Principally Speaking

Student Recognition
The accomplishments of so many AGIS students seem to be never ending! This week we want to say congratulations to our 4th & 5th grade Science Fair participants and all of the students that participated in the PTA’s Reflections program.
The Science Fair projects were reflective of some wonderful thinking, planning, and project development by our students. The following students will be going on to compete at Downingtown High School in March, either as partners or with their individual projects:

Aidan E., Phillip Y., Andrew G.,Eli W., Bryce D., Josh P.,Ciara B., Luke B., Anthony O.,
Michael R., Evan B., Julian C.,Evan A., Lindsay T., and Zach D.
Once again, congratulations to all our participants and good luck to those students moving on to the next level of competition!

We also want to once again congratulate the 160 students that entered items in our PTA Reflections program this year. The quality of the projects was amazing. The proof of that high quality was found in the fact that we had 28 regional finalists from our entries! In addition 10 of those students became regional winners! Those regional winners will now have their entries judged at the state level. Good luck to the following students as their projects move forward:

Visual Arts - Maggie D., Hayden W., Jenny R.
Literature - Ryan G., Hannah M., Emily L.
Photography - Kristina J., Emily W.
Musical Composition - Charlotte C., Jennifer S.

Parental Support & Friends of AGIS
Thank you to everyone that contributed to our Haiti relief project, Your Pennies Make Cents for the Red Cross and Haiti. Due to the generosity of our school community we collected $724 in coins and cash in a very short period of time. In addition, one of our staff members, Mrs. Betty Ann Clark, will be matching our collection amount, which brings our school community total donation to $1448. Thank you!
We will be doing one more collection project beginning next week. That project will be the collection of Ace bandages, bandaids, medical tape, rolled gauze, boxes of 2x2 gauze bandages, and boxes of 4x4 gauze bandages. These items will be given to the Medical Reserve Corp group from Delaware that will soon be traveling to Haiti. They will distribute those supplies directly to communities during their time in the country. The project is being coordinated by a parent volunteer who works at Christiana Hospital and is a member of the Reserve Corp. Boxes will be placed outside the counselors’ offices for the donations beginning this Monday, February 22.

We look forward to seeing you at the school.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

Student Recognition:
One of our Robotics Club teams qualified in the area of Creative Presentation for an added competition this Saturday at the University of Delaware. Best of luck to Brendan Marani, Kyle Twesten, Walter Jones, Brennan Ingalls, Benjamin Schunke, Nicholas Waters, Will Stevens, and David Ruta. We look forward to hearing how well
you do. We are proud of all five of our teams this year!

Our school’s fifth grade Academically Talented (AT) students recently participated in the 42nd Knowledge Master Open academic competition. They competed here at school on computers answering one hundred challenging questions from all curriculum areas. Fifth graders from across Pennsylvania competed against them (14 teams) as well as 223 other teams nationally. Our team came in first place in Pennsylvania and placed 10th out of the 223 teams nationally!! This is quite an accomplishment and a tribute to the enthusiasm these students have for learning. We are very proud of Ms. Fenza and the team. Way to go fifth grade AT classes!!!

Parental Support and Friends of AGIS:
This week’s PTA Donuts for Dads event has been wonderful to see. Each morning we have had a huge turnout of dads and other family members. Just taking the time to come in before a busy day sends a tremendous message of care to your child. Thanks to the PTA volunteers for the great help including parking signs, outside
greeters, and more. We hope to post some great images on our website over the next week on this event, so check it out!

Haiti and Red Cross Relief Effort at AGIS:
We have all been moved by the images on the nightly news, particularly those of children, related to the situation in Haiti. Beginning Monday, February 1, we will be starting a loose change collection campaign entitled “Your pennies make CENTS for the Red Cross and Haiti.” Our plan is to simply collect loose change, no matter
how small, in containers placed in the lobby. Those funds will be sent to the Red Cross to replenish their disaster relief funds or to channel directly to this cause. Please look for the containers in our lobby and give as you are
able. Students and adults may participate. Parents, please be clear with your children as to what amount, if any, they are permitted to donate.

