Together in Education
December 2018
Lancaster Drive Public School and Parent Council
Email: lancd@limestone.on.ca
Website: http://lancaster.limestone.on.ca
Location: 1020 Lancaster Drive, Kingston, ON, Canada
Phone: (613)634-0470
Twitter: @LancasterPSLDSB
Learning the Dreidel Game was lots of fun!
A beautiful day for our Jingle Bell walk...fresh air and rosy cheeks : )
Our Intermediate "Invest in Others" initiative is spreading...
Ministry of Caring members meet after school to start packing shoeboxes
The Shoebox project became a school-wide effort....#lionhearts
Proud...and having a bit of fun! : )
Upcoming Events
Dec 7 - Jingle Bell Run 2:00 (send non-perishable food item)
Dec 7 - Hot Lunch orders due
Dec 11 - Hot Lunch - pasta
Dec 13 - Jingle Mingle Sing-a-long @ 6:00 for Primary division (K-3) families
Dec 14 - Intermediate Summer Business Expo for classes to visit
Dec 17 - PJ Day
Dec 17 - Dental Screening for JK-2 classes
Dec 18 - Ugly Sweater Day, Candy Canes for sale $.050
Dec 18 - Hot Lunch - Panzarotti
Dec 19 - Blue/White/Sparkle Day
Dec 17 - Dudley - Skating/Bowling trip
Dec 19 - Intermediates classes - Media literacy trip to "The Grinch"
Dec 19 - Dudley - Holiday Hamper volunteer work for Salvation Army at Frontenac Mall
Dec 20 - Holiday Character Day
Dec 21 - Festive Day, Fit-Go and Dance by Athletics and Spirit Ministries
Dec 22 - Jan 6th Winter Holidays!
Jan 7 - First Day Back to School
Jan 8 - Hot Lunch - Pizza
Jan 8 - Coffee Time and PAC meeting @ 6:00
Projects complete....we actually did that!!
Thank you Mr. Scott for all you do for us every day!
Physical literacy is important learning for growing bodies
Message from your Administrative Team
The weeks leading up to the holiday break move swiftly and provide opportunities for reflection on the needs within our local and wider communities. Many classes have engaged in giving initiatives, technology and coding projects, and a focus on building on math fluency. Staff continue to work on encouraging student voice within the classroom and beyond.
Global Read-a-Loud is a program that allows classes to join other classes around the world in reading the same novel. Novels are carefully selected every year for their rich messaging. The goal as students engage in this shared experience of collaboration around ideas "to show students that they are part of something bigger than them. That the world needs to be protected and that we need to care for all people" https://theglobalreadaloud.com/. Visit the global read aloud site to learn more. This year, Ms. Dudley's class enjoyed "Amal Unbound" and was able to Skpe with other classes to share their ideas and questions. Ms. Dowdell's class shared "A Boy Named Bat" and used programs like FlipGrid and class discussions to dig into the concepts introduced through the novel. In Ms. Boritis' class, students tried their hand at Reader's Theatre, experimenting with using their voice as a dramatic tool and improving reading fluency. Many classes have also been focusing on developing students' use of voice in their writing, experimenting with different perspectives, word selections and literary tools to showcase and stretch their writing in a variety of ways.
The week of Dec 3-6 brought the Hour of Code to many classes from Ms. Jarbeau and Mr. Bruder's primary classes, to Ms. Greenless' students who were excited to try coding dances to popular songs. Ms. Jarbeau's classroom is very excited to begin using the two Dash robots that we co-funded by Parent Council last year. for coding activities in the classroom. Our partnership with Bayridge Secondary School students continues weekly with an extra-curricular coding club on Wednesdays. The club will be hosting a coding fest and sharing the games they have created for classes to visit and try out in the Great Hall this month. Lancaster looks forward to hosting two Bricks for Kidz programs again starting in the new year for primary and junior students, more information about sign-up will be shared.
Student leadership at Lancaster is healthy and we have been excited to see our students engaged and growing important skills in this area. The Ministry of Caring spearheaded the ShoeBox Project and has been working hard to gather items from class donations and preparing them for women and children impacted by homelessness across Canada. Our Spirit Ministry showcased a fashion show at our last sharing assembly to share the upcoming holiday spirit days for the last week of school. See these listed in our Upcoming events section. Our Jingle Bell walk was another example of giving with generous donations offered by our school community at Lancaster for the South Frontenac Partners in Mission foodbank.
