Phone Message 12/15/19

Good afternoon to all of our Cub Families.  This is Mr. Vernon with announcements for our last week of school before Winter Break.  First, thank you to all of our Cubs who donated on Holiday Hat day.  We were able to donate $429 to the Relay for Life.  That means we had 429 fun hats on campus Friday.  It was fun to see them all.  This week will be another exciting week at Deep Creek.  On Tuesday, December 17th our chorus students will be performing in our annual Holiday Concert.  The concert will begin at 6:30pm in our cafeteria. Please join us for an outstanding performance.  I know they have been working hard preparing for this night.
Our teachers will also still be working hard this week to continue learning, so attendance is still so important.  However, even with all that learning we do have two more opportunities where our students can join our staff in celebration.  Thursday is Grinch Day.  Students will be allowed to wear a green shirt to school with their uniform bottoms.  Our goal on Grinch Day is spread kindness to our community and we will be collecting and donating food items to our local Homeless Coalition.   We will post their Holiday Food Wish List to this email and on our Facebook page.  We are hoping that on Thursday our Cubs will bring one item to their class and just like the Grinch their heart will grow three sizes when they discover the power of kindness and giving.  Finally, on Friday our students can participate in Pajama Day and wear their pajamas to school.  Appropriate footwear will still be needed as students will still have PE and participate at recess.  
Thank you all for listening, I am excited for this week and can't wait to see our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs tomorrow morning.  Have a great evening.

Monday Memo for 12.9.19

The ten day countdown has begun!  The coming days will be tiring, but fun at the same time with all of the planned dress up days and yummy treats that will be provided.  We hope that this helps keep your spirits high and will float you through to winter break.

A big thank you goes out to James and Joanne for hosting our staff holiday party at their home on Saturday evening and to all of you for bringing delicious foods to share.  It was a great night of togetherness and laughter.  Getting to take a few hours to breath and spend time with one another was great.  Our DCE staff is truly a family.

Many of you have been implementing ideas mentioned in PD sessions or from your own research into your classroom lessons.  Below are some pictures from Sarah Baldwin's classroom that may spark some ideas for you!

 

In this picture, students are proving their progress up the standards ladder by posting a student work sample at each rung.  This is a great way to get students interacting with the ladder and understanding what is expected of them at each level for mastery.  Not only did the students in this classroom need to learn the content at each rung, but they had to "prove" that they had the rung to mastery and at the appropriate rigor level.  Even if you do not use ladders in your classroom, think about the ways that you communicate to students the learning goal, how they own it, and how they know they have attained it.  The use of the ladder in this way also helps boost the score for element 5: organizing the physical layout of the room.  In that element, the rubric provides teacher and student evidences at the top.  Two of these evidences mention that items around the room are student created and are attended to by students.  It also mentions that these items should be related to the current content. This is an example of that portion of the rubric!

Sarah has also found a way to increase student academic ownership in her classroom by the way that she has set up her word wall in her classroom.  The word wall is student created and is referenced without teacher prompting on a regular basis in her classroom.  Most progressions for standards begin with having an understanding of the vocabulary needed to get through the content.  This small tweak in her classroom has improved the likelihood that students will reference the wall and master the vocabulary.  And, just like in the previous picture, it supports the expectations of element 5 as it is student created, attended to throughout the lesson, and related to current content.

One last quick picture from Sarah's room!  Here, you can see students doing a Kagan Structure to discuss what they recorded on their sticky note.  Sarah provided students with a sticky note and asked them to answer a question at the start of her lesson that was related to content learned the previous day.  After having independent work time, Sarah partnered students up to discuss their answer on their sticky note.  Sarah circulated the room during the independent work time and during the partner discussion to take mental note of the level of retention of the content of the previous day to determine her starting point for the new lesson.  Sarah selected key students after the partner discussion to share their information with the class and she clarified any misconceptions through additional student response chaining.  This review was brief and engaged all students !

Here is this week's schedule.  

We hope that you have an amazing week!  -Keli and James

Phone Message for the Week of 12/9/19

Weekly Messages for Week of 12/9/19

Good afternoon Cub families,

This is Mrs. Sare calling with our messages for the upcoming week. Our Candy Cane Lane shop is still open the first half of this week and our last few classes will be shopping. If your child would like to participate please be sure you have completed the needed information on their money envelope.

Although we are busy learning in our classrooms it is also time to have a little bit of fun! This week there will be two special opportunities for the students to join our staff in celebrating the holidays. On Wednesday, our students are welcome to wear holiday themed socks to school. On Friday, we will be participating in a fundraiser for our school's Relay for Life Team. To do this, we are allowing students to wear a holiday themed hat or headband to school for one dollar. Students will bring in their dollar to their homeroom teacher Friday morning if they are wearing a hat or headband! This allows us to have some fun while supporting a great cause. On both days, students will still be expected to be in school uniform.

DCE will continue to have school all this week and the following week with our last day for students being December 20th. During that last week of school before winter break we will be allowing students to participate in two more dress up days and wanted to give you some preparation time! On Thursday, December 19th, students will be allowed to wear a green t-shirt or Grinch shirt to school as we will be hosting a Grinch Day and will be working throughout the day to spread kindness to others. On this day students still need to wear uniform bottoms. On Friday, December 20th, our students can stay nice and cozy and wear their pajamas to school!

