Attendance Line Number - 490-3062

March 4, 2005

Shepardson's Home Page: http://schoolweb.psdschools.org/she/

In this issue...

(Table of Contents)   (Top) PRINCIPAL REFLECTIONS

This newsletter speaks to the upcoming state CSAP testing that will occur immediately after Spring Break! Students in grades 3-6 will be tested in reading, writing and math. Third grade has already completed their reading test earlier to allow for results to arrive before the end of the school year. These results are used to comply with a state law that requires documentation for how well our third graders are doing in reading. The rest of these results will not arrive until next fall.

These state tests are directly aligned with the standards that we are teaching every day. While we recognize that these results indicate performance at "one point in time," we do appreciate receiving more information now about how each child performed on each skill. Such individualized and group information helps us review program and student growth to determine instructional needs. Teachers will be reviewing these data along with other information next fall to plan best for your children's learning!

It is a time when our schedules and building use will be different. Teachers and staff who are administering these tests have been well trained. We always take this process seriously and are careful to follow all of the expectations. Counselor Rea Kreider and I both attend trainings to assist staff in this process. Since we have so many parents volunteering, it is important that we all be more aware of the "TESTING: DO NOT DISTURB" signs posted on many doors throughout the school. No one may enter or disturb students from performing their personal best. Students will probably say that Student Council providing special snacks, having less homework, and having more recesses are some of the best parts!

We do know that Shepardson students are prepared and will do their personal best. We ask you to join us in this effort by making sure they get enough sleep, get a good breakfast and lunch, and have reduced anxiety. Mr. Kreider has written a great article especially for parents on this topic. While we do not want sick children at school, we do ask that parents avoid having them be absent for other reasons that can be addressed at other times.

We hope you and your family have a wonderful spring break! Please encourage your children to read over vacation. Keeping their skills "tuned" helps them feel more comfortable when returning to the routine of learning. Happy Spring!

-	Mary Kay Sommers
	email: msommers@psdschools.org

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CALENDAR

March 04, 2005

MARCH 2005			MARCH 2005
11	Fri	Way Museum 1:30-2:30 Gym	3/21 - 4/8	Mon-Fri	CSAP Testing-Grades 3-6
11	Fri	End of Quarter	24	Thu	SIT 4:00-6:00
14-18	Mon-Fri	Spring Break! NO SCHOOL	28	Mon	Report Cards Distributed

(Table of Contents)   (Top) CONGRATULATIONS, COLLINS WANG!

Collins Wang was one of only eight students from the Poudre School District who qualified to participate in the Colorado State Spelling Bee. He will represent Shepardson and the school district at the State Bee in Denver on Saturday, March 19. Good luck, Collins! We are VERY proud of you!

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FOURTH GRADERS MAKE COLORADO HISTORY COME ALIVE! This week our fourth graders, under the direction of Mrs. Caren Everett, performed a lively, exciting presentation of "A Hike Through Colorado History!" Their singing and dancing along with narrative speaking parts and some colorful props gave the audience an increased appreciation of Colorado's history. Ashlyn Stults and Charlie DeMoss even played Home on the Range with their guitars! Watching students follow the square dancing directions without a hitch was impressive! Most of all, their smiles, confidence, and enthusiasm reminded us how developing musical skills and appreciation can be so much fun! Congratulations, Fourth Graders and Mrs. Everett, for an exemplary performance!

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FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH HOLDS MADISON GREEN'S FLAT STANLEY! The second graders at Shepardson Elementary are doing a project called "Half-Size Me," which was adapted from the popular Flat Stanley activity that is done by students across the country. Flat Stanley was a boy who became flat when a bulletin board fell on him. His parents put him in an envelope and sent him off to see his relatives in another state. Stanley came back home with lots of great information about the area he visited. Second graders created "flat, half-size students" by measuring different parts of their bodies and then dividing those measurements in half. They used those measurements to draw a body, color them to look just like them, and send them all across the United States and overseas to have adventures and learn about other communities and areas of our country/world. When their adventure is over, they will return to Shepardson and hopefully will bring interesting information about different parts of the world. The locations are plotted on the map and the students and their information are displayed in the classrooms. One of our "Half-Size Students", Madison Green, was visiting Germany with her aunt and had the pleasure of having her photo taken with Laura Bush! How exciting! We can't wait for all of the Flat, Half-Size Students to arrive back at Shepardson and tell us all about their journeys!

