Principal Leaman's Blog

Thank you to all the parents who came to the Orientation Meeting last night.  If  you were not able to attend or if you have any questions, please give us a call.

We would like to welcome the new parents for next year’s 6th grade.  The orientation is at 7 PM and we can’t wait to meet you.  If you still have questions after tonight’s meeting, be sure to contact the office for a meeting. (994-1976)

Your child should have brought home his/her report card on Friday.  If it did not make it home, your options include checking on PowerSchool or calling the BlueHouse (994-1980) to request another copy be mailed home.

We are holding a Spaghetti Dinner to raise funds for student scholarships to DC and for the Foreign Language trips.  As a caring community, we want to ensure all students whose families are interested, the opportunity to participate in these trips.  Therefore, we offer scholarships to help defray the cost.

The dinner is on Feb. 15 from 4 PM- 7 PM.  The cost is $7 per adult, $5 for children 5-12 (and all current Clague students), and children under 5 eat free.  We have a maximum cost per family of $25.   We also have take-out orders available.

Come and dine with our fabulous community while supporting our students.  We are asking for families to pre-register even if they won’t be paying until Feb. 15.  An order form went home through SchoolMessenger on Friday.  Additional forms are in the main office.  Thank you for pre-registering so that we can get a good count on servings as this is our first Spaghetti Dinner.  I want to thank the staff, especially Mrs. Quint, Mrs. Funk-Carter, Mrs. Siewert, Mrs. Reiher, and Mrs. Rye for helping to organize this event.  We are so lucky to have such outstanding staff here at Clague.  I do hope you will support their efforts to help students.

As this is the beginning of a new semester, I would like to remind parents and students that we have several students in our building with varying degrees of nut-allergies.  As a general rule, if you are bringing a classroom snack or a birthday or specific event, please find products that are nut free and that are not made in a factory that has nuts so that all students can participate in the treat.  Snacks that are made with nuts or in a factory that contained nuts will not be allowed to enter classrooms where our nut-allergy students have classes.   To be on the safe side it is best to avoid nuts on all levels.  Thank you for your consideration for the safety of all our students.

Please save the date for our first annual Clague Community Spaghetti Dinner and Book Fair.  Bring your family to Clague to eat and pick up a good book.  More information shortly.

It really has seemed like a long week.  Fortunately, today was rather uneventful.  Students have a long weekend to recuperate from their exams.  School will resume on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012.  Please help the students to keep a regular school routine so that they do not come back too tired!

I want to thank all the parents that showed up for our meeting last night.  The response was very encouraging.  If all the parents that indicated that they wanted to send their child to DC with us next fall sign up, it looks like the trip will be a go as we will have enough attendees.  I will send another message confirming that we a go after everyone registers.  If there are any parents who still have questions or who want to send a child but could not attend last night’s meeting, please call the office and I would be happy to talk to you.  Additional registration forms are available in the main office.

There might be a variety of reasons that we are seeing an increased lack of discipline in students, especially in the halls and during “down time”.  We have not had a good spell of winter weather, it is the middle of mid-term testing, we had two assemblies since returning to school, and we have had many days off of school (17 for break then another day for MLK the next week, 2 days off next week for grading) could all be contributing factors.  The reason for the increase in activity is important but more important is that students need to stop this risky and impulsive behavior that is putting themselves and others at risk.  Some of the behavior we are seeing includes students running in the halls, pushing, slapping, group hugs, and other reckless behavior.  Overall our school is filled with a great group of students and I don’t mean to indicate that students are  trying to be malicious but they are placing themselves and others in danger.  In the past month, we have had two students end up going to the hospital because of horseplay.  A young lady before break had a concussion when students table-topped her and a 6^th grade boy this week ended up with a compound fracture when a group of students insisted on hugging him.  We have talked to the students during school and removed times that less supervised and risky.  I am asking for your help in discussing what proper behavior for students entails.  If you could reinforce our request we would be most grateful.  We ask the students to remember to be respectful (keep their hands and feet to themselves), be responsible (walk in the hall, don’t jump down steps, don’t slap high fives, give hugs, block the hallway, etc.), be safe (watch that they are not entering a situation that involves risk of injury) and be caring (watch out that other students don’t get injured – think of others than yourself, report injuries to the main office or an adult, immediately).  thank you in advance for partnering with us to ensure the safety of all students.

We are having some problems with drop off in the morning.  Please remember to drive at a safe speed when dropping off and picking up your children.  This morning a silver/gray ford almost ran over one of the students.  PLEASE stay behind other cars, drive and drop in a single line, don’t talk or use a phone while driving in and around the school.  Also, please drive all the way around the circle.  We often see people making U-turns and then backing up to the door.  This is dangerous.  Safety is our number one priority, please partner with us and help.