We are looking forward to the upcoming two weeks before break. Even though this is a busy time of year, please help us keep school attendance a priority. Our goal is to remain above 96% average daily attendance and during the month of November we slipped quite a bit below that goal. Keeping our students in school all day keeps them in routine and shows them just how much we value school and learning. Of course, we do understand that some circumstances are unique and unavoidable.

I hope that you have a great rest of your Sunday afternoon with your family. I am looking forward to seeing our ready, responsible, and respectful Cubs at school bright and early tomorrow morning!

Phone Message for Week of 12/2/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families,
     This is Mrs. Sare with some messages for our upcoming week.  Tomorrow, our Candy Cane Lane store opens.  This store will be available during school hours for our students to shop.  Each homeroom class has been assigned a shopping day and time.  The flyers with their date and time went home about a week and a half ago and also included the money envelope as well as directions on how to prepare for shopping.  This shop is a wonderful opportunity for your child to purchase small gifts for their family members and friends.  If you would like for your child to participate, please take a look at the details on the flyer.
      Tuesday night will be our December SAC and PTO meetings.  These meetings will be held in our media center and will begin at 5:30 pm.  This month's meeting includes FSA testing information and a presentation from a member of our transportation department about a parent survey that is going home this week. PTO will also be discussing our upcoming events and reviewing the success of our OTIS fundraiser. Speaking of PTO, they are in need of volunteers as well!  Please check SignUp.com which is posted to our Deep Creek Elementary Website in the bottom left hand corner.  Volunteers are needed to assist with our Candy Cane Lane shop as well as our OTIS fundraiser prize events which take place during school hours.
     On Thursday, we will also be hosting our Candy Cane Lane evening event.  Please consider joining us in our cafeteria and courtyard from 5:30 to 7:00 pm to visit with Santa, watch a movie in the courtyard, participate in many holiday games and crafts, and also shop at our Candy Cane Lane store!  Our third grade team will even be selling delicious treats that night.
      Friday night is the Tree Lighting ceremony in downtown Punta Gorda.  Our chorus will be there to join in on the festivities.  Mr. Vernon and I are looking forward to seeing many of you there!  The fun continues Saturday morning with many of our students participating in the Girls on the Run 5K event at Laishley Park.  Our girls have been training hard and have learned many valuable lessons that have prepared them for this event.  Their perseverance and the support of their running buddies will show through this Saturday!
      Finally, our December school newsletter has posted to our school's website.  Please take a minute to read through it!  I hope that you all have enjoyed a few extra days home with your families.  I'm looking forward to seeing our ready, responsible, and respectful Cubs back to school tomorrow morning.
December Newsletter:   
https://sites.google.com/yourcharlotteschools.net/dces/december?authuser=0
Volunteer Sign Up:
https://signup.com/group/765026996040?utm_source=group-badge-volunteer-green

Phone Message for Week of 11/25/19

Good afternoon Cub Families,

This is Mrs. Sare with this week's reminders. We hope that you had a wonderful time at our Music and Measurement Night. The turn out was amazing and we can't thank all of our volunteers enough for taking their time to be at DCE to allow our students to have some fun! Who would have thought we would ever be lucky enough to see a helicopter land in our back fields? We also hope that you found your time visiting your child's classrooms and looking through their leadership notebooks valuable. Our students were so excited to show off their progress so far this year with you.

This week is a short week. Our Cubs will only attend school on Monday and Tuesday and will then be heading into our short fall break. Starting December 2nd, our Candy Cane Lane store will be open during the school day. Your child should have brought home a flyer last week that explains how our store runs. This packet included a flyer that shares the date and time that your child will be scheduled to shop and an envelope for you to send in money if you choose. We will also have our Candy Cane Lane shop open in the evening on December 5th from 5:30 to 7:00 pm. At this event, not only can you and your child visit the store, but we will also have Santa on campus, a holiday movie, and many stations of activities for our Cubs to participate in. We hope that you can join us.

Last week we shared some reminders about school jackets and sweaters now that the weather is cooling off. We'd also like to remind you that this same policy applies to leggings and tights. Students are welcome to wear these items, but underneath their uniform clothes. Leggings and tights also need to be solid uniform colors. Thank you for continuing to support our school's uniform policy!

Those are all of the reminders for today. Mr. Vernon and I wanted to also take a moment to express our gratitude for all of our Cub Families. This time of year always causes us to pause and reflect on all that we are thankful for. Deep Creek Elementary is a special place because of our staff, our students and their families, and the community support that we have. The feeling that is in the air when we step on campus each day is energizing. We hope that your family enjoy a few days off together and that you know just how much you and your kiddos mean to us.

Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday and we look forward to seeing our ready, responsible, and respectful Cubs at school tomorrow morning.