Please Help:
As you know we have many parents dropping off students in the morning. As we monitor that process we have noticed the need to seek parental help in keeping that system as safe as possible for children as well as for the vehicles moving in and out of the area. Please review and help us with the following:

• Pull as far forward as you can prior to your child exiting the car.
• Please drop children as close to the flag pole area as possible and avoid dropping children too far from that area.
• Please stay in a single file line and wait for the car in front of you to depart.
• Avoid pulling out of line and passing others to leave or passing others to move up into an open spot.
• Do not allow children to exit your car unless you are along the curb. Most importantly, please demonstrate patience, even if it requires you to wait to pull forward.

Student Recognition:
Over the past several years the school has been the recipient of some excellent Eagle Scout projects. Our picnic tables in the back of the school last year was one. This year we want to thank and compliment Alec McCloskey, an AG high school student, for his project which was to build recycling bins for use throughout our school. AGIS is good at recycling and the bins are of great use to us. Alec was a former AGIS student as well.

We also want to recognize and encourage the many students that are currently participating in academic clubs here at AGIS. Those clubs include our Robotics Club, the Reading Olympics Club, and our Shakespeare Club. Each one of these groups will have opportunities over the next several weeks to demonstrate their skills against other schools in our area. Winning is not the goal as much as taking on these higher level academic challenges. Thank you to all parents whose children are involved for encouraging your child’s participation. Be looking for results in our upcoming newsletters!

Correction and One Last Thank You:
As you know our school continues to demonstrate the values of caring and helping others. This is done in many ways. The most recent example of this can be found in the many contributions of food and personal care items our school community sent in prior to the holidays. Check out the Avon Grove District website for pictures and information on the types of projects that went on around the district and in our school.

One correction is that in our last newsletter we failed to mention that our collections were part of the Knights of Columbus effort in the district. Sorry for the mistake, and thank you for helping!

We look forward to seeing you at the school.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

Tis The Season…

The holidays offer us wonderful opportunities to enjoy each other’s company, spend special times with family, and to offer help to those who may be in need of a kind word or even more. That spirit is being lived out right here at AGIS in several ways.

First we want to send out a warm thank you to all of our fourth graders, their teachers and parents. These past couple of weeks they have participated in Project Dog Tag. This caring initiative included our students collecting snacks and personal care items to send to troops overseas. To date our fourth graders have collected over 22 boxes of items that will be broken down into smaller caring packages to send to our troops. Not only will the items be appreciated, but so will the thought that our school community took the time to send the things and to say thank you to those troops for serving. Way to go fourth grade team!!!

Next we must say “WOW” to our entire school community for sending in over 1060 canned goods and personal care products for our district wide collection project. Thanks to the help of Mrs. DiDomenico and her Ecology Club those items are boxed up and ready to be delivered to the food cupboard. Thank you everyone!

We also want to say a special thank you and good bye to two of our cafeteria staff members who will be retiring on December 23rd. Those two staff members are Mrs. Diane Bowman and Mrs. Linda Brown. Mrs. Bowman is our cafeteria manager and Mrs. Brown is one of our cheerful cafeteria workers. Both have served the children, parents, and staff of the Avon Grove School District for over 33 years! Their kind and caring presence in our daily routine will be missed, but we know happy times await them in retirement. Thank you Diane and Linda!

Finally, we say to each parent “Thank You” for allowing us to work with your children every day. What a joy teaching is because of the students. Each day is special and different, and the opportunity to work with our students is one of the greatest gifts of all. We receive that gift each day of the year! In the fast paced world of digital communication and hurry everywhere, we hope you take the opportunity to give your children the greatest gift of all this holiday season. That would be the gift of time spent with them just having fun.

