Dear PCE families,
It seems unreal that this school year is coming to a close in just a few weeks! This second half of the year has gone by in the blink of an eye!
I want to update you on some of the things that are happening now and moving into next year. As this year comes to a close, you will notice that we have quite a bit of movement in our school and in our classrooms. We are fortunate to be able to ADD four new classrooms and teachers to our building next year. This has been made possible in part, by opening a full day kindergarten classroom and the growth of our community. In addition to these four teachers, we also have some teachers and staff members that have chosen to take advantage of other opportunities. With all of this change and movement, I feel it would not be prudent to participate in the tradition of "meet the teacher" at the end of the year. I would like ALL children to be able to benefit from this tradition and at this time I am not sure we will have our entire staff hired, assigned and present by the last day of school.
Prairie Crossing is growing! We are already planning to begin our year with more students than we currently have. With this said, it is very important for me to maintain a balance of class sizes. As we continue to enroll children throughout the summer there is always a possibility of needing to open another section of a grade. If this does happen, that particular grade level will be completely re-shifted into balanced class rooms, therefore some children will be moved from the originally created classes. I feel that it is not beneficial to
announce classes now and then have a change come in the middle of the
summer.
This year several factors will contribute to the possibility of change during the summer,-- new classrooms being opened, teacher turnover, and neighborhood growth. For these reasons I have made the decision not to announce classes until the week before school opens. Each parent will be notified by email when parent portal has been updated and each parent will be asked to sign up for a "Get to know you" Conference that will be held with you, your child and their teacher on August 11th or 12th.
This year we will also have a yearbook signing party for the children on June 3rd during specials. This will allow children to meet with kids from the entire grade level to have their special memories captured. If a child has not purchased a yearbook they are welcome to bring an autograph book of their own or we will have some on hand so everyone will be able to join in the fun!
I want to thank the community of PCE for their support and generosity during our Hardware Hustle Fundraiser. Together we raised over $25,000 dollars to help us achieve purchasing enough Chrome Books to make grades 2nd through 6th a one-to one environment! What an accomplishment!! Don't think we have left first and kindergarten out though. We will continue to have Macbooks and IPads available for them to use to enhance their learning experience also! I would like to thank our technology teacher, Debbie Blair and all our classroom teachers for all the hard work they have put in to authentically integrating technology in our students learning environment!
This has been a wonderful year! Dr. Malouff and I love being part of the PCE family and look forward to continuing a great relationship with our community!
Sincerely,
Carrie Rotherham
Principal
Prairie Crossing Elementary