Monday Memo 11.11.19

Thank You For All You Do:

Want to keep this Monday Morning Memo brief...  It is hard to believe that the second week of November is here.  Each day, each week and each month seem to go by so quickly.  There is never enough time to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished each day.  So often the day-to-day routines get in the way and making sure you all know how appreciated you are is forgotten.

So simply, please know that we understand that you have some of the most difficult jobs around.  You all do a fabulous job of caring and teaching our students.  You are so very appreciated.

Have a great week.

-Keli and James


This Week's Schedule:

Phone Message 11.10.19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families,

This is Mrs. Sare with some important messages for our upcoming week.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day.  Our fifth grade grade students will be hosting a tribute to Veteran's in the afternoon during their specials period.  We appreciate the service that our Veteran's have provided to our Country and look forward to seeing the beautiful tribute that our students will be making to them.

Wednesday is cookie dough delivery day!  Fundraising orders will be available for pick up from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm in our cafeteria.  As you enter our front lobby you will need to stop at the sign in table to pick up your order form that will designate your numbered boxes.  Then, you will visit the designated numbered location in the cafeteria to pick up these boxes and verify the contents.  Please be aware that we will be unable to store frozen products after Wednesday at 6:00, so it is very important that you make arrangements to be able to pick up your items. Thank you again for all of your sales as your efforts has raised a lot of money for our school!

Our Book Fair items have arrived!  Mrs. Riddell is working to get it all set up for our Cubs.  The Book Fair will be open the second half of the week for students to shop and will also be open on Music and Measurement night on November 21.  We love seeing our students selecting new books that they are so excited to read!  

Finally, I have a few quick reminders about safety for our students.  Recently we have had some families attempting to park in our bus loop area before and after school during arrival and dismissal.  Unfortunately, we can not allow vehicles to be in motion in the bus loop while buses are present.  We are working on some creative parking ideas for large school events to help remedy some parking concerns, but on regular school days the bus loop area needs to remain free of moving vehicles during drop off and pick up.  Also, it is important that all visitors that are joining us for lunch in our cafeteria are eating with their student(s) only.  All visitors that eat lunch with a student must be on that student's emergency card in the office.  

I hope that you have had a wonderful weekend with your families.  I look forward to see our smiling Cubs back to school tomorrow morning!

Phone Message 11/4/19

Phone Message 11/4/19

Good afternoon. This is Mr. Vernon letting all of our families know that we conducted a Safety Drill this morning at DCES. We are required to conduct one Safety Drill each month. Today's drill was unannounced to all staff, including myself, and operated by the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. I am proud to report that our Deep Creek staff and students did a great job with the drill. Our next drill will take place during the month of December, we will make sure that all families are notified once again. Thank you and have a wonderful evening.

Monday Memo 11.4.19

We Survived! Almost...

What a busy week we all just survived!  For those of you that are new staff, you will soon know that Halloween is just the start to a busy holiday season... so put on your seat belts as it is going to be a wild couple of months!  Keeping the routine and structure for your students is very important.  The more that you can keep things the same the less negative behavior you will see kick up this time of year.  This does not mean that you can not do fun holiday activities.  But, looking for ways to integrate these activities into your current structure will be important.  Look at the standards that you need to cover between now and winter break.  Are there ways that you can integrate some holiday reading into your literacy work stations?  Can you use holiday manipulatives for math activities?  Collaborate with your teammates to find ways to keep your focus on standards and classroom structure while still keeping the holiday fun alive for your students!

Safety Drills

Just a reminder that starting this month that we will be starting to have unannounced safety drills.  The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office will be visiting our campus and announcing that we need to go into a safety drill.  Please review your red safety folder to ensure that you are prepared for all scenarios.  ALL STAFF should be prepared at anytime to be the staff member that will need to put us into a lock down.  Please stop by to see one of us if you have any questions about any part of our plan.

Learning Walks

James and I were recently challenged to transition our visits in your classrooms from "walk throughs" to "learning walks."  The change in title alone focuses our attention to what students are learning and how they are learning it.  We have started these walks with a focus on science as this is one of our school's lowest data points.  When coming in to science classrooms, we are taking notes on four areas:

1. What standard is being covered?
2. Is this standard on pace with the District pacing guide?
3. What is the rigor level of the instruction and/or task being completed compared to the intent of the standard?
4. How does the teacher know that students have learned the day's science content?

The starts of our learning walks have uncovered some areas that we are doing well, and others that indicate some improvement that needs to be made.  We are loving that our envelopes for our science question of the week were very full for almost all of our grade levels.  Your students seemed excited to be stopping us in the hallways to talk with us about the question too!  We have also noticed that many of you have been starting conversations with your teams about science pacing and about common assessments in the area of science.  One team even met last week to begin comparing and contrasting the different assessments each team member had been using since the start of the year and discussing how these tests were administered.  We love this! These conversations are important, as some of our classroom visits indicated drastic differences in pacing and standards alignment from room to room in the same grade level. Having common grade level assessments helps to keep the focus clear on what we are supposed to be teaching our students and how we are doing this.  In our learning walks we also noticed that there were some variations in the time of day that you are teaching science based on the master schedule.  We have now gathered your accurate science block times for each teacher and will be continuing our learning walks this week.  As we mentioned at the start of the memo, the holidays often have us change our lesson plans to include holiday themed activities.  We noticed this especially in the area of science.  Many of our grade levels had students experimenting with pumpkins in many ways.  Although our students may have learned a lot, many of the activities were tied to standards of other grade levels... and were even repeats for students across many grade levels.  One example of this is examining the life cycle of a pumpkin.  Did you know that life cycles of plants and animals are written into second grade and fourth grade science standards?    We are looking forward to continuing to visit your classrooms. Please know that our intentions are to simply look for small tweaks that will help us make a big impact on student achievement for the benefit of our students!