We wish you all the joys of the season!

Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

Student Recognition: Our Robotics Club had their first competition last week at Lansdale Catholic High School. AGIS has five teams consisting of about 40 sixth graders. During the competitions the students are judged on their abilities to complete a project, robot design, and the ability to work as a team. All teams represented the school well and everyone learned a lot. We can’t wait for our next competition in early January! Great job Robotics Club! Thanks also to Mr. Murray, Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Gaerity for coaching our teams.

On December 9 at 7:00 pm we will be having our annual Holiday Choral Concert featuring our grade 4 choir and our grade 5/6 choir. Both groups have been practicing all fall and we guarantee you will thoroughly enjoy the music and performances. We have many talented voice students and the efforts of Ms. Truitt and Mrs. Smith are greatly appreciated as well. If your child is participating, a letter was sent home with them today about when students should be at the school for the performances.

On December 17 at 7:00 pm our band and orchestra will have their concerts as well. Mr. Evans and Ms. Lucas have worked equally hard with their students and the show will be a fine one. We are proud of our performing students and the time they put in practicing here and at home. Our new flex period at the end of the day has helped us coordinate large group rehearsals for these students as well. The performing arts are an integral part of our school. We look forward to hearing the fine quality of the music our students will bring us.

Parental Involvement: The PTA Continues to Rock
Our PTA book fair was a huge success due to the organizational skills of our PTA coordinators, but also because of the support we have seen from parents encouraging their children to purchase books. Thank you to everyone for emphasizing the importance of reading!
Check out the article in today's edition of the newsletter about the upcoming Holiday Shop. The dates are on the calendar and the PTA could still use the help of a few more volunteers. If your children are bringing money to school for the Holiday Shop please review your expectations for the types of things you want them to purchase and be aware of the amounts of money needed for those things.
Last, but not least, the world’s best Christmas event will be happening here this Saturday from 9:00 AM-2:00 pm. Yes it is time for the annual Country Christmas! Come out and get some great items for the holidays while supporting our PTA.

Parent Conferences: We had outstanding parental attendance at our recent conferences. 32 of our regular classrooms had 100% attendance at conferences, while in most other cases the numbers ran right near the 92-95% range. We hope you found your child’s conferences informative and helpful. Thank you for attending.

Student Recognition: This week’s pat on the back goes out to every student here at AGIS for their hard work during the first marking period. For our third graders and their parents, we want to compliment you on your efforts to adjust to a new school and for the efforts we see daily in classrooms. A simple walk through looking at bulletin board displays of student work will tell you we have a wonderful group of third graders! For all of you “veteran” AGIS students in grades 4-6, we are equally impressed with the quality of work we see displayed around the school and types of learning efforts we observe daily in classrooms. All of these indicators remind us of the talented students we have as well as the strong parental support in our school community.
We encourage all parents to attend their child’s conference over these next few days. There is no substitute for a face to face conference to share information with your child’s teacher and to see student work samples. Attending conferences and discussing progress with your child is one of the best ways to be involved in your child’s education.

Friends of AGIS and Parental Involvement: Our PTA contin-ues to lead the way in supporting the students and staff here at AGIS. This week’s Book Fair is yet another example of their unending support for student achievement. By offering books at reduced costs and helping fill teacher wish lists related to books, they are helping students access reading material they might not otherwise have received. The Book Fair is run by many faithful volunteers and has been co-chaired by Mrs. Sadie Casper, Mrs. Kelly O’Doherty, and Mrs. Anne Caruso. Please consider visiting the Book Fair in the audion when you are here for conferences.
We will be doing an Edulink message on Thursday evening, November 19, to remind parents of conferences and early dis-missal. In addition we will remind parents that we will have our entire Lost & Found collection on display in the hallway near the nurses’ suite. Please look over that display when you are in for conferences and take what belongs to your children. We will be donating any remaining items to needy families through several local agencies following conference week.
Have a wonderful conference with your child’s teacher and may you all have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday!

