September 2015 septembre

cole Dansereau Meadows School

5907 Rue Eaglemont, Beaumont, AB T4X 0X1

Duck News
Principals Message

Principal
Susanne Stroud
Assistant Principals
Brian Pedersen
Denise Harrison (& Counselor)
Phone: 780-929-1928
Fax: 780-929-1978
Email:edms@blackgold.ca
Web: http://edms.blackgold.ca
Unsubsribe:
unsubscribe.edms@blackgold.ca

Welcome back to another great year at our school. We look forward to creating more traditions and
celebrations with you all this year. We appreciate your feedback provided to us on the All About My
Child forms.
A great deal of preparation goes into making sure we start off the year right. Thanks to our custodians who worked tirelessly over the summer to clean our school. Our secretaries have also been
busy entering new registrations, setting up classes and timetables for every student in PowerSchool.
Teachers have taken the time to set up their classrooms once again.
As administration, our primary role is to be in classrooms supporting teachers and students. We
also have our own classes to teach. With this in mind, please do not expect an immediate response
to your email or be able to speak to us if you drop in or call the office. Our secretaries will be happy
to take a message and pass it on to us. You will be contacted by one of the administration as soon
as it is possible. Thank you for your understanding.

Contacting Us With Concerns

Inside this issue:

School Times
Staff

Office Reminders
Reporting Student
Progress

SLAs
Math

School Council
Extra-Curricular
Lights Team

FSLW Info
Calendar

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have a concern. The appropriate protocol is to speak to
the teacher concerned first and then to admin. We have more success solving issues when you call
or make an appointment to speak with us. Commenting on social media is not the appropriate method for dealing with concerns. We look forward to growing and learning together this year.

Inspiring Great Leaders

Our school continues on our journey to inspire great leaders.
We are using the The Leader in Me to unify us as a whole school, using common language (7 Habits). Based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Leader in Me equips students with the
self-confidence and skills they need to thrive in the 21st-century . It works from the inside out.
Our goal is to develop leadership opportunities for all students in our schoolbig or small. We believe that every child is capable of being a leader . We have already had student leaders for some of
our special events and students are learning how to be a leader in their own classrooms.
Students all have agendas and Leader in Me workbooks which are used by teachers to review the 7
Habits.

Duck News

School Times
Elementary
8:00am Exterior doors open
8:10am Classrooms open
8:15am Warning Bell
10:2010:35am Recess
11:5712:22pm Recess
12:2212:50pm Lunch
2:53pmStudents Dismissed

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This is your
life...make it a
masterpiece.

Junior High
8:00am Exterior doors open
8:10am Classrooms open
8:15am Warning Bell
10:2010:26am Break
11:5712:22pm Lunch
12:2212:50pm Lunch Recess
2:53pmStudents Dismissed

Page 2

Office Hours
7:45am4:00pm

Staff
Administration
Susanne Stroud
Brian Pedersen
Denise Harrison

Grade Five
Ingrid Parker/Keith Pask
Catherine Slade
Cami Goldstein

Learning Support
Lauralee Craig
Spencer Patrick
Steve Trueman

Grade Five/Six
Steve Trueman
Spencer Patrick

Grade One
Jennifer Blagdon
Kyla Horvat
Kelly Goudreau
Kerrie Jay
Heather Edwards
Nicole Carragher
Mikayla Ryll
Grade Two
Sarah Kuntz
Lynn Bonnah
Kristina Corbett
Emily Murray
Chantal Matthews

Thank you to Beau and

Mason Campbell who
donated the money they
earned mowing grass and
doing odd jobs to our
playground fund.

Early Dismissal * New Time*

2:08pm
(1st Wednesday of each month)

Grade Three
Mike Crosdale
Carmelle Workun
Richard Svekla
Carolyn Thompson

Grade Four
Jenn Flontek
Amanda Pike
Caitlin Girard

Grade Six
Taylor Broad
Jessica Campbell
Jessica Amundson
Junior High
Jamy McRae
Terra Kaliszuk
Angela Hostetler
Barb Roy
Tyler Fisher
Marianne Auch
Dominic Lepage
Nicole Carragher

Education Assistants
Barbara Volkman
Manjit Korotana
Susan Marshall
Anna-Lise Hobday
Mary Ellen Serafini
Office Staff
Robyn Sept
Laura Crawley
Lorraine Weslosky
Library
Lucie Gagnon
Custodians
Glenn Kisch
Craig Lonsway
Cameron Riggs
Monica Loo

MusicAmy Olson
PENoel Rinsky
PEKeith Pask
PEJamy McRae

Student Drop Off Zone

The front of the school is designated as a Kiss-andGo area with no parking signs. This means parents
can stop and drop off students but are not permitted
to leave their vehicle. It is a maximum of 2 minutes
that you can be in this area. If you leave your vehicle, you will be given a ticket by law enforcement.

