CHARACTER COUNTS AT ELIZABETH IDE

PBIS

Later this year, Elizabeth Ide will be implementing an approach to discipline called Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). PBIS is a proactive systems approach to establishing the behavioral supports and social culture needed for all students in a school to achieve social, emotional, and academic success.

As a Response to Intervention model, PBIS applies a three-tiered system of support, and a problem-solving process to enhance the capacity of schools to effectively educate all students.
Data-based decision-making aligns curricular instruction and behavioral supports to student and staff needs. Schools applying PBIS begin by establishing clear expectations for behavior that are taught, modeled, and reinforced across all settings and by all staff.

While we are being trained to implement this program, we will continue our Positive PAWS (Positive Amazing Wonderful Students) Program. Our students can earn pawprints for demonstrating the Pillars of Character (Trustworthiness, Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, Caring, Citizenship) anytime during the school day. The paws are brought down to the office and six lucky students are drawn each month to win a certificate and other "pawsitive" items. One student each month wins a Character Counts t-shirt or poster. All of the paws are hung on the Positive PAWS bulletin board at the end of the month.

RtI Begins Again

RTI

RtI will begin for our first graders on Monday, Sept. 13th and on Monday, Sept. 20th for our second graders. Letters went home today stating who your child's reading teacher will be. Our entire teaching staff works together to make this education initiative as productive as possible for our students. Therefore, your student may have a classroom teacher or one of our specialists as their reading teacher. Who the teacher is does not reflect on your child's abilities, but enables us to have teachers work with smaller groups of students to enhance their educational experience at Elizabeth Ide. Kindergarten RtI will begin after the first trimester. The following link will take you to a brochure created by District 66 to better explain RtI to you; http://www.ccsd66.org/Montes%20Website/HomePage.html . Please scroll down to "RtI: A Parent's Guide."


I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and if you have any questions please feel free to email me at jhansen@ccsd66.org or call me on Monday at 630-783-5200.

WELCOME BACK

I can't believe this will be day 3 of the school year - the summer just flew by. I really enjoy hearing the children's voices again, it gets pretty lonely in the summer!!

During the Open House I heard many positive comments about the building renovation, I am so glad that everyone is enjoying the new look. Please know that my office door (and ears) are always open if you need anything. I am looking forward to working with our new and returning families this year. Welcome back and let the fun begin!

SUMMER NEWS

This summer has been very busy and filled with unexpected (but) happy surprises.

The Ide renovation is coming along nicely and the school looks terrific. I cannot wait for our Open House so everyone can see the changes - for a sneak peek check out Dr. Tiede's blog for pictures :)

The Hansen household has increased by one! Marc a beautiful and wonderful 3 year old boy has moved in and filled our home with love and happiness. I have been able to introduce him to many Ide families as we've been out and about in the neighborhood.

I hope all of you are having a terrific summer and enjoying time with family and friends.

THE YEAR IS ALMOST OVER

I can't believe we are at the end of another school year. I have enjoyed working with all of you and your children this year. For those of you going on to Prairieview I wish you the best of luck and hope you'll come back and visit us here at Ide; especially since we'll be renovating the building this summer.

The renovations will begin immediately after school ends on Wednesday, June 2nd and should be completed by mid-August (keep your fingers crossed)!!! If you need any assistance during the month of June the office will be relocated to Prairieview (630) 783-5100. Once we are back at Ide we'll send out an email informing all of you.

When everything is complete I will be posting some before and after pictures so that everyone can view and enjoy the changes. I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing summer!!!!!

THANK YOU PTO

UNIQUE ASSEMBLY

We are so lucky to have such wonderful, supportive and generous members of the Elizabeth Ide PTO. They spend so many hours helping the staff and students enrich our educational and social programs. Last Friday, the PTO treated the students to a "Unique Assembly". At this assembly students were put into teams and asked questions from our very own curriculum, that's what makes it unique :), questions about current events and pop culture, as well as having to perform some physical challenges. It was very exciting and the students absolutely enjoyed themselves.

TEACHER APPRECIATION

This week the PTO has supplied wonderful lunches for the staff of our school for teacher appreciation. A BIG Thank You goes out to everyone who sent in the delectable goodies. We have truly enjoyed each and every lunch and have gained at least 5 pounds apiece!

APRIL POSITIVE PAWS

Friday, May 7th the PTO has scheduled an Author Assembly for the students. This author writes books in a series called USA Dogs. He has written about racing greyhounds, therapy dogs and search and rescue dogs. He will be bringing his Greyhound, Honey, with for the assembly. As a special treat he has offered to eat lunch with the students to discuss his books. To choose the students, we picked 16 PAWS instead of 6 for the month of April and those students will get to eat lunch with the author.

The lucky winners are: Abbie S., James R., Jacob S., AJ F., Sadie M., Jake D., Tony T., Kathan A., Jacob P., Claire V., Kate S., Lucas G., Lily V., Dana K., Sydney R. and Brett K.

Congratulations :) I'll post a picture on Friday!

DISTRICT 66 GENEROSITY

Two events have taken place this past month that really show the generosity of our district.

The district PTO held their annual On-Line auction which brought in a whopping $8,300.oo! This money supplements the technology we are able to bring our students. A big thank you goes out to Jill Hegarty and Cheryl Ferreri for gathering all of the fantastic auction items and running the auction with the help of our technology director Kathy Kucera.

The response to the Adopt-A-Rainforest coin donation was tremendous! While collecting the coins over a week period, WE RAISED $293.58!! The students, parents, and teachers at Elizabeth Ide really contributed to raising the awareness about the importance of rainforests. Our donation will be used for a conservation project in either Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, or Nicaragua. I have asked the Rainforest Alliance to allocate our donation to the neediest project. Thank you for supporting our Character Counts program and Earth Day 2010!