In the area of athletics and physical literacy, we have been excited to implement our Yard Pal program with our students in grade 5 and 6. Intramurals and open gym have been organized and offered by members of the Athletics Ministry. The ministry also looks forward to planning our FitGo at the end of December and a Jump Rope for Heart event in February. Lancaster volleyball teams had successful seasons with both the girls and boys teams showing tremendous growth and successes throughout the season and at the end of year tournaments. Basketball season is on the horizon with tryouts now in their beginning stages for teams to begin practising in the new year.
As part of the launch of the School Messenger platform within Limestone this year all schools, we will be moving to a new safe-arrival system in the new year. Please see the section in this newsletter to learn more about how to report your child's absence at school. More communication will be coming from your child as a letter home to families. As part of this system, you will be receiving automated calls related to your child's unreported absences at school. With this automation, we are able to connect with parents more efficiently and ensure student safety in a timely manner. As well, the LSDB is implementing Communicate as a way for the board and schools to send vital information via voice mail, text message or email to parents and school communities. It is essential as we implement these new systems that your contact information is up to date within our data system (phone numbers and email addresses). If you change cell phones, change employment or would like to change or add a preferred email address please make sure that you have updated it with our main office. We will continue to use Remind, Twitter and website as our main methods of communication and will be making some shifts to our new systems which provide a similar function and greater services to parents. Schools in the Napanee area are currently piloting the implementation of cashless payment system for field trips and items such as hot lunch. This is one of the functionalities of the new platform that is on the horizon for the remainder of LDSB schools in the 2019-20 school year. We appreciate your patience and will continue to provide our community with updates as they become available.
Thank you parents and guardians, for your positive partnerships with our team of educators at Lancaster. We are all working together to ensure our students are successful and happy at school. For parents/guardians of our Kindergarten to Grade 3 classes, we look forward to seeing you at our Jingle Mingle sing-a-long on December 13th at 6:00. We wish you and your children a wonderful holiday season, filled with good health, happiness and special time spent together.
Your leaders in learning,
Lani Fox and Sara Wellwood
Message from Your Parent Council Chair
Dear Lancaster Families,
It’s just past 10:30 pm on the first Sunday in December, and my house is sound asleep with the exception of my little corner office where I am sitting in front of my computer screens, flooded with memories of holidays’ past. It’s moments like this that I typically look back on the year and I’m thankful for every challenge and experience that has come to teach me and influence my life. Memories of holiday seasons past are always extra special moments of reflection and tonight is no different.
The excitement and joy of the season may sometimes be lost to us as adults, but not as children. Now, I look forward to driving around our community with my children to see the many light displays our neighbours have taken the time to present for all to see. There is so much to be grateful for in our little community and this is the time of year to be reminded of all the things to be thankful for.
With all the running around and getting everything ready before the winter break we can sometimes be distracted, even if it’s just for a minute, from what’s important about this time of year. I would like to take this time to wish everyone in my extended Lancaster family the happiest of holidays and express my warmest appreciation to the teachers, staff, and volunteers who lovingly create a safe learning environment for our most precious gifts each and every day.
The coming year will be a busy time for your parent council with many new and exciting ventures to come. Your council is working diligently on our three-year plan in conjunction with the school’s and board’s three-year K-12 learning plans. The framework of our plan involves your parent council supporting our school in four areas, Literacy, Math, Social Climate, and Communication. As previously discussed, the planning committee for the upgrades to our yard, which falls under Social Climate in the learning plans, is well underway and we will be meeting to discuss the scope and scale of what our community can support. This meeting will take place in the new year and will be open to all parents wishing to participate.
Thank you all and Happy Holidays!
Sincerely,
Mike Marchand, Chair
Lancaster and all LDSB schools introduce new two-way absence reporting system January 14
One of our greatest priorities is ensuring that all our students arrive safely to school. To enhance our existing absence process, we are introducing a new, more efficient absence-reporting system called Safe Arrival.