Below is a quick peek at our schedule for this week.  

We hope that you have an amazing week!
-Keli and James

Monday Memo 10.28.19

Happy Monday!

The character parade was so much fun!  This is such a wonderful tradition at DCE that our students and families love. It could not be pulled off without the help of our office staff that fielded phone calls and questions, our custodial staff that set up sign in tables and also helped lead the parade, our paraprofessional staff that signed in and directed visitors, and our teachers that helped plan and facilitate the event.  The day continued with our 3rd graders enjoying their Field Day, fourth graders presenting their Tacky Tourist research projects, and some first graders learning about genres through a Bakery Book Tasting event.  DCE is truly a great place to be!

Weekly Schedule:

This week is a bit quieter.  Take a peek at the schedule below.  Don't forget your yummy pumpkin treat to share on Thursday!

PD: Element One- Learning Goals, Scales, and Rubrics

Thank you for participating in our first professional development session on Element One.  We hope that the information was helpful.  We have been excited to already see some of you jumping right in to using your new learning to improve student clarity on what they are learning and how they will know when they have learned it.  Many of you have even mentioned that you have started collaborating with other teachers on techniques that they are using and that you are sharing and tweaking ideas too.  This type of collaboration and eagerness to improve our instructional craft is what makes DCE great!  Below are some pictures of element one in action in some of our classrooms!  

Ms. Belous gave standards ladders a try!  Students reflected on their location on the ladder after completing an independent practice problem.  Ms. Belous was able to talk with them about how their success or need for assistance on the problem impacted where they fell on the ladder. 

Mrs. Kisiday also visited in some of our classrooms on Thursday.  She was able to pop into a classroom that also used the ladders.  She asked a student to share why they had three stickers and then another student to share why they only had two stickers on the ladder.  The students were able to explain that they were able to do that level of the skill on their own while the other student still needed more practice of that type of problem.  It was powerful to see these students in control of their learning in this way!

Child Study:

This Thursday will be our next Child Study meeting during your grade level planning period.  Please be sure that your team makes an agenda prior to the meeting of which students need to be discussed.  All students discussed at a Child Study meeting should have a Child Study form completed in EDIS by their teacher.  In addition to talking about specific kids, it is important to use this time to also talk about classroom topics that impact the success of students in the classroom.  Think about having discussion on the following questions if time allows...

• How is our iii time going now that we are a few weeks in?  How do we know that it is going well or not going well?  Are there any particular students that are failing to respond to their intervention?
• How are we supporting students at the high end of our class range?  Are these students demonstrating growth?  Are their opportunities and resources for challenging them to go deeper in the standard even though other students may not be ready to do so?

As you begin to have these types of conversations we look forward to receiving some feedback from you.  Please do not hesitate to let us know what is and is not working for you.  

We hope that you have an amazing week!  November... here we come!

-Keli and James

Monday Memo 10.21.19

This week is filled with some great activities for our students and staff.  Please be sure that you take a peek at the week at a glance below.  As we are able to get directions and schedules out to you for each event we will.  Please be sure to check your email for updates!

Mindset Matters - PBIS and GRIT

PBIS 

On Friday of last week, we started discussing student behavior.  The flow chart and the table of leveled behaviors shared with you hopefully brought some clarity.  As we look through LiveSchool we are happy to see that so many of you are using this program to praise students for their demonstration of appropriate behaviors.  As we have walked through classrooms we have students wearing hats, working with their shoes off, and even sitting in the teacher chair while completing an assignment.  The follow through with quick class rewards tied to LiveSchool points allows the students to see how great it feels to do the right thing.  Our goal as a staff is to improve behavior.  We hope to see students working hard because they truly want to.  We want to see students respecting staff members, because they see them as positive people in their lives that they want to please.  Many of our Cubs do this!  Our mindset toward student behavior plays an important role in how our students respond.  A challenge that we have for you this week is to focus on the positive choices that our struggling students are making each and every day both behaviorally and academically.  As you enter the school in the morning and see these students, as yourself, "What does this student do correctly that I can praise?" and "How can I build a stronger relationship with this student."

GRIT

GRIT is an important character trait.  It defines the willingness that we each have to tackle and persevere through challenging situations and even feelings.  How are we instilling this mindset in ourselves and in our students?  When we encounter something difficult, do we shy away from it?  Do we become overwhelmed?  Do we look at the negative side of it first? Or, do we jump into the challenge?  Do we look for possible solutions?  Do we keep working at it when we want to give up?  For our students, this may look like students filling a paper with their work to solve a rigorous math question or students marking up a text with codes and quick thoughts to find possible evidence to answer a question.  For a fourth grade student that is below level it may be trying hard every day to improve the number of math facts that they have mastered.  Below are some resources that may help you learn more about mindset to help your students or even yourself.  As we head into such a busy week... let's approach it with a growth mindset. 