September 2014 septembre

Office Reminders
School Fees are now due. Please pay online. If you need assistance paying online,
please call the school office.
Grade 1-6$60
Grades 7-8$125 ( $70 instructional fee & $55 enhanced course fee)
Please note than these fees do not cover field trips or special classroom projects. Teachers will
inform you of any additional costs. If you are having difficulty paying fees due to financial difficulty, please contact Mrs. Stroud to make arrangements.
Late Students
Please ensure your child checks in at the office when they arrive late.
Absences
If your child is going to be absent, please do not email the absence. Please leave a message
on the school voicemail.
Medications
If the school is to administer any medications including non-prescription items, the student must
have a severe medical form filled out. The medication must have a prescription label from the
pharmacy that indicated the dosage. Forms are available from Mrs. Weslosky in the infirmary.

All visitors to our building must enter our

school through the front
door and sign in at the
office. This is part of
our Emergency
Protocol.

Habit 1: Be Proactive
No one is born a

winner or loser, but

each one is born a
chooser.
-Unknown

PowerSchool Parent Portal

Please ensure that you can log into PowerSchool. This is how you will be able to monitor your
childs attendance, and progress. We will not be sending home any paper report cards as parents will be asked to check PowerSchool.

Reporting Student Progress

All grades will be using PowerSchool to report student assignments and progress. Assignments will be related to the curricular outcomes so you will know how your child is doing in relation to the curriculum. Each assignment will have a description. Teachers can
also put in comments on assignments. Anything that appears blue is a hyperlink to more information.
Students will be assessed using formative and summative assessments.
Formative is a process:
Used to check student understanding and plan subsequent instruction, Guides the next steps in instruction, Ongoing
Examples: asking questions, goal setting, surveys, observation, rubrics
Summative:
Summarizes learning up to a certain point, Learning is compared against a standard or benchmark.
Examples: final project, mid term exam, final exam, essay.
It is important to remember that not everything will be given a percentage or will be calculated for marks. Sometimes teachers do
formative assessments to verify student understand and re-teach a concept if necessary. Homework does not count as marks
however the teacher will note whether it was handed in. Grades 1-3 will not be using percentages but the same scale they used for
report cards last year. (see below) In addition some courses and outcomes will use this same scale.
Scale
PRFProficientAchievement meets grade level expectations. Student demonstrates achievement independently.
PRGProgressingAchievement inconsistently meets grade level expectations. Student requires support in some areas.
BEGBeginning Achievement does not yet meet grade level expectations. Student requires ongoing support.
Please do not hesitate to contact your childs teacher if you have questions about your childs progress.
Page 3

Duck News

Student Learning Assessments (SLA) - Gr. 3

What are SLAs?
It is a new assessment tool the province is providing to help students with their learning.
Over the next few years, they will replace the Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs).
The SLAs will support student learning while more effectively assessing literacy, numeracy, and competencies such as: creativity,
communication and the ability to apply knowledge to different scenarios.
Alberta Education, in partnership with classroom teachers, is developing the new SLAs. They will be administered at the start of
grades 3.

TimelineSeptember 14 to November 1, 2015

Assessments are made to be flexible and completed over
several days. It will not be a traditional examination with a set
date and time.
My Childs Results
Results of the digital performance tasks will be available on
November 14, 2015.
As this is a pilot year, parents will not be able to access the
online individual student reports at home. Once pilot status is
over, this may be an option.
Teachers will be able to share results with parents once we
have them available.

Curriculum ConnectionsMath
Habit 2: Begin With
the End in Mind.

In June 2014, Alberta Education clarified the expectations of the Alberta Mathematics Kindergarten to Grade 9 (K-9) Program of Studies by updating the program of studies and support documents. The updates clarified the expectation that students are able to recall addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division facts, as well as multiplication tables, and that they investigate a variety of strategies and become proficient in at least one appropriate and efficient strategy
(strategies may include traditional algorithms, such as long division and vertical addition).

I may not be there

yet, but I am closer
than I was yesterday.