Student Recognition: We were impressed with the many PTA Reflections submissions from our students. We had 160 entries and those are on exhibit in the lobby hallways. What wonderful talent has been displayed. Each child that had an entry is to be commended.
In addition we had numerous award-winning entries and want to say congratulations to all the finalists. They appear on the right side of this page.

Friends of AGIS and Parental Involvement: As conferences approach (November 20-25) we want to encourage you to attend. Parent invitations will be going home on November 16. Please be looking for these. There is no substitute for a face to face conference with your child’s teacher to discuss progress and to see work samples.
We want to thank the Gaerity family for their donation of an additional robot and team registration fee for our Robotics Club. Through their generosity we were able to field an additional team.

H1N1 Update: Please continue to take note of the district’s website related to precautions all families can take. We have included a copy of some items from the site on the back of today's newsletter.
The district continues to monitor each school’s daily attendance. We have had some elevated absentee rates, and those have fluctuated between 2.2% and 13.6%. Our average daily attendance rate for each month appears regularly in our school newsletter.
We encourage everyone to practice best health practices and follow the advice of your physician if family members are ill.

We look forward to seeing you at the school.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

Student Recognition: We want to take time to recognize our grade 6 morning announcers in this edition of our newsletter. Here at AGIS our sixth graders are offered some opportunities and privileges to serve the school in special ways. For example we have an Ambassador program and Spirit Committees for each house organized by our counselors. Sixth graders serve in these two groups. Our morning announcement program is another way some of our sixth graders can share their talents with the school. Each sixth grade homeroom has two students that will be announcers at different times during the year. The skills needed are an interest in having this job, the ability to read fluently, and a little enthusiasm for the job! Each morning at 8:25 AM we begin our student-lead announcements. If you are in the school at that time we are sure you have heard our young celebrities as they share news and views with the school. We are proud of this group of children for participating in the opening of school each morning, and we hope it leads to some possible future endeavors for our students. Who knows but we may have the next famous anchor person right here at AGIS! Great job sixth grade announcers.

Friends of AGIS: Our school and students continue to be the beneficiary of many wonderful contributions from community members and parents. This month the West Grove Volunteer Fire Company provided our grade 3 and 4 students with their annual fire safety program. The presenters are organized, efficient, and kind in presenting this important program to our students. Thank you West Grove Fire Company!
Our PTA continues to offer multiple resources and learning opportunities for students and teachers. This week we have author Ann Bausum here to share her work with fifth graders, and next week we have Julie Freeman, a storyteller, coming to meet with our third graders during the day and our parents and children in the evening. All of this has been made possible by the PTA. In addition you have all seen the information coming home about our Reflections Program which is also a PTA sponsored event. We are thankful for the support of educational programs by the PTA!
Parental Involvement: As we approach next week’s fall classroom celebrations we are reminding parents we need your awareness of special dates on the calendar. Friday, October 30 is AGIS Spirit Day. Students may wear Halloween colors or costumes to school, but costumes are not to reflect violent themes, and there are to be no weapons, masks, or glitter. Any face paint should be applied at home, not at school. Classrooms will have celebrations that include activities and may include food items. As you know from our student/parent handbook (pages 13-14) we require that anyone wishing to send any item into the classroom for any celebration first discuss this with your child’s teachers. Please keep in mind this relates to health issues such as allergies and wellness. Parental support on this is important and we thank you in advance for your help.

We look forward to seeing you at the school.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

Student Recognition:
Our school counselors have established an excellent citizenship recognition program entitled Caught Caring. This program is a simple yet purposeful way for students and staff members to nominate someone who demonstrates kindness or caring. Each teacher has shirt-shaped nomination forms which anyone can access to submit nominations. On the form the person doing the nominating gives a brief description of the kind efforts of the nominee. We have seen everything from helping someone pick things they dropped to playing with a new person at recess to make them feel welcome. Regardless of the reason we take time to read the nominations on morning announce-ments and the shirt-shaped forms are displayed on a clothes line outside the counselors’ offices. Check out the display the next time you are in the school, or ask your child if they have been nominated or have nominated someone else!