This new system will make it easier for you to report your student’s absence, reduce the time it takes for our school staff to verify student attendance, and respond to unexpected or unplanned student absences. This time savings makes it faster and more efficient to account for all students and their safety.
The new student absence reporting system will let you use a mobile app, a website, or an interactive toll-free phone number to report an absence in advance. These options are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Future absences can be reported at any time.
If your student is marked absent and the absence hasn’t been reported in advance, our new SafeArrival system will attempt to reach the student’s priority contact by telephone to confirm the absence. If our system is unable to reach the designated contacts, school office staff will follow up.
How to report an absence using SafeArrival
There are three ways you can report your student’s absence in advance:
1. Using your mobile device, download and install the SchoolMessenger blue app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store or from School Messenger website or you can select it from within the LDSB mobile app. The first time you use the app, select Sign Up to create your account. Make sure you use the same email address your child’s school has on file. If you do not use that same email address, you will not be able to create an account. You You may have already created an account when we introduced the Communicate broadcast system. Select Attendance, then Report an Absence.
2. Use the School Messenger website. The first time you use the website, select Sign Up to create your account. Please ensure you use the same email address your student’s school has on file. If you do not use that same email address, you will not be able to create an account. You may have already created an account when we introduced the Communicate broadcast system. Select Attendance then Report an Absence.
3. Call 1-855-257-9349 toll-free to report an absence using the automated phone system.
Please do not call the school directly to report your student's absence.
This new system will begin on January 14, 2019.
· Frequently asked questions [insert hyperlink to Board site]
· Using the School Messenger App for Safe Arrival [insert hyperlink to Board site]
Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we implement this new system.
Lancaster Parent Council Fundraising
Hi Lancaster community! A quick reminder of our ongoing fundraising initiatives for Lancaster - including Mabels Labels, Cobb's Bread and FlipGive. Please see details below.
Thank you for your ongoing support!
Mabels Labels
Cobb's Bread
Love tasty baked goods from Cobbs Bread?? Every time you visit Cobbs Bread Bakery at 770 Gardiners rd. in Kingston simply let them know you are supporting Lancaster School’s Fundraiser and they will donate 10% of your sale to us!
Let’s “Raise some Dough”!
FlipGive
You can now shop online at your favourite stores and fund raise for Lancaster! As part of our 2018/2019 Fundraising efforts, Parent Council is putting a 3 year plan in place to raise funds for schoolyard improvements for all divisions - primary, junior and intermediates. This is a significant project and will require a lot of hard work and dedication from our Parent Council, Staff and Community.
FlipGive allows us to earn cash back for our school for shopping online! There are dozens of retailers to shop with including Indigo, Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks, Old Navy, Sport Chek just to name a few. You can even earn cash back for the school when you purchase gift cards - great teachers gifts or stocking stuffers! Going out for dinner? Order your gift card online through FlipGive ahead of time and use it to pay for dinner....So easy & something you were going to do anyway!
How it works
- Join our Lancaster Team at Flipgive.com or download the FlipGive App from the app store
- Go to https://www.flipgive.com/teams/164409 and click on "Join This Team"
- Enter code CFKGRP
- Happy Shopping!
Feel free to also share the link and code with family & friends - anyone can join our team! Every little bit helps. We appreciate your support.
- Indigo - Gift Cards gives 15%, Shop Online gives up to 3%
- Amazon - Shop Online gives up to 10%
- Walmart - Shop Online gives up to 1%
- Starbucks - Buy Gift Cards gives 2%
- Old Navy - Buy Gift Cards gives 2%, Shop Online gives 5%
- Sport Chek - Shop Online gives 10%
- Ultimate Dining Gift Card - gives 7%
- Jack Astor's - Buy Gift Cards gives 10%
Student Safety – Safe Arrival, traffic and parking reminders
Having each of our students arrive and depart safely to and from school is of utmost priority and a shared commitment between home and school. In June we updated our families about the timeline for the parking and traffic project that has been developed as a joint effort of the Limestone District School Board and Algonquin Catholic District School Board to address the traffic patterns on Lancaster Drive around school drop off and pick up times.
With this project slated to occur in the summer of 2019, we would like to make sure the Lancaster community is aware of and following the intermediary measures that are in place for student safety.
