Early Childhood Newsletter 3.11.2024

Dear PCS Families,

We have officially wrapped up Quarter 3! We are looking forward to seeing you all this week for parent teacher conferences. Our conferences will be in person, however if you need a virtual conference our teachers will be happy to accommodate that if needed. By now you should have signed up for a time slot to sit down and talk with your child’s teachers and other team members that play a part in the day-to-day learning. If for some reason you haven’t or did not receive sign-up information, please reach out directly to the teachers. We strive for 100% conference participation in order to keep an open and ongoing dialogue with families regarding student progress. Report cards and other progress reports will be given at that time as well.

No School reminders for this upcoming conference week:

Thursday, March 14th - Early Dismissal 12:00 pm
Friday, March 15th - NO SCHOOL

Book Fair Information:

March 11th-14th in the library (Building C)

Mon. & Tues. 3:30-5:30

Wednesday 3:30-6:30

*Thursday 12:00-2:30 (please note we will close earlier than usual on Thursday!)

Can't make it after school? Your child may visit the book fair during school. Open an ewallet account (bit.ly/pcsfair) or send cash in an envelope with your child's name and the amount written on it.

We need your help to make the book fair a success! Click here to sign up for a shift at the book fair (and earn $5 book fair credit!)

Contact Mrs. Ramsey (vramsey@premiercharterschool.org) with any questions!

Spring Break Reading Bingo

Keep your child reading over spring break with a fun, optional challenge! Teachers will send the challenge home with your students this week. Or you can print out a copy here. Students should return them by the Friday after break to be entered into a drawing for books, posters, and other prizes from the book fair! Happy Reading!

PCS Yard Signs:

Thank you to the families that volunteered to put a PCS sign in their yard. We appreciate your help with getting our school name out into the community. Please return the sign when you come to your child’s parent teacher conference next week. Again, thank you for the support!

A Note from our EC Literacy Coach:

What's the best way to work with your child at home? Reading with them! We're doing a lot of read alouds this month as a part of our March Madness book tournament, and we'd love for that to continue at home. Here are 10 reasons why reading aloud to your child is important.

March Madness Read Aloud Tournament:

In the month of March, the early childhood building will be doing our annual March Madness Read Aloud Tournament! All pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade classes submitted their favorite read aloud book from this year. Each class will now read all of the building favorites and vote until we find our winning book. We invite you to stop by the book bracket on the way to your child's conference to talk about the books they've read so far and to add your family's favorite book to the board!

Ms. Walsh’s Counselor Corner:

Building Confidence

As we head into conferences, I thought it might be a good time to share a deeper insight on the topic of praise. Although most often very well-intended, praise can build a child’s reliance on external validation. This means our praise type commentary can eventually wire kids to place their self-confidence in the hands of others rather than themselves. And, we all know that just as easily as one “giveth” one can also “taketh” away. Most simply put, teaching our kids to lean into looking for approval from within is the best way to prevent them from handing over their self-confidence to others. By viewing the resources attached, this will likely make more sense to you. And, if you are already familiar with this concept, then let it simply be a reminder. Whether we are mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, or caregiver of any kind, letting kids know we are proud of their efforts and that we see them as amazing is, of course, very important. However, ensuring that children know from deep within that they ultimately determine their own self-worth is imperative to children trusting themselves.

Best to you!

Jennifer Walsh

(EC School Counselor)

PCS Multicultural Fair:

The Annual PCS Multicultural Fair will be held April 25. This event is a treasured event for students, staff and our PCS families. Middle Schooler Olivia S. wrote an article about its significance.

Title I.A Programs:

Parents and Guardians, please join us on Wednesday, March 13th from 5-6 pm, in the middle school cafeteria, for our annual review and evaluation of our Title I.A programs. We have scheduled this meeting to coincide with conferences, hopefully making it easier to plan in your schedule. Please see the attached meeting agenda HERE and reach out to Christy Wohlgemuth with any questions.

cwohlgemuth@premiercharterschool.org

Facilities:

Click HERE to view the Lead Testing Results letter from our Head Of Operations.

Spring Survey:

This week we are going to begin administering our Spring Student Survey to our 3rd-8th grade students and wanted to invite you to complete our related Spring Family Survey.

We administered similar surveys in the fall and after reviewing responses and gathering additional information from students and families, we implemented strategies to respond to what we heard. The results from the Spring Survey will give us some information about how much progress we made, where we are doing well and opportunities for continued growth. Upon completion of the survey, all results will be posted to our website www.premiercharterschool.org.

You can complete the Spring Family Survey here.

Arrival and Dismissal Procedures:

We would like to remind parents of a few of our arrival and dismissal procedures. In the morning we ask for parents to refrain from walking their child into the school building, except for Pre-K students. Our Kindergarten and 1st grade students are doing a great job and know where their classroom is located. Teachers are preparing for the day and are unable to chat with parents at the door each morning. This also helps with the congestion in the building.

As we move into the last part of the school year I wanted to send a reminder about the school times. Kindergarten dismissal is at 3:15 and 1st grade dismissal is at 3:25. All students should be picked up no later than 3:35 each day. I have more and more students being picked up late each day. As a reminder this is our school policy in regard to late pick ups.

Late Pick Ups:

Dismissal begins at 3:15 for our Early Childhood building and 3:25 for our Elementary and Middle Schools. Dismissal duty ends at 3:35 and any students who have not been picked up are brought back into their respective building.

We understand that transporting your child to and from school is a commitment you must make in order to attend Premier Charter School. However, we do not have the ability to safely supervise children who are consistently late in being picked up. If your child has not been picked up by 4:00 on 5 separate occasions, he or she will be withdrawn from school and enrolled into virtual learning and will need to re-enter and be re-selected in the school lottery in order to return to in-person learning.

PCS Night at Busch Stadium

Come see our amazing choir, led by Mr. Padgett, perform Take Me Out To The Ballgame during the 7th Inning Stretch at Busch Stadium on Tuesday, May 21st. The St.Louis Cardinals will be facing the Baltimore Orioles and the game starts at 6:45pm.

PCG will begin selling tickets to the game soon. In the meantime, please save the date!

Upcoming dates: