Behave with Care

One of our Core Values is “Behave with Care.” We want everyone to focus on building positive relationships with students and classroom routines/procedures during the first few weeks of school.

One way to build positive relationships with your students is to greet your students. We expect all teachers to greet their students at the door every morning from 7:40-8:00 AM. This will assist with safety by monitoring our students in the hallways. But most importantly, it helps you to gauge your students’ moods so you can be proactive instead of reactive. 

Please position yourself in a way that you can still see inside your classroom and have a Do Now posted to avoid unwanted behaviors from occurring within the classroom. 

School Goal-Behavior

 

As I mentioned during August PD, we are not starting anything new for the A, C, or E of the ABCDE goals. Instead, we will continue to strengthen our effective initiatives. You are a critical component of us achieving our “B” goal to decrease our total number of student behavior counts by 3% from 1734 (25-26 SY) to 1,682 (26-27 SY).

To achieve this goal, it’s important that you start the year off strong with classroom management. As we begin a new school year, remember this: the first days set the tone for the entire year. Classroom management is not about strict control—it’s about creating the structure, consistency, and safety that allow students to thrive.

When you start strong, you give your students the gift of clarity. They know what’s expected, they feel secure, and they understand that your classroom is a place where learning matters. This foundation builds trust, minimizes disruptions, and maximizes time for the joyful, engaging teaching you love to do.

It’s always easier to ease up later than to tighten expectations after the fact. By investing the time now to establish routines, model expectations, and hold students accountable, you’re laying the groundwork for a year filled with growth, respect, and success. Please use our 3 Most Common Behavior cheat sheet as a resource for starting strong! I’ve placed the blue Level 2 Investigation Strategies sheet in your mailbox. All behavior resources that we discussed during August PD are located on the Office Drive—2026-27 Teacher Documents—Behavior folder.                         

School Goal-Academics

Every student deserves the opportunity to grow, and this year our focus is on making sure our instructional supports are strategically aligned to student need.

Our “D” goal is to increase our Reading M-STEP proficiency from 66% to 69% in the 2026–27 school year.

We already have intentional support in place for our students who need the most intervention. Our bottom-quartile students will continue to receive targeted support through our intervention structures, instructional paraprofessionals, and other resources identified through our data. At the other end of the spectrum, our advanced students are served by them having their own classes, allowing us to provide instruction that continues to challenge and extend their learning.

That brings us to our greatest opportunity for growth: our bubble students.

These are the students who are approaching proficiency and are often just a few skills, strategies, or points away from reaching that benchmark. With the right support at the right time, these students have the potential to make the difference between 66% and 69%.

You can access our Road Map that outlines how we will identify, support, and monitor these students throughout the year by clicking here. We will use multiple data points to identify our bubble students, strategically assign intervention teachers and instructional paraprofessionals where they are needed most, and adjust our support as students demonstrate growth.

The goal is not simply to identify our bubble students—it is to move them forward. We will achieve our destination of 69% by removing roadblocks, providing the right support, and keeping every student moving toward proficiency.

Family Connections

 Family connections for new students are due Friday, September 4, and family connections for returning students are due on Friday, September 11. 

We are asking that you have an actual conversation with 100% of your families. This can be accomplished with two attempts. If you are unable to reach a family by phone, send them a follow-up email to schedule another time to talk. Please download and complete this sheet when making these phone calls. You will bring the sheet to your O3 the week of September 15 to discuss it with your dean.

I am asking everyone to please complete this task with integrity. Please do not mark that you spoke to a family if you did not. Instead, you can show the follow-up email to your dean which lets us know that the family was unresponsive to both your attempts (the phone call AND email).

Thank you for taking the time to make connections and build relationships with our families. This supports several Core Values and our attrition goal.

Attendance Initiatives

 

In addition to Strive for 5, we will continue our own attendance initiatives. The first step is to be prepared for Classroom Perfect Attendance and 94% Daily Attendance on the first day of school. You can read about all our attendance initiatives here. Lastly, it is important that you engage your families by providing weekly updates in your classroom newsletters. Please feel free to create an “attendance” section where you highlight your classroom progress. For example, you could say, “Families, we had no tardies, absences, nor early dismissals for two days this week earning us the “H” and “E” from the word “HERE.” Once we spell the complete word, students will earn a celebration. Please help us achieve this goal by avoiding absences, tardies and early dismissals when possible. Thank you for your partnership.”

I will be communicating all our attendance initiatives to families in my August 30^th Sunday Night Newsletter.

Technology in Classrooms

We believe in supporting the whole child and intentionally creating opportunities for students to develop their social and interpersonal skills. Because much of the school day is spent listening, learning, and working independently, we want students to have opportunities to connect, communicate, and interact with one another whenever possible—during lunch, recess, and through engagement strategies built into classroom instruction.

For this reason, students cannot use technology or watch movies during lunch or dismissal. During indoor recess, technology may be offered as one option among a variety of activities, but it should not be the sole or primary choice. Our goal is to ensure students have meaningful opportunities throughout the day to interact, build relationships, and simply be kids.

Affirmations

 

Keystone Staff for your participation, engagement, and enthusiasm during August PD. I’m always proud to be a part of the Keystone team! 

Steve for taking my music selections and video and making them accessible. Thank you for taking time away from your summer break to make my presentations more engaging.  

