Dear ES Team, Happy New Year!  Whether you’ve just walked through the greatest year of your life, or you experienced a year peppered with personal challenges, the new calendar year is a good time to reflect on warm memories, heal from hard times, and look forward to a year filled with joy, hope, and love and peace!  Donna  Useful Information: Our yearbook theme this year is Building our Future– framed in a construction site theme.  As we think about grade level photos, we’d like to collect (borrow) some costumes and props.  Please bring any items to Minh. Please remember to...

  Dear ES Team, The holidays are getting closer and the weeks are getting busier.  Life can get demanding and our energy can begin to wane during the days before a break–this is a good time to remember to breathe, smile, and appreciate the joy that surrounds us.   Next Friday our Student Leaders have organized a Family Movie Night 5:00-8:00pm. We will be showing the movie, Santa Paws. The PTA is also sponsoring a Holiday Bazaar and tree lighting after school on Friday.   We are hoping that all the classroom teachers can send this information home via SeeSaw. —...

Dear ES Team, This morning, I woke up compelled to share this personal story: In November 2012, a culture of complaining was beginning to develop at the Community School of Naples (where I was working)– and minor inconveniences were escalating the emotions of faculty, staff, and parents. During that time, Shea Maurer was a Grade 5 student—she was Maddie’s good friend, and Kate’s best friend’s sister.  Shea’s family life was a bit complicated, but her joy was simple. She was a free spirit and loved singing and dancing—often on top of the picnic tables!  Her smile was contagious and she...

  Useful Information: Our yearbook theme this year is Building our Future– framed in a construction site theme.  As we think about grade level photos, we’d like to collect (borrow) some costumes and props.  Please bring any items to Minh. Please remember to book our school photographer if you have a special event. ENews: Link to ES ENews SSIS Wellness Blog:  Wellness@SSIS  Weekly Snapshot:    Monday, November 18 Happy Birthday, Lisa JACOBS Happy Birthday, Hà DƯƠNG Tuesday, November 19 Wednesday, November 20 Happy Birthday, Megan VANDERVANTER PTA Teacher Appreciation Day Divisional Meeting Start in Auditorium (wellness) Then break-out to work on progress reports...

  The most beautiful way to start and end the day is with a grateful heart!   Dear ES Team, We all benefit from learning, working, and playing in a culture that is framed in support and encouragement.  Thanks to everyone for enriching our students by supporting our ASA program these past few months— and a big congratulations to our ES sports teams and all of our ES coaches on a very successful fall season!   I’d like to begin our formal evaluation process by asking the faculty to submit the  2019-20 Teacher to Teaching Assistant Feedback  by December 14.  If...

Dear ES Team, I hope everyone had a great week– I definitely  missed being on campus these past few days! Thank you to everyone who has helped cover my duties– I will need coverage next Friday and the following Monday, too!:)  Next week there are city championship games for some of our ES teams– here is the link to Shelley’s email with the details (students participating, departing times, etc.):  Dragon Athletics email Enjoy the weekend!  Looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday! Cheers, Donna Reminders: Please remind your students to wash their hands before snack time and lunch, and to...

  Useful Information: Our yearbook theme this year is Building our Future– framed in a construction site theme.  As we think about grade level photos, we’d like to collect (borrow) some costumes and props.  Please bring any items to Minh. Please remember to book our school photographer if you have a special event.   Weekly Snapshot: Saturday, October 26 PTA Halloween Event Monday, October 28 Tuesday, October 29 Happy Birthday, Dung LÊ – G5 Wednesday, October 30 Happy Birthday, Loan SIN- PE Donna out (EARCOS) Thursday, October 31 Happy Halloween! G5 Field Trip to Crescent Park (8:00-11:00am) MRISA Volleyball tournament—...

  THANKFUL…GRATEFUL…BLESSED   Dear ES Team, Way to go! These past few days have been marathon ones– but so incredibly successful!  Our parents recognize and value the level of care and commitment our faculty and staff have for our students– and they appreciate the time, energy, and effort you put in to making the conference conversations both personal and constructive.    When life gets overwhelming, we try to  practice what we preach — we try to exchange  our complaints for blessings, which changes our perspective immediately!  There is so much that we are grateful for in every corner of our school–...

Dear ES Team, Happy Friday!  The weeks that lead up to the end of a quarter always seem to be busy ones– and next week is no exception!  Our schedules may be even more complicated than usual with two sets of visitors on our campus– the WASC team and the faculty and students visiting from Jiaxing School (JNAS) in China.  Our JNAS students will be hosted by our G5 team; there will be 2 students in each of the G5 classes– following the class schedule from Monday- Wednesday– this will include all special area classes.   Here is a draft...

  Here is a gentle reminder that we need to do the following in order to be prepared for next week’s PD: DEEP DIVE INTO POSITIVE EDUCATION ONLINE MODULE  An email from the Institute of Positive Education (Institute@ggs.vic.edu.au) was sent to you on Wednesday, September 12th. If you have not done so already, please take some time to complete the 60-minute online module before September 30.  VIA CHARACTER STRENGTHS SURVEY – NEEDED For Pos Ed Training! Please take the VIA Character Strengths survey-it takes 5 minutes! Just the FREE version.  Everyone will need a printed copy of their results for...