Letter from the Principal: September 2, 2022

1. It gives you a chance every day to talk specifically with your child about something they did or learned in school. 
   1. The more children articulate what they are thinking, doing, and learning with an adult who cares about them, the better the development of those neural pathways for solidifying and making connections. 
   2. The more emotionally positive and safe these conversations, the stronger the connections. 
2. It develops a HABIT of connecting the school, parents, and children. Spectrum is founded on this three-way partnership, and the importance of this relationship and communication cannot be overstated. 
3. With parent feedback on the daily “take home” work or notes, and with children’s reflections on the day, when the work comes back to school it is three-holed punched and added to the child’s processfolio as an archive of their learning. Seeing the growth over time becomes a source of celebration! 
4. It develops important EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING skills to have to be responsible to take home a folder, have some sort of interaction about it, and bring it back every day. 
   1. We will use Home Folders to send home things like picture forms, volunteer requests, event fliers, field trip permission slips, reminders etc. 

On days when there is not a piece of paper coming home, please check email or feel free to use the cues to talk to your child about the day and send an email or note to the teacher if you have questions or comments. 

For Fridays, the Making it Count at Home activity will be in the eBlast and posted on our Facebook page. Your response can be a picture of your child(ren) doing the activity on the Spectrum Facebook page.

This is a work in progress, and I think we are off to a reasonable start. Please support it!  

Sincerely,

Dr. Mary Beth Cunat