Ted Talk: Angela Duckworth
https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance?language=en

Ways to Nurture a Growth Mindset in Students
https://www.mother.ly/child/how-to-build-a-growth-mindset-in-kids?rebelltitem=7#rebelltitem7

-Keli and James

Monday Memo 10.14.19

Happy Monday to all.

Last Friday morning for us started with an email from a staff member that had positive comments on how Keli and I handled a situation.  It felt good to receive that email as we take pride in working hard for DCES. Then on Friday afternoon, we had a staff member approach us about an item that we did not handle well.   It also felt good to receive that feedback as well. That may surprise you to hear that the negative feedback felt good as well? Our feeling as administration is that we need to hear from our staff what is going well and what is not going so well.  I want to strive to continue building a culture where our staff members can share when mistakes are made and offer solutions for improvement. If we can give each other honest feedback for improvement it is going to create an amazing culture at DCES.  

Some of our NET Teachers are starting their first observations this week and this is the way that we view these evaluations.  They will give an opportunity to grow and give honest feedback on what is going well and what is not going well. Just like Friday afternoon gave Keli and I an opportunity to reflect upon the feedback we were given and make a plan for improvement. A recent training for the two of us taught us to avoid the BCD. Avoid the route of Blame, Complain and Deflect, but instead use the information to Reflect and Improve.

Looking forward to a great week,

James & Keli

Phone Message 10/13/19

Good afternoon Cub Families.  This is Mr. Vernon with a few quick announcements.  The first quarter has gone by very quickly as this Tuesday, October 15th will conclude the first nine weeks of this school year.  Our students and teachers have worked extremely hard to get procedures and expectations mastered in their classrooms.  As we start the 2nd quarter make sure that your students continue to work hard as this quarter definitely sees an increase in the rigor of expectations for our Cubs.  We know they can do it, after all they know that we all expect Nothing Less Than Their Success!  There is no school for students this Friday, October 18th due to a teacher work day.  Teachers will be using this day to prepare report cards and to get ready for the next quarter.  Please continue to make sure our Cubs are at school all day, every day.  I look forward to seeing our Ready, Responsible and Respectful Cubs tomorrow morning.  Have a great evening.

Monday Memo 10.7.19

Good morning!

We hope that you had a restful weekend and spent some time sharpening the saw.  Last week we launched our first round of committee meetings.  It was great to spend some time looking through your goal setting sheets to see how much progress you have already made in establishing a mission for your committee and for dividing up the first steps of the work.  As committees continue throughout the year, please be sure to let us know what is and is not working.  We want this time to be collaborative and valuable for you.

This week we step into our first Child Study meetings which will be held during your planning time.  Your case manager will meet with you during this time.  Please be sure that you have created your agenda of the students that you plan to discuss and that all team members bring their laptops to the meeting. 

Below is our schedule for the week!

Monday Memo 9.30.19

We hope that you have had a restful weekend.  Although there are not too many major events this week, there are a few important things to take note of.  First, our school's Climate Survey opens on Monday.  Our goal is to have at least 90% of our staff complete this important one question survey.  Please take a minute to visit the CCPS website on Monday and login with your staff ID to rate how likely you are to recommend DCE as a great place to work.  Your feedback matters to us!  Our students in grades 3-5 will need to complete this survey in their homeroom classes.  We ask that teachers track which students have completed it as we also need to hit our 90% goal in this area as well.  Our students will be asked 10 questions and will have an opportunity to write comments.  

This week we will also be meeting for the first time in our committee groups.  We have gathered your input through our survey for suggested collaboration topics for each committee.  The lists for each group show many great topics that will allow all of us to come together to discuss small tweaks that will make big impacts on teaching and learning.  We couldn't be more excited to get these committees started.  Keli will be sending out directions for where in the media center building each committee will be meeting on Thursday at 7:20 am.  Be on the lookout!

We would like to give a big shout out to Kathleen Skavronek and all of her volunteers that made our "Dad's, Take Your Child to School Day" event a huge success last week.  Take a peek at a few of the fun pictures from the morning!  Wednesday mornings will often be busy with our Family Center events.  Please keep this in mind as it will impact parking.  We have discussed some out of the box options for days that we expect extremely large crowds and will send out directions for staff parking before these events.  We apologize for the parking craziness... but are super proud to say that it is the result of having such a high percentage of parent involvement at DCE!

We hope that you have a wonderful week!  We are looking forward to dedicating some time to observe in your classrooms.  It is our favorite place to be!

