From Elisa...

The Child Protection Network is having its annual CASAnova Competition for the Crown fundraiser and I am one of the "CASAnovas" this year.  For those of you who don't know, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) works with children in McLean County who have been victims of abuse. They walk with them through the entire legal process, from preliminary interviews to court appearances. This organization has assisted several of our own students and, while this is out of my comfort zone, I am happy to be helping to raise money for this wonderful organization. 

If you would be interested in supporting this outstanding organization (and helping me meet my fundraising goal), please consider visiting my CASAnova page and voting by donation. Thanks so much! 

PBIS Tier 1 Data & Instructional Committees met to discuss March data and our April/May targets. We developed a similar theme to what we did last year about this same time with some updates including this year's data. What is that target? You guessed it: finishing strong. Please teach this lesson in core classes during the week of 4/24. There will be no lesson in May; however, we encourage staff to revisit student goals (slide 16) and discuss how they can hold one another accountable. Because our Cougar PRIDE letters in April in May are Determination (Finishing Strong) and Excellence (Celebrating Successes), we feel this is especially applicable. Feel free to make it your own to reflect your students.  

The following email is going out to 8th grade families this week:

Hello Eighth Grade Families,

We are so excited to host an 8th grade dance on Friday, May 12, from 6-8 PM at KJHS!  This will be a wonderful opportunity for 8th grade KJHS students to spend time together celebrating all they have accomplished as they look forward to the exciting high school times ahead.  We can’t, howevere, do this without all of you.  The Eighth Grade Parents* host the dance!

Here’s how you can help:

1. Make a purchase from the Amazon wish list for decorations and favors. You can ship to the school by typing in the Kingsley address:

                       KJHS Attn: 8th Grade Dance

                       303 Kingsley Street

                       Normal, IL 61761

2. Sign up on the Sign Up Genius to donate food and drinks. You can drop your donations at the school, or Sam’s Club Plus members can have purchases delivered to the school for free.

3.   Donate by sending a check to the office or PayPal to KJHSPTO@gmail.com as “Friends” with a memo to 8th grade dance.

4. Sign up on the Parent Volunteer Sign Up Genius to help the night of the event. We need adult volunteers helping that night to make this a safe and special event for our kids.  Parent* volunteers must complete the Unit 5 volunteer screening by April 26 to assist.

 *Parents is meant as an all-inclusive term, including guardians, grandparents, and responsible adults.  Siblings and other children will not be able to attend the event.

Have questions? Check out the KJHS Family 8th Grade Dance FAQ! 

PBIS Field Day is on Monday, May 22nd and there will be no advisory that day. Field day will be held during 6th, 7th, and 8th hours. Here are things teams need to be aware of...

• Teams need to start collecting $5 from all students to cover costs of Inflatables & Kona Ice.

• There will be 3 rotations during Field Day. Come Back rooms will be during 6th and 7th hours with those students then being sent to participate in the third rotation (8th hour).

• Students and teachers will need to clean up at their last station and students will be dismissed for the day from that station.

• Teachers are to actively remain with their team and assist with the stations.

• In event of rain: 1 station would have to be classrooms/Arends.

• Rotation Supervision will be coming out soon.

Okay, so he's not AWOL, but Officer Phillips is out for training this week. Administration will contact another Unit 5 SRO if the need arises. 

Please do not enter The Gathering Place on Wednesdays unless you are attending an IEP meeting. Students needing something from the Promise Council store room will need to wait. We are planning on moving that store room for next year. 

Please be sure to put absences in Tyler as soon as possible. Kim has had to enter many absences on behalf of staff members lately in order to process payroll in a timely manner. 

Megan Peterson sent out an email on 4/18 on notifying staff that the Public Health Emergency legislation regarding COVID is set to expire on May 11, 2023. This means that: 

• Unit 5 employees will no longer be able to use COVID sick time.  

• Any illness that leads to an absence will need to be covered by regular “Sick” time. 

• Staff are no longer required to report any COVID case(s) to the Unit Office.  

• Staff should follow “traditional” sickness protocol after May 11.  

Writing Spring Benchmarks should be underway with a deadline of 4/27 in EduClimber. Please reach out if you have any questions. What do you do with the remainder of the class period? May I recommend "Sparks" - short, purposeful writing prompts developed by 826 Digital. I've used these as transitional activities between units, sub plans, and have even grown some out into larger pieces of writing looking at specific standards such as word choice. I encourage you to check out 826 Digital for ideas!