The clarifications also reinforced that Alberta Education does not prescribe any specific instructional approach; teachers have the flexibility to determine the best instructional approach to help
meet their students needs.
Grade 1
Begin to learn strategies for addition and related subtraction facts to 18. Recall addition and
related subtraction fact to 5 by end of Gr. 1
Grade 2
Apply strategies for addition and related subtraction facts to 18. Recall addition and related subtraction fact to 10 by end of Gr. 2.
Grade 3
Recall and apply addition and related subtraction facts to 18.
Recall multiplication and division facts to 5x5 by end of Gr. 3.
Grade 4
Apply strategies for multiplication and division facts to 9x9.
Recall multiplication and division facts to 7x7 by end of Gr. 4.
Grade 5
Recall multiplication and division facts to 9x9 by end of Gr. 5.
See Alberta Education for more info on curriculum. http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/

Page 4

September 2014 septembre

School Council
Executive
Chairperson - Alan Skinner (2 year term)
Vice-Chairperson - Vacant
Secretary - Stephanie Bailey
Fundraising Liaison - Vacant
Volunteer Coordinator - Vacant
Communications Officer - Vacant
Parent At Large - Vacant
(All positions other than Chairperson will carry a 1 year term. )
We will be meeting on Monday, September 14, 2015 at 7pm in the school. School Council agendas are posted on the school website one week prior to the meeting. All parents are welcome to
attend the School Council meetings.

Extra-Curricular Activities
We are thrilled to have a variety of extra-curricular activities. Thanks to our staff for volunteering
their time to organize these activities. This is addition to their teaching duties.
Running ClubMr. Pask
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday & Fridays at noon. Must come to practices to participate in the
race at the end of September.

Emergency Protocols
Please familiarize yourself
with the
Emergency Protocols Summary sheet.
This will help you understand what each protocol
means. Please do not
come to the school or call
the school when we have
activated one of our protocols. You may be putting
yourself at risk and jeopardizing our students safety.
We may not always be able
to communicate with parents right away depending
on the emergency. Be patient.
Our staff are trained on all
the protocols and take student safety very seriously.

Junior High Volleyball

Boys and Girls Tryouts are now on.
Boys CoachMr. Pedersen
Girls CoachMme Ryll
Cheer Team
For students in Grades 6-9 from Dansereau, Coloniale & JE
Tryouts at Coloniale Estates School Multipurpose Room
Sept. 29 from 3:304:30 pm & Oct. 1 from 3:306:30 pm
Contact Ms. Goldstein for more information.
A huge thank you to all our staff who volunteer with extracurricular activities throughout the year.

Lights Leadership Team

The Lights Leadership team is a group of students and teachers who work to support a healthy
social and physical environment at our school. Lights look forward to creating opportunities for
all students to get involved in school community and build strong relationships. They also strive
to get students active and have fun at the same time.
Lights Teacher Leaders: Mrs. Thompson, Mme Broad & Mrs. Amundson
Upcoming Lights Events:
Neon DayThursday, Sept. 17
Terry Fox WalkSept. 30
Sock Drive October

Page 5

Habit 3: Put First

Things First.
The key is not to
prioritize whats on
your schedule but to
schedule your
priorities.
- Stephen Covey

cole Dansereau Meadows School

Family Support Liaison Worker (FSLW) Corner

I am pleased to be returning to promote Mental Health Wellness within our Beaumont Schools as your Family School Liaison Worker.
The connection between school, home and community plays a huge role in the success of students. I am here to support those relationships and foster that connection. We are one team working towards a common goal: the best outcomes for our children. I look
forward to the opportunity to walk along side you in your journey this school year.
Support for Students through Individual or Small Group work:
Anger Management, Self-Esteem, Coping Skills , Conflict Resolution, Social/Friendship Skills
For Parents/Guardians:
Supporting families in accessing appropriate services and resources
Identifying and building on positive parenting strengths, strategies and tools
Act as a liaison among school personnel, students, families and community agencies
Referral Process:
In all cases, parental/guardian consent is required. It is anticipated that parents will work with the program to the best of their abilities
and assist their child to participate in the Regional Collaborative Service Delivery. For services, please contact your school counselor
to submit a referral.
FCSS Coffee Talks:
Starting Tuesday, September 22, 2015, I will be collaborating with Community Development Coordinator Kaylene McKinney to host
monthly Coffee Talks. Our goal is to provide a forum for all local parents to learn and share ideas for promoting Mental Health Wellness in our children.
Our First topic: Back to the Routine!Tips and Tricks for managing our busy lives.
Where: 5817 Rue Eaglemont (between Ecole Dansereau Meadows School and St. Andre Academy in the FCSS Office)
When: Tuesday September 22, 2015 from 8:30 9:30. Coffee and refreshments will be served.
FSLW CONTACT: MICHELLE.CROSBY@BLACKGOLD.CA

September 2015
Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

1
Teacher Workday

2
1st day of School

4
Assembly 1:30 pm

7
Labour Day
No School

9
Bus Safety Gr 1-4

10
Bus Safety Gr 1-4

11

12

13

14
School Council Mtg
7pm
Parent Association
Mtg 8pm

15

16

17
NEON Day
Media Safety Presentations for gr 5-8

18
PD Day - No classes

19

20

21

22

23

24

25
Photo Day

26

27

28

29

30
Terry Fox Walktime
to be determined