-Keli and James

Phone Message for the Week of 9.30.19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families!  This is Mrs. Sare with a few messages for this week.  First, thank you for all of your support during our Otis Spunkmeyer school fundraiser.  If you have not turned your packet in yet, please send it in with your child on Monday morning.  This week launches our School Climate Survey.  Beginning tomorrow, Charlotte County Public Schools will send out an automated telephone message asking you to rate how likely you are to recommend our school to another family.  We hope that you consider participating in this survey so we can hear your feedback.  Students in grades 3-5 will complete a survey in their classroom as well.  On Tuesday, we will be hosting our second SAC and PTO meetings of the year at 5:30 pm in our Media Center.  We will be finalizing our School Improvement Plan and discussing many important events that are scheduled for the year.  We can't wait to see many of you there.  Tuesday also concludes our National Attendance Awareness Month.  Our students are eager to find out which grade level will take the championship belt for the month of September for having the highest percentage rate.  Arriving to school on time and remaining in their classrooms until the end of the day is so important to maximize every minute of learning.  Thank you for helping us instill great attendance habits in our Cubs.  Finally, be on the lookout for our digital newsletter that will be sent out this afternoon.  Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, and I look forward to seeing all of our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs bright and early tomorrow morning.

https://sites.google.com/yourcharlotteschools.net/dces/october?authuser=0

Monday Memo 9.23.19

Happy Monday!  
We have a busy week up ahead.  Take a peek at our schedule of important events.

Also, this is the time of year when DCES is usually visited for our fire and health inspections.  Our goal is to be infraction free so we can ensure our families that we are taking every precaution to keep our students safe and healthy.  The link below will take you to the official list of safety rules from the fire department that we will be inspected on.  We will let you know when we will begin walk through checks ourselves to begin preparing for our visit. 

SREF Safety Inspection Checklist

Our new kindergarten class begins on Thursday!  Please be sure to welcome Pam Hertenlehner.  We are excited to have her join the DCE family.  As her class begins we will also be starting new lunch times and table numbers for some of our classes.  Be sure to check out the adjusted schedule.

We hope that you have a great week!
Keli and James

Phone Message 9/22/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families.  This is Mr. Vernon calling to give a few quick announcements for the upcoming week.  First, I have seen many Cubs wearing their robot lanyards around school.  This must mean we are doing a great job with our Otis Spunkmeyer Fundraiser.  Sales can continue through this week and PTO volunteers will be available during lunches to hand out prizes each day.  Fundraising money envelopes can be turned in to classroom teachers starting this Friday, September 27th.  Once again, thank you so much for your support.  This is DCES' largest fundraiser of the year and has assisted PTO with funding many great opportunities for our students.  This Wednesday, September 26th is the 5th annual statewide observance of "Dad's Take Your Child to School Day."  Father figures can start dropping students off at 7:35am.  Our Family Reading Center will be open and will have a photo area available to get a special picture.  In addition, there will be a special activity and a snack that you will be able to take with you to work on after school.  We look forward to seeing all of our Father figures Wednesday morning.  Next, a reminder that all transportation changes for students, for safety reasons, must be completed in writing to the child's classroom teacher.  We can not make transportation changes by phone or via email.  Thank you for assisting with keeping our students safe.  I'll end with another reminder of the importance of attendance.  We need our Cubs at school All Day, Every Day.  Thank you for listening.  Have a great evening.  I look forward to seeing our Ready, Respectful, and Responsible Cubs tomorrow morning.

Phone Message 9/15/19

Good afternoon Cub Families.  This is Mr. Vernon calling with our announcements for the upcoming school week.  Last week, our Otis Spunkmeyer Fall Fundraiser started.  All students should have brought home their fundraising packets Thursday afternoon.  This is our biggest fundraiser of the year, and as always we appreciate the support.  Students will be able to bring their sales tickets and collect their robot prizes each day of the fundraiser after their scheduled lunches.  Parents please sign the tickets for the numbers of items sold as this will be there only method of collecting these prizes.  Last week, was our first Wednesday of having our Family Reading Center open and there was a great turnout.  The Family Reading Center will again be open this Wednesday and each Wednesday of the school year from 7:00am until 8:15am.   The Family Reading Center does open early, but we still do not have supervision for our students until 7:35am and breakfast does not start for our students until 7:35am.  The idea behind opening the Family Reading Center early was for Cub Club parents that have to drop off early, others are welcome to use this early time, but will not be able to drop off students until 7:35am.  September is attendance awareness month and we want to again remind parents that attendance has huge effect on student success.  We want our students at school All Day, Every Day.  Please help us reach our goal of having an average daily attendance rate of 96.5% this school year.  One last reminder is that any change in transportation for students must be given in writing to classroom teachers.  We can not accept phone calls as a manner in which to change transportation.  Thank you for listening and thank you for helping make Deep Creek a great place for our students.  I look forward to seeing our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful students tomorrow morning.