Tameka, Robyn, Sally, and Stacey Reed thank you for everything! I am beyond thankful for all the things that you have done to help us prepare for this upcoming school year. No one can imagine the number of hours, days, and effort it takes to plan and prepare for the upcoming school year because you all make it look so easy. I would truly be lost without you. Thank you for always being willing to do whatever, whenever!

Stacey Ramirez for taking care of our staff t-shirts.

Sally, Robyn, Stacey Reed, and Tameka for creating content and leading sessions during August PD. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and expertise.

Stephanie for ALL the things that you have done this summer to make sure that our August PD went smoothly. From food, purchase orders, and errands –our PD would not be successful without you.

Stacey Ramirez for always going above and beyond to help me with so many things. You do a lot of behind-the-scenes things that no one even knows. I am always so grateful.  

Tracy, Monique, Christina Robyn, Stacey Reed, Stacey Ramirez, Sally, Stefanie and Tameka for spending an evening with our new families. I appreciate you volunteering time during the summer to support our enrollment efforts.

Mandy, Kim B, Megan, Sandy, and Sally for welcoming our new Y5s and Kinder families during the Barnyard Bash. I appreciate you volunteering time during the summer to support our enrollment efforts.

Alex and Andria for your time and energy into our Summer Learning program. Your commitment ensured that our students had a summer filled with learning, growth, and support. Thank you for helping our students stay on the path to success.

Tracy for creating a Google Sheet that makes it so much easier to track classroom supply spending. I appreciate you finding a way to make my job a little easier.

Ellen, Andria, Cindy & Jane for reviewing our Road Map and making sure the information was accurate and aligned to our goal. Your attention to detail is appreciated.

Kim J., Heidi & Taylor for putting up all the bulletin boards and making our school look so welcoming for Family Fun Night. Your hard work made a difference.

Stacey Ramirez for the unexpected breakfast surprise! It was such a thoughtful gesture and truly made my day.

Kathleen for thinking of me and surprising me with a sweet treat. You always make me feel special.

Sally for using your expertise to create a new BST meeting form that will help streamline our process and make our meetings more efficient. 

This Week

Monday, August 24:

     ·      First Day of School

     ·      PTO Yahoo Parent Breakfast

Tuesday, August 25:

     ·      Y5-8 ORF Benchmark 1 (8/25-9/1)

     ·      Christina’s Birthday

Thursday, August 27:

     ·      Morning Assembly Presentation Due (Schoolwide Procedures)-Kaminski  

     ·      Technology Assembly @8:45 AM

Friday, August 28:

     ·      Coffee Truck from PTO 7-9 AM

     ·      Morning Assembly (No Parents)

     ·      Staff Reference Guide Acknowledgement Form Due

Saturday, August 29:

     ·      Andria’s Birthday

Happy Birthday

 

Happy BELATED Birthday

Jen R: July 1

Megan W: July 4

Teri: July 8

Stacey Reed: July 12

Heidi G: July 14

Mark: July 22

Linsey: July 28

Cindy: August 10

Diane: August 14

Stephanie: August 17

Tracy: August 20 

There is a special gift in the mailboxes of all the people who celebrate their birthdays in July, August & September.

Important Dates

 

September 1: SLT Meeting 3:50 (Diane’s Room)

September 2: Flo’s Birthday

September 2: Grade Level Events Submitted to Jorvonna

September 2: GL Intervention Meetings

September 3: Leadership Catalog Due

September 4: New Family Connections Due

September 4-7: No School-Labor Day Weekend

September 8: Morning Assembly Presentation Due (Hispanic-Latino Heritage: What & Why)-Caruso

September 5: Payday Breakfast-?

September 7: Extra Dismissal Schedule Submitted to Dean

September 8-30: K-8 Fall NWEA

September 8: Staff Meeting

September 8: Staff Meeting Snacks-3^rd Grade

September 10: Morning Assembly Presentation Due (Constitution Day)-Sauve

September 11: Family Connections Due

September 11: Fall Parent Meeting for Federal and State Programs 8:15

September 14-18: 1-2 Fall Math Numeracy

September 15: Taylor’s Birthday

September 15: Dismissal Extra Prep Begins

September 16: Education Benefit Form & School-Parent Compact Due

September 17: Morning Assembly Presentation Due (Hispanic-Latino Month: Who & How)-Khafagi

September 18: Rachel’s Birthday

September 18: Social Contract Posted

September 18: Substitute Binder Due

September 18: Payday Breakfast-3^rd Grade

September 20: Tammy’s Birthday

September 21: Fall Picture Day

September 22: Education Benefits & Parent-Student Compact Jeans w/Appropriate Top Day

September 22: PLC Meetings 

September 23: SpEd Open House

September 24: Morning Assembly Presentation Due (Global Diversity Awareness Month)-Robinson

September 24: Jacquelyn’s Birthday

September 25: Spirit Day $1.00 and Popcorn $1.00

September 25: Y5/Kinder Social Media Post Due to Jorvonna

September 28: Jorvonna Out of the Building (Bay Mills)-Robyn Acting Principal

September 29: Sally’s Birthday

October 1: Field Trip Location & Date Submitted to Jorvonna  

*If you have an event to add or something has been forgotten, please let me know!