Good Morning Highline Elementary Families,
Welcome to the 2017-18 school year. We have spent the last two weeks with teachers preparing for the year, and it is wonderful to have students back in the building today. This week, students are practicing routines and procedures that will set them up for a successful school year, and we want to make sure that we also set you up for success as parents and guardians by providing you with information regarding routines and procedures for this year. A new school year always brings some new changes. As an organization, we continually seek new ways to support our students and families. There are a few shifts that we want to make you aware of as we head into the 2017-2018 school year.
Please read through the information below and reach out with any questions.
Morning and Afternoon Community Time
We have been sure to include at least 10 minutes of community time each morning and at least 15 minutes of community time each afternoon for students to be in homeroom building classroom culture and community. While we still have a full academic day, we want to make sure that we are honoring our mission by supporting student’s personal and civic growth as well as their academic growth. Teachers have intentionally planned rituals and routines to ensure that this time is purposeful and addresses student needs. Teachers will share grade specific plans for this time at Back to School Night on September 1st.
The Schedule
This year we have tried to simplify our schedule by building in fewer transitions between classes. Students will all have a literacy (reading and writing focus), math, and science or social studies block each day, along with specials and either Spanish or DEAR. This year, students will visit the library weekly with their literacy class during the literacy block. Our lunch/recess times are different this year; 2nd grade - 5th grade will have lunch/recess from 11:05 - 11:50 and Kinder and 1st grade will have lunch/recess from 12:25 - 1:10. Kinder and 1st will have a morning snack as well.
Science and Social Studies
We will be using Science Alive! And Social Studies Alive! As our core curriculums this year. These curriculums are in line with the middle school science and social studies programs and also provide common core aligned reading and writing tasks to students in both classes. The Science curriculum was just written in 2015 and aligns to the Next Generation Science Standards, an exploratory based philosophy about teaching science. The social studies curriculum has been established for several years and was revised in 2014, the curriculum focuses on how students interact with their communities and the world, a philosophy that is directly in line with Highline’s mission. We are excited to share more about this curriculum with you at back to school night.
Behavior Systems
This year we will continue to use the clip chart in Kindergarten through 3rd grade. All students will start on green each day and will either clip up to blue or purple or down to yellow or red. Each grade level will provide incentives to students who end the day on purple and will reach out to parents to collaborate when students are struggling to clip up.
In 4th and 5th grade we will use Class Dojo to monitor student behavior in line with our REACH traits of responsibility, empowerment, aspiration, citizenship, and honesty. All students will have a profile that can be accessed by all homeroom, performance group, and specials teachers during the day. Parents can also access Class Dojo and check in on student points on a given day or for a full week. Students will receive incentives monthly for reaching a certain number of points.
Restorative Justice
Last year we began to implement Restorative Justice across Highline and we will continue with it this year. Restorative Justice is a behavior system that helps students process how their actions impacted other students and community members. Restorative Justice is focused on helping students see the harm that they have caused and determine how they can repair the harm. This is not used in place of consequences for behavior, but in conjunction with behavior and consequence systems.
We look forward to partnering with you this year in your student’s education!
Best,
Sarah Verni-Lau Steve Vaughan
Interim Principal Assistant Principal
Welcome to the 2017-18 school year. We have spent the last two weeks with teachers preparing for the year, and it is wonderful to have students back in the building today. This week, students are practicing routines and procedures that will set them up for a successful school year, and we want to make sure that we also set you up for success as parents and guardians by providing you with information regarding routines and procedures for this year. A new school year always brings some new changes. As an organization, we continually seek new ways to support our students and families. There are a few shifts that we want to make you aware of as we head into the 2017-2018 school year.
Please read through the information below and reach out with any questions.
Morning and Afternoon Community Time
We have been sure to include at least 10 minutes of community time each morning and at least 15 minutes of community time each afternoon for students to be in homeroom building classroom culture and community. While we still have a full academic day, we want to make sure that we are honoring our mission by supporting student’s personal and civic growth as well as their academic growth. Teachers have intentionally planned rituals and routines to ensure that this time is purposeful and addresses student needs. Teachers will share grade specific plans for this time at Back to School Night on September 1st.
The Schedule
This year we have tried to simplify our schedule by building in fewer transitions between classes. Students will all have a literacy (reading and writing focus), math, and science or social studies block each day, along with specials and either Spanish or DEAR. This year, students will visit the library weekly with their literacy class during the literacy block. Our lunch/recess times are different this year; 2nd grade - 5th grade will have lunch/recess from 11:05 - 11:50 and Kinder and 1st grade will have lunch/recess from 12:25 - 1:10. Kinder and 1st will have a morning snack as well.
Science and Social Studies
We will be using Science Alive! And Social Studies Alive! As our core curriculums this year. These curriculums are in line with the middle school science and social studies programs and also provide common core aligned reading and writing tasks to students in both classes. The Science curriculum was just written in 2015 and aligns to the Next Generation Science Standards, an exploratory based philosophy about teaching science. The social studies curriculum has been established for several years and was revised in 2014, the curriculum focuses on how students interact with their communities and the world, a philosophy that is directly in line with Highline’s mission. We are excited to share more about this curriculum with you at back to school night.
Behavior Systems
This year we will continue to use the clip chart in Kindergarten through 3rd grade. All students will start on green each day and will either clip up to blue or purple or down to yellow or red. Each grade level will provide incentives to students who end the day on purple and will reach out to parents to collaborate when students are struggling to clip up.
In 4th and 5th grade we will use Class Dojo to monitor student behavior in line with our REACH traits of responsibility, empowerment, aspiration, citizenship, and honesty. All students will have a profile that can be accessed by all homeroom, performance group, and specials teachers during the day. Parents can also access Class Dojo and check in on student points on a given day or for a full week. Students will receive incentives monthly for reaching a certain number of points.
Restorative Justice
Last year we began to implement Restorative Justice across Highline and we will continue with it this year. Restorative Justice is a behavior system that helps students process how their actions impacted other students and community members. Restorative Justice is focused on helping students see the harm that they have caused and determine how they can repair the harm. This is not used in place of consequences for behavior, but in conjunction with behavior and consequence systems.
We look forward to partnering with you this year in your student’s education!
Best,
Sarah Verni-Lau Steve Vaughan
Interim Principal Assistant Principal