Week 3

Hello Families,

A quick note for this week

The loss of our Para-Educator Karen

You have received a CSS Boom about this but it is so important that you are informed of this development.  The Special Education department has determined that we are over staffed (crazy) and they will be taking one of our Paras on Wednesday.  Karen is so important to our school community and she is able to serve younger students so that our other Para, Kathy, is able to serve our older students.  Her assistance is imperative to a positive classroom community.  Even if your student is not directly served by a para-educator they indirectly benefit from their presence.  We have decided as a community to email the people making this decision so that they may understand how devastating this would be to our school.  Please take a moment to send an email to those people so they know how many voices oppose this decision.  This is truly a crisis at our school.  We would love for their inboxes to be full on Monday morning.

Go ahead and copy this text into your email and send it to the folks below:

Dear representatives of Portland Public Schools,

It has come to the attention of the parent community at Creative Science School that the district is taking away one of our para-educators, Karen Hadley, this Wednesday 9/24. As we have a large number of students at our school with IEPs, and this change would leave us with only one paraeducator to serve our entire school, we do not think this loss of staff is justified.

We as parents of both special-needs children and their peers consider this decision by the district to be a crisis for all of our staff and students. Without the support of a second paraeducator, we have serious concerns about our staff’s ability to meet the needs of all of our students. This change will put our children immediately at risk in terms of their safety and welfare and would be extremely detrimental to all of our families.

We would like to urge the district to please reconsider this decision so as not to jeopardize the education and wellbeing of the students at Creative Science School. Please do not take away our very necessary and important para-educator support.

Send your letter to:
carolesmith@pps.net
mpearson@pps.net
bregan@pps.net
pknowles@pps.net
radkins@pps.net
mmorton@pps.net
sbuel@pps.net
tkoehler@pps.net
gbelisle@pps.net

 

PIcture Day

Also you should know that picture day is Wednesday, September 24th.  We are scheduled for the end of the day, so if your kiddo is anything like me when I was 8, you may want to send them with the shirt you want them to wear in their backpack and they can change just before the pictures.  Although my third grade pic with the spaghetti stain on it is kind of cute.  I am also told we will do them outside.  So that is kind of exciting.

Also you will never get an envelope.  In 2 or 3 weeks they will come home with proofs and then you can order them online, if you like them.  I’m sure at some point there will be retakes but I have not heard about that yet.

Have a good week!