Phone Message 9/8/19

Good afternoon to all of our Deep Creek Families.  We have many exciting things coming up this week.  This week will kick off our biggest PTO fundraiser of the year, the Otis Spunkmeyer Cookie Fundraiser.  Information and a merchandise packet will be coming home this week.  Thursday our students will be attending a kick off presentation to explain all the selling instructions and possible prizes.  We thank you in advance for your assistance with this fundraiser.  The proceeds from our Fall Otis Fundraiser assist with so many activities and materials for our Cubs throughout the year.  Another exciting event is our Family Reading Center.   This Wednesday our Family Reading Center will be open starting at 7:00am.  Mrs. Skavroneck is excited to start sharing her books with our students.  The Family Reading Center will be open every Wednesday from 7:00am until 8:15am and students must come with an adult.  Once again, we want to send a reminder about attendance.  We have a goal to have an average daily attendance of over 96.5%, so we need our Cubs in school All Day, Every Day.  Please continue to help us with this goal and have your child in school.  Thank you for listening and I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Phone Message 9/1/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families.  This is Mr. Vernon, hoping all of you are enjoying the long weekend.  Remember, there is no school tomorrow in observance of Labor Day.  Also, remember that Charlotte County Public Schools Superintendent, Mr. Dionisio, will be calling this evening with information on Hurricane Dorian and school status. Be sure to listen to his call about the latest update.  If we continue with our regular school schedule our first SAC/PTO Meeting will be Tuesday, September 3rd in the Media Center at 5:30pm.  Our agenda will include a Bullying Presentation and review of our School Improvement Plan.  All parents are welcome to attend.  This Wednesday, September 4th is the Fall Picture date.  Order forms have previously been sent home with ordering information.  All students will be getting their pictures taken and must be in their regular Deep Creek uniforms. Last, September is Attendance Awareness month.  Student attendance is very important to us at Deep Creek as it is vital to student success.  We want students at school All Day, Every Day.  We understand that emergencies happen and children also get ill, but any other times we need students in classrooms to be successful.  Our goal this year is to have an average daily attendance rate over 96.5%.  Please help us reach our goal and have your child at school, learning All Day, Every Day.  Thank you for listening.  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and Labor Day tomorrow.  I look forward to seeing our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs Tuesday morning. 

Phone Message 8/16/19

Good afternoon Cub Families this is Mr. Vernon keeping you updated for next week.  Even the rain couldn't stop us from having a great first week.  I have been very proud of our Cubs with the manner they have started this school year.  My favorite part has been seeing our older Cubs help younger students and new students find their way around campus.  It always makes me happy seeing our students support each other.  Starting Monday morning, we will allow students to be dropped off at 7:35am for breakfast.  The hope is that this extra 10 minutes will assist in parent drop off in the morning.  Classrooms will still open at 7:50am.  We are still encouraging students that are eligible to use provided bus transportation to ease traffic during arrival and dismissal times.  I again thank you for your patience as rain, traffic, and new bus routes have provided challenges during these times.  Next week we will continue with required drills.  Tuesday, August 20th will be our next Fire Drill and our first Safety Drill.  Thursday, August 22nd will be the date of our first Tornado Drill.  Safety of our students is always a priority and it is a goal to make sure we are prepared and calm during these drills.  Last, we had to postpone our Summer Reading Obstacle Course reward so students have another week to complete those reading challenge papers.  Make sure to turn them in by Wednesday.  Thank you for listening.  I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday afternoon.  I look forward to seeing our Ready, Responsible and Respectful Cubs tomorrow morning.

Phone Message 8/14/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families.  This is Mr. Vernon with a few reminder to all parents.  Remember, today was the last day that students may be walked to class.  Starting tomorrow all students will be responsible for walking themselves to class.  Supervision and breakfast will continue to start at 7:45am and classrooms will open at 7:50am.  Anytime a parent comes on campus they must have a photo ID and must report to the front office.  For many reasons, the beginning of the school year brings many challenges with traffic on Harborview Road.  We encourage students to use our bus system if you are eligible for a bus.  If your child is parent pickup make sure you have your car tag visible or be prepared to park and go into the office with your photo ID, we can not make exceptions to this rule.  Again, thank you for your patience, we want our students to enter and leave school in a positive manner so remaining calm and understanding until these issues improve is important.  Friday is our Summer Slide celebration, so please make sure your child turned in their Summer Reading Challenge to their classroom teacher. It has been great having our students' smiling faces back on our campus and I'm so looking forward to the rest of the school year.  Have a great evening.

Phone Message 8/11/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families.  This is Mr. Vernon with announcements for this first week.  I have been anxiously waiting for tomorrow for two months, we are looking forward to having our Cubs back on campus.  Remember our new school start time this year is 8:20am, we want students in their classroom seats by 8:15am.  Drop off can begin as early at 7:45am and breakfast will be open at that 7:45am as well.  We will begin dismissal at 2:50pm and just to be proactive remember that the first few weeks traffic and parent pick up does take a much longer time than usual.  It is beneficial for the school and our students if you have them get used to their normal method of transportation on the first day.  We do know that first day excitement makes parents want to walk students to class and that will be allowed on the up until Wednesday.  We believe our students are leaders and on Thursday they will be expected to walk themselves to class, but remember we have staff members and Safety Patrols stationed all over campus for assistance.  Kindergarten Open House will be tomorrow at 6pm and our Kindergarten students will begin their first day on Tuesday.  All Communication students K -5 will start tomorrow and do not need to attend tomorrow's open house.  Last, students have a few more days to finish their Summer Reading Challenge and we will have their reward at school on Friday.  It is an honor to start this school year as the Deep Creek Elementary Principal and I look forward to seeing our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs tomorrow.  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. 

