Dear Falcon Families,

It has been a wonderfully eventful week at FES!  Our Fall Festival Carnival was incredible!  Thank you, PTA, for all that you do to make these experiences and memories for our kids possible!  My own little family of 4 joined in on the fun and had the BEST time on Saturday with the games, experiences, and delicious food!  I loved seeing our Falcon Families sharing in the carnival festivities and enjoying our school together!  

We have had so many events this week as we kicked off the week with a performance from STAND for Red Ribbon Week and they shared with our kids to "Stand Up, Stand Strong, and Stand Out" and encouraged them to be kind to their minds.  We also enjoyed a preview of the Addams Family Musical from Keller High School as they visited FES as their first stop of their tour.  Our students enjoyed hearing the songs and seeing the Tango dance! 

Storybook Character Day has been such a fun day as we have shared in the celebration of reading with Storybook Character Day! There have been so many smiles shared today and I have loved seeing the creativity and excitement behind each of the costumes!   We welcomed several Keller High School band and theatre students who read to some of our classes today and we had several KISD principals and district leaders joining as guest readers!  Our students met their reading buddy from another class today and shared in some of their favorite stories together with an older or younger student.  We also had a visit from Watson Polk who shared with our 4th grade students using an assisted communication device that utilizes eye gaze technology to speak.  We also welcomed Robert Hollmann, who is a local author of Texas History and a FES grandfather!  He visited with and read to our 3rd and 4th grade students today!  It has been a fun day of reading and a perfect way to close out the last Friday in October! Thank you to our parents who joined us today for the parade and congratulations to all of our costume winners who received a fun gift bag from our librarian, Mrs. Roberts and will also be receiving a book to take home on Monday! 

At the conclusion of each event, I am always so in awe of the Falcon spirit and the passion that our community shares for our school!  As a principal, that is such a wonderful feeling and I am so grateful for those who lead, serve, participate and share in these events and activities for our students!  Thank you! 

As we move into the month of November, our students are continuing to deepen their learning, and it is hard to believe that we are already looking ahead at the middle of the year!  November will bring  some opportunities for us to  see how we are progressing as we will be conducting the STAAR interim (3rd and 4th grade students) and conducting our middle of the year MAP tests.  These tools provide us with a snapshot to measure the growth of our students and to determine how successful we have been on the learning so far, and what areas we need to continue to reinforce to ensure that our students are learning and growing well!  We  are so proud of all that they are doing and grateful for the incredible learning experiences that our teachers provide for them each day!   We also appreciate our parent support and partnership in working together to help our students learn and love their time at Florence!

In Falcon Spirit, 

 
Courtney Brandel