What a wonderful Meet the Teacher evening we had yesterday.  The weather couldn’t have been better, and the food trucks arrived!  Having the opportunity to host our families at this event feels like an official kick-off to the new school year. I am grateful to our incredible staff for their preparation and care to ensure families felt welcomed and informed as partners in our students’ learning.  I hope you all took the opportunity to tour the school as well as your child’s classroom. Now, as your child shares stories around the dinner table about their day at school, our hope is that you will have a better idea of who, where and what they are talking about. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you and be able to make the connection between families and their children.  Thank you to all of you for your tremendous support of our Jennie Elliott school community! 

Deaf Awareness Month 

September is Deaf Awareness Month,  September 18-23 is the International Week of Deaf People and the International Day of Sign Languages is Saturday, September 23, 2023. We are honoured to be a school that houses the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) System classes for elementary students in the Calgary Board of Education. Our whole school community benefits from developing our understanding of DHH abilities and the involvement of our DHH students through integrated programming. Our teachers are even beginning to learn some basic American Sign Language (ASL) signs during our staff meetings thanks to our talented DHH teachers, and everyone benefits when our ASL interpreters are able to sign at our assemblies and events.  

Students at JES might use ASL, or use listening and spoken English, or use both!  Many of our students in our community classes also express a desire to learn ASL due to this incredible opportunity to connect with their DHH peers. Here are some resources we hope our school community can use: 

• free of charge, Google Chrome has an Extension that provides sign language interpretation on Disney+ and Netflix Videos https:www.signupcaptions.com 
• learn how to finger spell your name! The ASL Alphabet | ASL - American Sign Language - ABCs  
• here’s a link to Signing "I Love You" in 60 Sign Languages  
• On September 23, Calgary Association for the Deaf will be hosting the International Day of Sign Language Festival (IDSLF) in Stanley Park .  People of all ages are welcome to come! 

We will be sharing more about Deaf Awareness Month with our students through morning announcements and resources shared with our teachers.  

Dismissal Plan Reminders 

In the past week, our teachers and office staff have fielded a significant increase in the number of changes to the dismissal plan of our students. The interruptions to our teachers during instructional time, to coordinate a change in dismissal plans, has been exceptional so far this year, which has raised a safety concern that I would like to ask our families to consider.  Please note: 

·       Communication of a change in the expected dismissal plan, the day of, must be communicated through the main office. Teachers cannot receive email messages about changes to the dismissal plan. They are not expected to check their email during the instructional day. 

·       In gr K-2 (and gr 3-6 if that has been communicated to the teacher at the beginning of the year), the expected adult should be at the dismissal door at 3:41pm. When families are delayed, students are taken to the office for pick-up 10 minutes after the dismissal bell. There has been a number of students waiting in the office for late pick-ups, which contributes to the significant increase in the number of phone calls the office is making at dismissal time. 

·       Any necessary changes to the dismissal plan, including whether they will ride the bus home or not, must be communicated through the main office as early in the day as possible, preferably before 3:00. We need time to update the bus attendance and/or notify the teachers. 

·       We cannot accept changes to the dismissal plan from students. It must come from a legal guardian to the main office.  

We understand that changes can occur on a rare occasion. With the number of students we have, we ask that families avoid these changes whenever possible so that we can reduce the significant exchange of communication our office staff and teachers are coordinating to mitigate risk and ensure safe dismissal of our students.   

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding of these important requirements. 

Hello From Ms Wolf! 

Some of you may have met Ms. Wolf, our Resource Teacher, at Meet the Teacher.  I am happy to share Ms Wolf's greeting letter  with all of you so you can learn a little more about her and her role at Jennie Elliott. 

Picture Day / Re-takes 

Thank you to our parent volunteers who helped out with Picture Day yesterday. We literally couldn’t do it without you! It is always such a big hub of excitement in the school on Picture Day and we love watching the kids practicing their smiles for the camera. For those who missed it this round, re-takes will be October 24th. 

JES Choir for Division II Students 

Ms. Popowich is excited to invite Div 2 students to join choir starting next month on Wednesdays during lunch! More details will be provided to students in the coming weeks, but please consider sharing the following guidelines with your student:  

·       no experience required 

·       no auditions required 

·       must be willing to commit until at least December.  

·       the first rehearsal will be a drop-in to see what it's all about, but then students will need to sign up and come every week 

·       performances to be determined 

·       be prepared to learn lots and have fun! 

·       Due to space and supervision restrictions in the Music Room, we may need to cap the number of students. We will communicate more information about that to the students. 

Wanted! A parent volunteer to help out with piano accompaniment. If you are interested, please contact Ms. Jamie Popowich at japopowich@cbe.an.ca  to find out more.

Treaty 7 Week 

Next week is Treaty 7 Week.  Treaty 7 was one of the numbered treaties signed between the Government of Canada and the Plains First Nations on September 22nd, 1877. 

As a System, our CBE Indigenous team provides many resources that our teachers will incorporate into their classroom teaching to help students better understand the foundations and history of Treaty 7. For example, students will learn that last year each school in our CBE was gifted 3 flags and ours are in the foyer outside the gym.  The three flags are The Treaty 7 Flag, The Metis Nation and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami flag. The Treaty 7 flag represents the Stoney Nakoda, Siksika, Kainai, Piikani and the Tsuut’ina Nations. 

Upcoming Dates 

September 4    Labour Day – no school 

September 14    Picture Day – individual and class photos 

September 14    Meet the Teacher event (4:00-6:00pm) 

September 18-23     International Week of Deaf People 

September 18-22     Treaty 7 Week 

September 19    School Council Meeting (7:00pm @ Jennie Elliott) 

September 21    Fall Equinox 

September 22    Non-instructional Day – no school for students 

September 25    Fun Lunch (more info to come from School Council) 

September 29    Truth & Reconciliation Day (in lieu of Sept 30) - no school 

October 24     Picture retakes 

Have a great weekend everyone! 

With much gratitude, 

Lucene Tahmazian 

Acting Principal | Jennie Elliott School