Phone Message 8/4/19

Good afternoon to all of our returning Deep Creek Families and a huge welcome to our new Deep Creek Families joining us this school year.  This is Mr. Vernon your Deep Creek Principal calling to make sure that everyone has information for Open Houses, beginning of year start dates, and new school start times.  We will have three different Open Houses this school year, the first Open House will be for our New K - 5 Communication Classrooms students on Friday, August 9th from 12 pm - 1 pm.  Also on Friday, August 9th will be our Open House for grades 1 - 5.  We will open school doors at 4:30 pm to allow time for parking and visiting our Expo in the cafeteria, but classrooms doors will be open between 5 - 6 pm.  Our last open house will be for Kindergartners on Monday, August 12th from 6 - 7 pm.  All Communication Classroom students and students in grades 1- 5 will begin school on Monday, August 12th.  Kindergarten students will begin the next day on Tuesday, August 13th.  Don't forget the new school start times this year.  Deep Creek will be starting the student day 15 minutes earlier this year at 8:20 am.  We want students in their classroom ready to learn by 8:15 am and dismissal will begin each day at 2:50 pm.  Remember it's important that our students are in school All Day, Every Day.  Attendance is vital to their success.  It has been a great summer, but I can not wait for the school year to start. I definitely have missed our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs.  I can't wait to see them at Open House.  Have a great evening and see you soon.

Phone Message 7/11/19

Good afternoon.  This is Mr. Vernon calling with very, very exciting news.  The Florida Department of Education released school grades for the 2018-2019 school year and.... Deep Creek earned an A!  Mrs. McElroy, Mrs. Sare and I know that this grade is a reflection of our entire Deep Creek family and something we have been working towards for many years.  We can not thank our community and families enough for the support and positive relationships you have built with our school.  Our amazing Deep Creek staff works so hard and believes strongly that we are a Cub Family.  They do not forget each day that we are devoted to inspiring our Cubs into successful leaders.  Finally, thank you to our students.  This "A" is built on their efforts and their belief in Nothing Less Than Their Success.  This means that they understand that all they have to do is be themselves and do their best each and every day.  They should know that we are so proud of their effort.  I am sorry to interrupt your afternoon, but couldn't wait to let you all know that Deep Creek Elementary is an "A" school and we all should be so proud.  Have a great day and I can't wait to see our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs at Open House on August 9th.

Phone Message 6/16/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Cubs,
       My name is Keli Sare and I am calling you this evening to introduce myself as your new Deep Creek Elementary Assistant Principal.  I am so excited to be joining your school family and to be working alongside Mr. Vernon for the 2019-2020 school year. Prior to making my way to Deep Creek Elementary I worked at Sallie Jones Elementary as a classroom teacher, an ESE teacher, and for the last six years as the Lead teacher of curriculum and instruction for the school.  I am excited to bring some of my experience and knowledge with me but know that I will also be learning and growing along with the kiddos this school year.  I’ve been lucky to spend the last few days with many Deep Creek teachers that have been busy learning at professional development sessions or meeting to lesson plan in preparation for the new year.  Meeting other staff members that have been busy prepping materials for our students returning and those that are doing some exciting updates to our classrooms and cafeteria has been so much fun!  I can tell already that this school is an amazing place to be.  I can’t wait for all of the kiddos to return in August!  The excitement of open house and the first day of school brings me so much joy!  Until we get to meet in person, I hope that all of our Cubs are spending some much needed relaxation time with friends and family, but…. also sneaking in some reading and math time too!  Have a wonderful evening, and I look forward to meeting our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs in August.

Summer Newsletter

Wishing you all a wonderful summer. Below is the link to the summer newsletter.  We will see all of our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs on August 12th.
https://sites.google.com/yourcharlotteschools.net/dces/summer

Happy Mother's Day

Dear Cub Family,

I hope all of you ladies had a wonderful Sunday either relaxing with your own mothers or spending time with your families.  Please know that even if you don't have children of your own you serve that role for so many students at our school.  Thank you all for excepting that role and always going above and beyond.

Looking forward to a great week.
James & Adrienne

Code Red Drill 4/18/19 Phone Message

Good afternoon Cub Families this is Assistant Principal, Mr. Vernon, calling to notify that we conducted a Code Red Drill at Deep Creek today.  Per the district's request we will notify parents each time that we conduct a Code Red Drill.  Once again, today's Code Red was a drill and not an emergency event.  I look forward to seeing our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs tomorrow morning.  Have a great evening.

DCES Phone Message 041419

Good Afternoon Deep Creek Families,
This is Principal McElroy reminding everyone that this is a four day week and so is the following week. Students are off Friday, April 19th and Monday, April 22. Please enjoy the time with your families. The month of May will be very busy with testing and end of year activities so enjoy the long weekend. Thank you for partnering with us in your child's education. At Deep Creek our Cubs are Ready, Responsible, and Respectful leaders.