- Our school footprint within the community plan was designed to meet the needs of a primarily walking community. If your child, or you and your child, are able to walk to school please do so. This greatly reduces the congestion that occurs with the number of vehicles. Look into options of having an older student in your community walk your child to school as a “walking school bus”.
- Please pay attention to parking signs and do not park in places that are not designated as such. This reduces vision lines for other vehicles, for students who are trying to navigate their way to school and can also prevent our busses from entering their drop-off zone. It is essential that we are looking out for the collective not individual safety of our children. One person’s convenience can create very unsafe conditions for our students – please consider this at all times.
- When dropping your child off consider using some of the access points to Dunham park and schoolyard that are not out in front of the school. Arrange for the same meeting spot when picking your child up from school. These areas are quieter and offer more ease with finding parking and greeting your child at the end of day. Some of these access points can be found off of Limestone Dr., Irving Ct., Woodside Dr. (near Marsh Cres. and Crestwood Ave.) and Dunham St.
- On inclement weather days when it is rainy or too cold for students to be outside staff will invite students inside at 8:15 when supervision begins and students will wait in the hallways until the bell rings under staff supervision. To ensure the hallways are not crowded parents should not be walking their child to the classroom door (especially on days like these) as it creates even greater congestion in the hallways and can have the impact of creating a more stressful environment for students starting their day.
- The front doors of the school are not student entry doors. If you have dropped your child off they are to walk around to the back of the school and enter at bell time with their class. Students are best set up for a successful day when they arrive on time and are able to begin their day with their peers, receive valuable instruction and join in morning routines. If your child does arrive late they may enter the front doors and report to the main office to receive a late slip and have their arrival recorded on our attendance records. When signing your child in please do not walk them down to their classroom as this is disruptive to the classroom and does not reinforce in your child the skills and independence they exhibit throughout the day
Thank you to our families for supporting safe arrivals and departures for all of our students. We are a community of caring adults and share this responsibility with you.
Stay connected with board's new mobile app
The Limestone District School Board is excited to launch our new mobile app designed to enable students, families, staff and the broader community to stay informed about district and school news and events.
The free app (Limestone Dist School Board) can be downloaded for Apple in the App Store or for Android in the Google Play Store. Users can also select “push notifications” when they download the app to receive the latest news from the district and your school(s).
The new app will allow users to subscribe to their schools of choice and will provide families with instant access to school calendars and news items as well as links to sports schedules, busing information and social media accounts. New information will continue to be added to the app.
“Our new, official mobile app empowers everyone in our school communities to stay connected and up-to-date on the information that they want and need using the convenience of their mobile device,” says Director of Education Debra Rantz. “The app will allow the school board and our schools to manage and share content in a more timely manner with our families, students and staff.”
The mobile app is the latest tool in a new suite of electronic communication tools being deployed by the school board to improve communication with families and our school communities.
- New and improved district and school websites were launched in late spring.
- All schools will begin using a broadcasting tool called Communicate that allows the Board and schools to push important messages to students, families, and staff via voice mail, email or text message. The tool is linked to the Board’s student information system and families will choose how they wish to receive these important messages. Some schools are beginning the new school year with Communicate. All schools will introduce the tool by the beginning of October.
- The Board is piloting Safe Arrival, an enhanced two-way absence reporting tool with Southview Public School this September. This new system will make it easier for you to report your student’s absence, reduce the time it takes for our school staff to verify student attendance, and respond to unexpected or unplanned student absences. Safe Arrival will be rolled out to all schools during the upcoming school year.
- Some schools in the Greater Napanee area will begin piloting a cashless payment system that will allow families to pay for field trips, hot lunches and other items online. The system will also schools to include any necessary permission forms to increase efficiency and privacy.
We are excited to unveil these new tools to our school communities. We will share more information as each new tool is introduced. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we improve to serve you better.
Coffee Time is Back!
This fun community building event has been sponsored locally this year by Starbucks.
Parent Council Account Balance
The Parent Council account balance
as of November 30, 2018 is
$5,734.56
Submitted by Lyndey Caves, Treasurer
Music Lessons
Piano
Tanya Bezanson
613.539.8342
Guitar
John Porter
613.328.6070
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