August 28, 2026

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Supportive, Positive, Encouraging - These are the 3 descriptive words that we decided we wanted our school culture to be like this school year.  This section will be focused on celebrating the ways that we are collectively modeling actions, words and language that fits with our culture goals for the year.

• Supportive: As the inservice week has gone on, I observed many of us helping one another by answering questions to new staff, welcoming visitors to our Open House and preparing the classrooms and materials for the students that are starting on Tuesday.
• Encouraging: Shout out to Patti and Ella who did a great job of welcoming and calming anxiety of new families entering our school for the first time this past week.  She helped them get through the enrollment process and also started to build relationships with the new students and their grown ups too!
• Positive: There are a lot of new things going on this school year and I know it can be stressful, but I appreciate all of the ways that so many are embracing the changes with positivity.  I observed staff engaged in the meetings, asking questions, and working hard to prepare for the year.  I appreciate it so much!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, August 31
• Flex Day - Ella will be in the office from 8-2ish

• Tuesday, September 1
• AM Duties:
• Bus Duty on Big playground: Brenda Caine, Fortmann, Tietz
• Breakfast - Mook
• 3K/4K Playground - Donovan, Houk
• Lunch Duties:
• 12:00 - Braunschweig, Stampfl, Wagner
• 12:30 - O'Toole, Oestreich, Arnes
• 1:00 - Schellpfeffer, Bingen
• PM Duties:
• Buses in Back - Klink, Knibbs
• Circle Drive - Jenkins
• Support Staff Duties for September (check master schedule for times)
• Breakfast line: Blasia
• Breakfast Tables: Eneida
• AM Meet buses at Stop Sign: Brittany
• AM Meet bus #11 and Van: Betsy and Melissa U
• PM Parking Lot: Eneida, Betsy
• Social Media Posts due on Class Intercom this week: Donovan, Schuett, Juech
• Jenny will begin reading to classrooms this week. Schedule is HERE.

• Wednesday, September 2
• Workout Wednesday
• Patti's daughter should be entering the world today!
• Jenny in a meeting from 8:30-10:30am

• Thursday, September 3
• Fire Drill @ 10:15am

• Friday, September 4
• Purple Pride Friday

Nitty-Gritty

• Playworks recap
• Maggie was very pleased with the reboot of Playworks from the training last Thursday. She will be back in the building throughout the school year and will be visiting classrooms to model a new game for your class and give you feedback on a game that you are leading.  Play is a very important way for students to learn and apply SEL skills and also ways to take a brain break during the day as well.  More and more I'd like to give our students these experiences and then time to reflect and talk about how this fits to the SEL skills that we are focusing on throughout the year. In order to do this, please plan for a Playworks in the classroom game as you are lesson planning.  Maggie will also be back in the building on September 18 to help with Field Day when we reinforce and teach the core games for recess. If you have any questions, please let me know.

• Nurse Katie's Info
• Katie went through a lot of information with us last week. Please take a moment to review the ice pack guidelines and the pdf of when to send a student to the nurse's office.  In addition, if you need bandaids for your classroom, please let Ella know and we can get them for your classrooms.  If you have any questions regarding health plans or ways to care for one of your students, please reach out!

• Expectations Review with Mrs. Chambers
• If you haven't signed up for a time for Teresa to come in and meet with your class regarding behavior expectations and recess guidelines, please do so as soon as you can. The sign up is HERE.

• Question of the Week
• This school year, we will have a question of the week on a whiteboard on the counter in the elementary office.  Please stop in during the week and put a tally mark under the category that fits with your opinion/thoughts.  At the end of this first week, there will be a special treat for us related to the first question!

• Parking Lot
• Please refrain from parking in these front row spots so that we can keep them open for the numerous 3K parents that need to walk their child into the school.  Below is a picture of the space that I am talking about. (It's between the big rocks on either side.) Let me know if you have questions.

PD Spotlight

Dom and I ran out of time to share this Ted Talk at the Para meeting, but I think it is a VERY good reminder of the most important part of our work! It is about 7 min. long and totally worth all of our time to watch and think about as we start a new year.  It's going to be a GREAT year; I can feel it!

Friday Funny (on a Sunday)

As I look at the beautiful classrooms around the building, I wonder how many of us had these thoughts as you were working on the classroom.  And some of you will watch this 2.5 min. video and not understand why I think this is funny at all!  If that is you, just know I am very, very jealous!  :-)