The Panther Post
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News & Updates from
Gum Springs Elementary
August 7-11, 2023
News and Updates
Thanks for your help making our change in traffic pattern a success this week. From Day 1 to Day 2, we were able to start our school day 14 minutes earlier, and we know that will continue to get better and better! To help keep all of our students and staff members safe during arrival and dismissal and to keep our procedures working efficiently, it is very important that cars DO NOT CHANGE LANES for any reason once you enter double-lane traffic. Thank you for your patience and flexibility.
Our instructional day begins at 7:40 A.M. Please make sure your child is walking in the school doors by 7:35 A.M. to ensure he/she is in his/her classroom in time for instruction to begin. We will begin issuing tardies on Monday, August 14th. If a student arrives after 7:40 A.M., he/she will need to be checked in at the front office by a parent or guardian. Please do not drop off students in the back of the building after 7:35 A.M., beginning August 14th.
Thanks to our GSES PTO, Panther/Jaxco/GSES spirit-wear is now for sale online. Designs that were avialable at Open House are also available at PTO's online store through August 11. Click HERE to order.
JCSS is hosting a Back-to-School Community Kick-off event on Thursday, August 10 before the JCHS vs. EJCHS football scrimmage. The event will be held before the game on the EJCHS practice field at 5:00 P.M. See graphic below for more details. We hope you can join us for an evening of family fun!
August breakfast and lunch menus are available HERE.
Did you notice the purple flag flying in front of GSES at Open House? That is in honor of our students in the Pawnee (purple) tribe who won the tribe of the month award at the end of May last year. Congratulations, Pawnee! Stay tuned for more information coming soon about this year's exciting plans for student community-building and recognition.
GSES has a very active and supportive Parent Teacher Organization and volunteer network. Volunteers help our school run smoothly and are very much appreciated by our staff! If you would like to get updates about GSES volunteer opportunities or information about our PTO, please complete this short form. The form also includes examples of ways volunteers can help at GSES. We will send email updates when volunteer opportunities are available. Thank you for your help making our school great!
Upcoming Events
August 10: Panther Spirit Day! Join our staff in wearing your red and black to show our Panther Pride, as JCHS takes on EJCHS in their Thursday scrimmage to open the 2023 football season.
August 10: Back-to-School Community Kick-Off, 5:00 P.M, EJCHS
August 11: PTO Spirit Wear Order Deadline
August 11: Summer Reading Challenge forms due to GSES
August 12: Hashtag Contest Deadline
August 24: Cub Scout Sign-ups, 6:30 P.M.
Back-to-School Checklist
Have you...
Set up your Infinite Campus Parent Portal Account? (This is what allows you to receive Remind messages from your child's teacher and from GSES.)
Signed off on reading the JCSS Student Handbook in Infinite Campus?
Completed the following forms?
yellow Emergency Evacuation form
pink Health Information form
salmon P.E. form
green Parent Occupational Survey form
Completed a Free & Reduced Meal Application at Linq Connect or added money to your child's cafeteria account?
Ordered your child's class shirt if interested?
Need help with any of these tasks? View last week's edition of our Back-to-School newsletter in the "Previous Editions" section for more details.
SCHOOL SPOTLIGHTS
Open House
It was GAME ON this week as we held Open House on August 1 to welcome all of our GSES Panthers back to school! We loved seeing lots of smiling, excited faces and getting lots of high fives and hugs. The anticipation of a new year is an exciting time, and we loved being able to celebrated with our students and families. This year, we’ll be exploring what it means to “BE A GAME CHANGER” who helps our school and community. You can view more pictures of this great event on our GSES Facebook page.
First Day Fun!
What a fantastic first day of school at GSES! We had lots of fun all being back together again and getting to know our new classmates and teachers. We unpacked lots of supplies, read some great books, played on the new playground equipment, tackled some scavenger hunts, drank a little Jitter Juice, and enjoyed some yummy popcorn chicken for lunch. (And we even managed to get lucky enough to dodge the big storms both before school and after school. How lucky are we?!) One of the highlights of our day was the school-wide first day STEM challenge. Classes from Kdg-5th grade had a great time getting their brains warmed back up for a year of great learning and working collaboratively with their classmates.
Our GSES theme for this school year is “Be a Game Changer” and our school-wide engineering challenge was a great way to explore what that means. First, we listened to the story “Stuck” by Oliver Jeffers. In the story, the main character, Floyd, gets his kite stuck in a tree and works through several ideas to get his kite "unstuck". He learned how to persevere until he found a solution. Our STEM challenge was to create a different solution than the one in the story for Floyd to be able to rescue his kite from the tree. Not only did students discuss how to be a game changer when solving a problem but also how to come up with ways that could help them when they are in a situation and feel stuck. Students worked in teams to make a plan, create a solution, test their designs, and explain their creative idea to the class. We saw some amazing problem-solving, teamwork, and creativity from our students! There were so many different ideas that came from teams who each had the same bag of supplies.
You can view even more pictures of our Panthers hard at work problem-solving and having some first day fun on GSES Facebook page.
4th grader Kitty was the first student to arrive on the first day and got her picture made with GSES Principal, Mr. Todd. Congrats, Kitty!
PANTHER SUPPORTERS
Thanks to Moss & Mane Hair Co. for generously donating lunch for our staff last week. It was a much-appreciated treat during a busy day of Open House sessions! We appreciate your support as a GSES Partner in Education. If you are interested in becoming a GSES Partner in Education, please reach out to Hannah Freyre at hannah.freyre@jcss.us for more information.
The day before the first day of school was a very busy day at GSES, full of professional learning and final preparations. Thanks to Christ Place Church helped who helped our staff get it started on the right note by providing Chick-Fil-A breakfast. We are excited to have your new Jefferson campus as part of our school community, and we appreciate your support and encouragement!
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