Pennoyer Family Newsletter - 2/16/24

Pennoyer Families,

This week was all about spreading the love around Pennoyer.  Our students celebrated Valentines Day in fashion this past week with parties, exchanging candy gram ring pops, doing creative projects, heart shaped cookies, and so much more!  Our very own Student Council with Ms. Kopoulos and Mrs. Kafka, went above and beyond with the positive spirit and decorated lockers with messages of kindness, encouragement, and love.

As we move into next week and beyond, please take a moment to read this important letter HERE about the 5 Essentials Survey we administer every year to our entire staff, our 4th-8th grade students, and all of our families.  As parents/guardians, please to take some time to take the parent portion of the Illinois 5 Essentials survey. Your participation in this parent portion of the survey will help us reflect on family perception of the Pennoyer experience, and the feedback will guide our continued growth and improvement. Your identity and survey responses will be kept completely confidential and will never be connected to you or your child.  We had such a good percentage of our parents take this survey last year and it was very usual data that informed us. Thanks so much for your time and support with this!

 
The Illinois 5Essentials Survey will be open through March 29, 2024. To take the parent survey please visit http://survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/survey/parent/ and select the appropriate survey to begin.  Please make sure to put in “Cook” as the county and start typing in and select Pennoyer Elem School in the appropriate box when it pops up.

Finally, I'm so excited about our Pennoyer Parent Monthly Meeting coming up next Wednesday, February 21st from 6:30-7:30pm in the MPR here at Pennoyer.  This is open to all Pennoyer parents at every grade level and will be hosted by myself, our social worker, Mrs. Rachel Slawson, and our new ALOP student advocate, Miss Maura Stickley.  This will be a great opportunity to really get a window inside of how we're supporting students and promoting positive behavior and expectations.  There will be many useful tools you can bring to the home environment as well, and the collaboration will definitely be both beneficial and key to our success as a community.  We hope you can join us next Wednesday night!  HERE is a flyer.

School Information and Reminders:

*More specific information to come in the weeks ahead, but please keep in mind that our first phase of construction will be starting in March before Spring Break.  We're so excited to finally get this underway for our students, staff and families!  This will have a small impact on arrival and dismissal procedures and lunch/recess time as well.  The construction fencing will go up the week of March 11th, so I'll send out more specific details as we get closer to to that date.  

Want to get involved, volunteer, or have ideas for our school...Check out the PTC Link!

We Celebrate at Pennoyer!

This week, I'm super excited to celebrate 5th grade teacher Mr. Widd!  He is truly somebody I feel so lucky to work with each and every day.  Mr. Widd has such an authentic way with connecting with students, building relationships, and delivering instruction.  I always enjoy visiting his classroom that's full of positive energy, creativity, and high levels of engagement.  Mr. Widd is so much more than a 5th grade teacher though.  When there's an after school event, you can be assured that Mr. Widd is there supporting our students and taking pictures to celebrate them in the yearbook.  He's also stepped up as an amazing leader in math as the Department Chair this year, and helping to lead out revamping the curriculum to best support our students' learning as a whole.  I can't leave out the technology piece either.  Mr. Widd is so incredibly organized in the world of tech and understands how put things together in an efficient way.  I often look to him for guidance with things, and whether it's building a new schedule for our school or creating systems for organizing lesson plans, curriculum, pacing guides, and resources, Mr. Widd is second to none!  He is certainly #Pennoyerpride all the way in my book!!!

What’s Around the Corner?

• No School on Monday, February 19th due to President's Day

• Spirit Week is coming to Pennoyer on February 26th!  Check out this flyer HERE for more information.

• All Pennoyer Parents - Please SAVE THE DATE for our next Pennoyer Parent Monthly Meeting to Connect - Collaborate - Celebrate next week on Wednesday, February 21st from 6:30-7:30pm in the MPR at Pennoyer.  The focus of this month's meeting is important.  We'll be diving into our student support system here at Pennoyer, our mindset of behavior/discipline and the social emotional focus we value for our students.  I'll be joined by our new Student Advocate - Miss. Maura Stickley, along with our Social Worker - Mrs. Rachel Slawson.  HERE is a flyer, and we hope to see a lot of parents there on Feb. 21st.

• We're super excited to announce the 1st Annual Pennoyer 3 on 3 March Madness Basketball Tournament event coming up on Friday, March 15th for any Pennoyer 3rd-8th graders interested!  This was an idea that came out of our Principal's Crew this year, and I can't wait to make this happen.  Packets were sent home with all 3rd-8th graders, but HERE is a flyer with some information, HERE is the Team Form that should be handed in with money, and HERE are the rules.  Please have these in NO LATER than March 8th if students want to be a part of this special event.  Any questions, please reach out to Principal Adam Greenberg.

• Pennoyer's Father/Daughter Dance is coming up on Friday, March 8th.  We hope you can join us!  Check out this flyer HERE if you're interested.

• Support our 8th Grade Hot Dog Lunch Fundraiser at Pennoyer coming up on February 26th!  Check out more information HERE.

Sincerely,

Adam

Pennoyer Principal

agreenberg@pennoyerschool.org