Welcome and Overview

It is a pleasure to welcome you to Escondido School. I hope to see you on Back to School Night on August 27 at 6:00. When you join us, I would appreciate it if you would jot down anything that comes to mind about your child that you feel it is important for me to know. The more information I have about your child at the beginning of the year, the easier it is to plan academic and social-emotional goals for the first semester. You will also find a blank sheet of paper upon which you may draw a picture or leave a note to your child. These notes can be mailed in the mailboxes by the door.

Donations: I will be requesting a nominal donation of $10 from each family at the beginning of school to help defray production costs of supplementary classroom thermal bound booklets. I have designed these booklets over the years to augment existing curriculum, some of which is Gate material for gifted students. Please also be sure to read the hand-outs about additional P.I.E. donations that are being requested from each family.

Field Trips: Many of these will be scheduled with Tiffany Wong's second grade class. We will be taking walking field trips in the neighborhood, and you will receive a permission slip authorizing these excursions. On longer trips, I will need parent drivers. In order for you to be eligible to drive, you need to supply proof of specific insurance coverage. For further information, ask Bella in the office to give you an insurance information card that she can keep on file. If any parents are willing to allow us to tour their workplace I would be very happy to do this because learning about jobs within the community is part of the second grade curriculum. Our first field trip is November 10 to the UCSC Life Lab. The trip is an all-day outdoor lab to understand the growth cycle and harvesting of plants. If you are able to drive on this trip and spend a day with us, please let me know right away. Former parents have indicated that this is their all-time favorite field trip.

Library: Our librarian is Kristen Lee. She will be providing story time, book check-outs, and instruction in the computer lab on Thursdays. Ms. Lee opens the library most mornings between 8:00 and 8:10 for children to return books. If you have not yet done so, be sure to tour the library!

Birthdays: We like to celebrate birthdays in class. It is important that you email me if you would like to bring a snack for you child's birthday, so that I know what you're bringing ahead of time. Please bring a simple, nutritious treat (e.g. fruit, vegetables and dip, sugar-free fruit Popsicles) at 9:45 before recess. Please have the treat sliced or in child-sized portions ready to serve on plates or napkins at the picnic tables beside the play structure. Do not bring party hats or favors. Also, please mail any party invitations you may be giving to classmates. Feelings get hurt if children find they are uninvited. Children with summer birthdays can celebrate them with us in June.

Food Allergies: Please advise us if you child has specific food allergies so we can notify our Room 11 families.

Student of the Week: We designate a student from each class to be Student of the Week at our Wednesday Assembly.

Recycle Your Old Books into Our Reward Crate: After a child has read a certain amount of literature and written about it in their Reading Response Journal, I reward the child by letting them choose a free book from the Reward Crate and take it home. I have a crate of donated children's' books next to the ball basket called the Reward Crate. This is a big motivator, but I need high quality books donated for this purpose. If you are at garage sales or book sales and see books (especially chapter books) in good condition, please consider donating them to our crate. Also, if you and your child are cleaning you child's room and have outgrown books in it, please bring those in. This is an ongoing need throughout the year. When you are ordering inexpensive Scholastic Books, please consider ordering an extra one to donate to the crate. Last year a parent had a birthday party for her daughter and asked the guests to bring to the party any books that they were no longer reading. The next day three huge containers of books arrived in my classroom for us to use on our shelves and put into our reward Crate. Please consider doing this.

Communications: If you need to contact me or get information to me before 8:10 a.m. on a school day, please dial the Escondido school number 856-1337 and leave a voice mail message on our extension 111. I check the phone messages at 7:45 am daily. You can also email me at alaughlin@pausd.org. Truthfully, I sometimes do not check email until noon. Other communications may be found in your child's red Friday folder. Please look through the material in it carefully and discuss all work we send home positively with your child. Our school newsletter, The Globe, is also an important source of school wide information that comes out every other week. I will be posting important class information on my web site in a newsletter, which will come out the first Monday of each month. Please be sure to check it regularly. Paper copies of the newsletter will not be sent out unless you request a copy. I also archive all my past newsletters on this site, so they're available if you inadvertently miss one.

Conferences: The first parent-teacher conference will be scheduled the last week of October and the first week of November. They will all be held after school. I will always alert you if we need to have a conference before this time. I would appreciate it if you would communicate any significant family changes (i.e. moving, death in the family, job changes) throughout the year that might impact your child. Please see the parent-teacher conferencing tips included in this handbook.

Progress Reports: We have a Progress Report that is a Developmental Continuum at each grade level. A copy will be mailed to you at each of three marking periods, and a final copy put in the CUM file in the office. Since these include only a limited space for teacher comments, feel free to request additional explanations if you are unclear about the information on the report. If parents are living at separate addresses, please be sure that I have both addresses so that I can forward two copies of the Report.

Illness: Please do not send your child sick to school. Here is how we define sick: persistent coughing, thick runny nose, sore throat, strong headache, fever, flu symptoms, very low energy. The District guidelines require that your child be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school. I often have kids relapse the day following a fever. As a Mom myself, I am very good at spotting illness in children and will not hesitate to send your child home. Please try to think of a backup person you can contact to pick your child up if you are at work during the day.

Tardiness and Lunch Policy: I appreciate having children arriving on time in the morning. My door will be open at 8:05 each day. Remember that late children must report to the office, and if they normally purchase a lunch you will need to call Judy (our clerk in the office) before 9:00 to inform her that your child needs a lunch. When I take the attendance promptly in the morning I will be asking all students if they will be purchasing a lunch that day. I will be recording both the student's name and the choice of lunch. This information is sent directly to the office and phoned in to the District Office. There is an attempt being made this year to have the correct number of lunches available. Children who do not place a lunch order with their teacher in the morning will be given milk and an apple. There will be no other substitute lunch available. See Judy for further lunch inquiries in the office.

I look forward to working with all the students this year. Please do not hesitate to email me for an appointment if you would like to discuss any issues throughout the year.