generally need to attend to other school opening business after a little while. Therefore, we need parent volunteers to help keep the game moving and wrap things up at the end. If you are able to come on any Friday, please do! We need regular help.

M-STEP Results
4th and 5th grade families, your child will be coming home with his/her M-STEP state assessment results in today’s Wednesday Folder. As you know, the M-STEP replaced the MEAP last year so these results cannot be easily compared to any previous state assessment results. Look for more communication from our school district and from me in the coming days and weeks regarding the results.

Kindergarten Round Up
Our Kindergarten Round Up is on Wednesday, February 24th at 6:00 PM. If you have a child who will be 5 by Sept. 1, 2016 or if you have friends or neighbors who do, please contact school with your child’s name so we can begin putting our list together. We are expecting to have spaces available for in-district transfer families as well (if your family is currently an in-district transfer, your incoming kindergarten child is grandfathered in and you do not need to apply). So if you have friends who live outside of the Wines attendance area boundaries who would like to have their child attend kindergarten at Wines, please share this information with them! The in-district transfer window opens for applications on January 18th at www.a2schools.org.


David

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Weekly Blog 1/6

Dear Wines Families,
Happy New Year! It is nice to be back at school and after a Monday that saw many kids looking a bit subdued, we are back in full swing and Wines is humming along like we never left. I have a number of announcements this week:

Science Olympiad On-line Registration
Registration for the 2016 Wines Science Olympiad Teams is now open to students in grades 2-5. This year the number of students that Wines can send to the WESO competition on May 14, 2106 at Pioneer High School is unlimited and we are excited about the possibility of sending a record sized team!! Team assignments will begin on January 9 for those with completed registrations. Registration and event information is on-line this year, paper copies will not be sent home with the students. For questions about Science Olympiad or the registration process email scienceowines@gmail.com.

Parents will find registration information including a list of event descriptions to share with their children at this link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4N5Lcts02YXam9tU2ExTWl6LUE/view?usp=sharing

The on-line registration form is at this link: http://goo.gl/forms/LYM4eygSwF
After submitting the form you will be directed to the on-line payment page. 

International Night
International Night is right around the corner. This wonderful family event takes place on Thursday, January 27th from 6:30-8:00. If your family would like to sign up to share information/artifacts/food/traditional dress/other about your culture or a culture of interest, please sign up! The sign up form as well as a family activity entitled "Where is My Family From?" were included in today's email to families. 

THANK YOU!!!
Thank you to the Wines community for your generous donations to the Peace Neighborhood Holiday Drive!  We were able to deliver three carloads of items from our school!  Overall it was a huge success and provided toys, clothes, and food for 275 area families. Way to go Wines! A big thank you to Tracy Alam who organized this opportunity.

Extra socks or knit mittens??
Has your dryer eaten a sock or two or are you one knit glove a way from a pair? Our parent volunteers organizing the sewing Extra Special could use these for various sewing projects. You can drop off your lonely socks or gloves (knit) to the office.

Kindergarten Round Up
Believe it or not, we are already gearing up for Kindergarten 2016-2017. Our annual Kindergarten Round Up takes place on Wednesday, February 24th from 6:30-7:30 PM. If you have a child who will be 5 by September 1, 2016 or if you have friends or neighbors who do, please contact the office so we can begin compiling our list of new students. Please bring your child to Round Up as well. We do anticipate having space available for In-District Transfer families in Kindergarten so if you know of residents outside of the Wines attendance area who are interested in our school, please have those families give us a call!

That’s all for this week.

David