Halilts Newsletter: October 28, 2024

Hello Orca Families,

Thank you for the amazing job on our Move-a-thon Fundraiser! We are so grateful for your support that makes to many wonderful opportunities available for our students.

We’ve moved on to our next character trait focus: Responsibility. In K-3 classrooms, I have been teaching about responsibility + bullying prevention. Students have been practicing the 3 Rs’: how to recognize, refuse, and report bullying. In 4th grade, we’ve been discussing cyberbullying prevention and how to be an upstander if you witness cyberbullying. 

As access to technology, social media, and messaging apps increases, it is important to teach children how to use technology responsibly, about digital awareness, establish rules, and review how to report cyberbullying. Stopbullying.gov is a great resource to check out for useful information to augment your at-home discussions around the topic.

Warmly,

Katie Brase, School Counselor

x̌alilc (Halilts) Elementary School is hosting an assembly to recognize and celebrate our veterans. We would be honored if the veterans who are members of our community (moms, dads, grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.) will join us!

As part of our assembly, we plan to create a special presentation that features photographs of veterans. If you know a veteran who would like to be recognized in our presentation, please send a photo along with the veteran’s name, rank and branch of service to kpellegrino@bisd303.org. 

We are blown away by your generosity and commitment to our school. Thanks to your support, we exceeded our 2024 fundraising goal to reach a total of $79,557!

This fully funds our PTO budget and more. Stay tuned to hear more about what we have planned for the rest of the school year with these much needed funds!

Session two of fall x̌alilc after school activities is now open for registration. Sign up below!

IslandHoops at x̌alilc on Tuesdays for 2nd-4th graders: Children will play different sports, including soccer, basketball, tennis, baseball, bowling, court hockey, football, and dodgeball. Coach Henry Guterson aims to help children improve at sports and have a fun, positive experience. The club runs weekly from 11/5-12/17 (7 sessions) and costs $110. Sign-up today!

Chess club at x̌alilc on Wednesday for 1st-4th graders: Join Island coach Mark Cohen in a fun introduction to chess where children learn basic strategies and tactics of the ancient game. The club is geared to providing students an intellectual challenge of chess matches with half the time set aside for playing games, and the remainder for supervised outdoor recess breaks (weather permitting). The club runs weekly from 11/6-12/11 (6 sessions) and costs $120. Sign-up today!

Save your plastic film and recycle it with Ridwell!

Between October 28th and November 13th, bring any clean and dry plastic film to school, and Ridwell will turn it into Trex composite decking! 

Acceptable Plastic Includes:

• Plastic film

• Grocery, produce, cereal, and bread bags

• Dry cleaning bags

• Ziploc bags

• Bubble wrap and air pillows used for shipping

• Plastic shipping envelopes

The Ridwell bin will be outside the front office until November 13th!

We will also have a separate bin (next to the Ridwell bin) for Halloween candy wrappers - your Sustainability team will be recycling them separately from the Ridwell drive!

Let us help you clear out your garbage, and help the planet!

Did you know there are over $500 in book fines? That is a lot of missing books! Help us keep our library full of our favorite titles.

Overdue notices along with an email were sent home last week. Our first hope is that the books are returned. But, if books are lost or missing, we hope to be able to replace them.

To remove a fine, there are three options:

If you have questions, please contact Ms. Hauge at thauge@bisd303.org.  

Students with fines are asked to keep check out materials here at school. All fourth graders with unpaid fines by May 1st will not receive their yearbook until fines are paid or books are replaced.  

Thank you for your support in helping us maintain our incredible collection of books and support in helping students take responsibility for their check outs.

Warmly,

Ms. Hauge, Librarian

Individual teachers have designed how their class will celebrate and if student’s will be invited to bring costumes to school. Your student’s teachers will provide specific details regarding what activities will take place. Since Halloween falls on a non-school day this year, x̌alilc will not have a Halloween Parade. Several of us will be down in Winslow on the big night and will be looking for our Orcas in the crowd!

Here are some guidelines around appropriate costumes:

Thank you for your support!

Sign-ups for Conferences are now closed. If you need to change your conference time, please reach out to your student's teacher.

Each year, all public schools in Washington state must choose a school improvement goal to work on over that school year. We refer to it as our School Improvement Plan (SIP). I am excited to share our goal for the year with you as it has now been presented and approved by the BISD School Board. 

Our goal this year is centered on our school climate and culture. We are working on reinforcing and giving feedback on positive behaviors through our Positive Behavior Intervention and Support system, often referred to as PBIS. Here are our objectives:

Part of progress monitoring for our school climate and culture goal is to obtain student voice. To do so, students were asked to answer questions about how they experience school. We will be asking the same questions two more times during the school year to monitor our progress with our first objective. 

If your student indicated to their teacher in three or more areas that this is not a positive environment for them, they will talk with you about it at your student’s conference. We are working on providing support for any students whose answers indicate they don’t feel this is a positive environment for them. Our goal is to have ALL of our students feel this is a positive place where they can grow and learn.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I am happy to speak more to how we plan on supporting students.

The lost and found is overflowing! Please ask your student to check and make sure you come to the front hall to check during conferences.

In late September, School Board President Mark Emerson and Vice President Kelly Cancialosi shared a message about the hiring process for the permanent BISD superintendent.

The Board wants your feedback! You can provide input through this Parents/Guardians/Community Survey. 

In addition, a community meeting open to all will be held on November 7 at 5:45 p.m. in the Board Room.

31: Conferences - No School

1: Conferences - No School

3: Fall Back - Change your clocks!

6: Community Meeting re: Budget

8: Veterans Day Assembly

22: PTO Meeting

27-29: Thanksgiving Break - No School