Sincerely,

Janel Sebeny

The KJHS May Countdown Calendar has been published! 

The April KJ Family Connection was sent out to our KJ families on Wednesday, April 5th. 

May 2: 8th Grade Field Trip

             Orchestra Field Trip

May 4: Mo's Food Truck

May 11: 6th Grade Welcome Night (6:00 - 7:30 pm)

May 12: 8th Grade Dance (6:00 - 8:00 pm)

May 17: Data Day

May 22: PBIS Field Day (7th & 8th Hours)

May 23: Butcher Block Food Truck

May 24: 6th Grade Field Trip

May 25: 8th Grade Awards (1st - 3rd Hours)

               Chromebook Collection

Unit 5 is hosting a session of Freedom School this summer. Freedom School is for middle school students interested in African American history and literature. All students entering 6th grade through completion of 8th grade are eligible and transportation and meals will be provided. A student recommendation form should be completed by staff and a registration form completed by the student's family/guardian. 

PTO is hosting a Gobena Coffee Fundraiser. Please check out the flier for more information. 

If you are planning field trips for your class please be aware that Unit 5 Food Service can provide sack lunches for all students.  Sack lunches must be offered to ALL students participating in the field trip.  Those who qualify for free or reduced-price meals must not be singled out or identified in any way.

A sack lunch includes the following items:

• PBJ Uncrustable (EZ Jammer may be substituted for peanut allergy)

• Sunflower Kernels

• Whole Grain Crackers (e.g. Goldfish, Cheez-its, or Animal Crackers)

• Baby Carrots*  

• Celery Sticks* 

• Apple Slices

• Apple Juice 

• Choice of Milk (students’ choice)

* If sack lunches are ordered on short notice, cold vegetables on hand may be substituted.

To request sack lunches, please notify Lisa Branch two weeks prior to the date needed (to allow time for ordering needed supplies) and include the following information.

• Date and time needed

• Estimated number of lunches

• Is pick up time more than 2 hours before students will eat?  If so, a cooler with ice will be needed to keep milk cartons cold.

Student lunch accounts will be charged for the meal.  Sack lunches may be picked up using one of the following options:

1. Each student comes to the lunchroom to get a meal, chooses milk, and presents their student ID to be scanned.

2. Lunches and milk are packaged and prepared for pick up.  The food service provided class roster can be used to provide a list of students requesting lunches.  The list will include the following information:

• Student first and last name

• Student food service account PIN number

• Class code

• Milk choice (chocolate or white) – can provide a total of each flavor per class 

Lisa must verify that students are present before distributing lunches.

We are in uncharted paper waters where not only do we have more colored paper on hand than white paper, colored paper is also less expensive than white paper. As such, we are asking that you pleae use colored paper whenever possible for the next few weeks. Thanks in advance for helping us stretch our remaining resources!

Take a look at the  April Instuctional Technology Update. In addition, don't forget that you have access to Go Guardian for the remainder of the semester as well as Book Creator.  Amber sent out an email today outlining multiple resources regarding Book Creator. 

Here's a review for Go Guardian from our very own Jenny Starkey:

If you haven't tried Go Guardian, please give it a try. It's a really great platform that allows teachers to see student screens, shows a timeline of every minute of student use, allows you to get data on inactivity, gives a variety of reports that can be sent to parents, allows for screenshots, gives teachers the ability to chat directly with students, close tabs, send a website to a student, lock student screens and even create a list of websites that only lets students be on the sites that you choose. A new feature is the 'Check In' button that allows the students to click on an emoji so that you can take a quick pulse of your class without having to interrupt the class. 

Beginning on April 11, office-issued lunch detentions will be served on the stage of the cafeteria. There will be a lunchroom supervisor there to sign students in and monitor behavior. Students will not be allowed to go to the RESET room during lunch. 

Following spring break, we will no longer be assigning in-school suspensions to be served on Wednesdays so Mr. Thompson can fulfill his Tier 2 mentoring responsibilities. If a situation arises where a student has to be taken out of circulation and cannot be sent home, an administrator will monitor them in the RESET room. 

Please do not forget that your mandated trainings need to be completed by May 1, 2023. 

When writing referrals, please be sure that time on the referral is the time the incident happened and not the default time of when you wrote the referral. Accuracy in time of incident is important as it helps us track when students are having issues during the school day. This then allows us to implement interventions that have a better chance of supporting these students. 

Hearing things about ChatGPT? Here is an excellent resource created for educators by educators explaining this Open AI resource.