FLEX Period Takes Form at AGIS:
If you attended Back to School Night in September you probably heard your child’s teacher mention our end of the day FLEX period. We established this period from 2:30-3:05 to give a set time each day for coordinated pull-out time for band, orchestra, and our various choirs. In addition the period was set up to allow teachers to provide extra instruction for students based on student need. By coordinating our performing music pull-out times and focusing on extra reading or math time, we hope to continue our overall school goal of improving achieve-ment for all students.
During the month of September all students participated in an SSR (Silent Sustained Reading) model. Starting next week we will begin the first of our six week cycles to have students across all grade levels either continue with their SSR model or work in small groups on targeted math or reading skills. As we do for many subjects, students may receive instruction from their own homeroom teacher or another teacher in the school. We have expanded our base of teachers to include nearly every teacher in the school, including our special area teachers, during this period of the day.
On Friday teachers will be discussing with students the FLEX period plans for our next cycle and when those will begin. We encourage you to ask your child about their FLEX period work.

We look forward to seeing you at the school!
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

Student Recognition:
This week’s student recognition goes to the 898 students who completed and verified all four of their summer reading books. During these past two weeks we have held grade level assemblies in the centrums to take time to honor those students for their efforts. Each student who completed the four book goal received a certificate and pencil. Grade three and four students also received bookmarks. All students’ names are listed on our recognition display outside the cafeteria as well. The best reward of all is the fact that children gain enjoyment and knowledge when they read year ‘round!

Special recognition goes to the following top reading grade level homerooms:
•Mrs. DiVincenzo’s third grade
•Mrs. McManus’ fourth grade
•Mrs. Shaw’s fifth grade
•Mrs. Waldman’s sixth grade

We want to thank all parents for encouraging their children to read and helping to get the verification process completed on time. Our program was organized by our literacy team which includes Mrs. Hill, Mrs. Rosen, Mrs. Trainor, and Mrs. Bove.

Friends of AGIS:
Our PTA has come out of the gate quickly in supporting our students in many ways already this year. They donated the pencils for our summer reading recognition program, and we are sure you have noticed the wonderful Take Home Thursday folders they purchased for all of our students. We hope you have taken the opportunity to join the PTA and seek ways to become involved in this excellent organization.

We look forward to seeing you at the school.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum

 

September 15, 2009 Read our Special Welcome Back Update for Back to School Nights,HERE!

We want to welcome everyone to Avon Grove Intermediate School for what we are sure will be an outstanding year for students, parents, and staff alike! We have 73 new families to our school community this year, so a special welcome to all of you.

We have several new topics for parental awareness that we will be sharing with you in our welcome back message soon to be posted on our website and in a special edition of our school news that we will distribute at next week’s Back to School nights.

Our school newsletter will be posted on our website and sent home every other Thursday beginning with today’s edition. This year we are partnering with our PTA to have each Thursday be Take Home Thursday. On Thursdays all school communications will come home with the youngest child in your family in a Take Home Folder our PTA has purchased for each child. More information on this will be shared at the Open Houses, and this plan will begin on Thursday, September 17. We encourage all parents to check those book bags!

We are very pleased to serve such an excellent school community as Avon Grove Intermediate School. In each newsletter edition our Principally Speaking article will focus on three main topics. Those will be student recognition, parental involvement, and thanking community friends for their support. We look forward to communicating with you about many things. Most of all we look forward to working with your children to have this year be the very best it can be for you and your child! Do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of help to you in any way.

We look forward to seeing you at the school.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harvey, Mrs. Bove, Mrs. Schrum