(Table of Contents)   (Top) 6TH GRADE TEXTBOOK ADOPTION!

Poudre School District is in the process of adopting a new social studies text for sixth and seventh grades. The sixth grade text will focus on the Western Hemisphere, dealing largely with geography, culture and history. We have copies of the textbooks at Shepardson for staff and parent review. You will find the materials and evaluation forms in the hallway in front of the office. Please review materials and return the evaluation forms to the office by March 31. If you have any questions please contact Jan Hoffman at 226-6370. Thank you.

(Table of Contents)   (Top) COUNSELOR'S CORNER

By Rea Kreider, Shepardson School Counselor

This year's CSAPs are upon us. Students in 3rd grade have already started and were given Reading Assessments in February. A second testing window will take place from March 21st through April 8th. During this time period 3rd graders will be assessed once again in Writing and Math, while students in 4th, 5th and 6th grades will be tested in Reading, Writing and Math. Over the last few years we have all heard more and more talk about higher standards for students and increased teacher accountability. Now, with the passage of "No Child Left Behind", CSAP tests have become an instrument used to measure students' annual yearly progress and to establish a resulting "grade" published in a School Accountability Report (SAR) each year. You most likely know by now that Shepardson has once again been awarded an "excellent" rating on this year's SAR. If you are interested in knowing more of the specifics in that report, we have them available here at school and you can also find the report on the school's website.

As we approach CSAP testing during this next few weeks, I wanted to share a few thoughts and suggestions from a book entitled Test Anxiety and What You Can Do About It by Dr. Joseph Casbarro. In his introduction he states:

"It is a simple fact. There's just too much anxiety in our lives. Each day it seems that we are finding newer and more creative ways to worry. Some say it's due to the information age, where television and the Internet bring instant news about every real or potential danger in the world into our homes every day. Regardless of the causes, there's certainly no shortage of things to worry about. What I have found most troubling, and a primary reason that I chose to write this book, is that adults' anxieties and worries are being increasingly transmitted to children."

Dr. Casbarro proceeds to site as example foods that cause cancer, mad cow disease, medicines found to have long term side effects, car airbags that are potentially harmful to small children if deployed, September 11th, the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks and the unspoken, underlying feeling of being on orange alert all of the time, a war in Iraq, increased level of worry about our financial security and the list goes on. And then he asks

"Why then have we as a society purposely added more anxiety to the childhood experience? And why is a major source of that anxiety coming from our schools? With the move toward higher standards came a very negative and unintended outcome-anxiety. With higher and more rigorous standards came greater accountability. With greater accountability came more tests. With more tests came more anxiety. We raised the bar, developed high stakes testing, and created one of the most stress-filled learning environments in history- all in the name of higher standards. We want to raise achievement, but in the process we raised anxiety which actually produces the opposite effect."

In a later chapter entitled "Parents, and Teachers and Kids...Oh My!" Dr. Casbarro points out the "trickle down affect" that higher standards and teacher accountability has had on students. State education departments know that one very effective way to control what is taught in schools is to control what gets tested. In Colorado, as in many other states, the CSAP tests are closely aligned with curriculum standards, and classroom teachers are being held more accountable for their students achieving those standards. As standards are raised, higher demands get placed upon classroom teachers to have their students achieve annual yearly progress. The logical result is teachers demanding higher standards of their students. Instructional goals and teaching practices are adjusted accordingly. Parents want their children to be "smart" and successful in school, and if higher test scores are being emphasized, then how their children perform on these tests becomes more important to parents as well. Perhaps, Dr. Casbarro suggests, this is why private test prep and learning centers have thrived in the last 5-10 years. The important point is that messages communicated to students, either directly or indirectly, from teachers, from parents and even from peers can greatly influence the level of a child's anxiety and resulting test performance. The following strategies are among those strongly suggested by Dr. Casbarro to help reduce students' anxiety:

• Differentiated Instruction throughout the year helps meet the diverse learning needs of students.

• Emphasis on Multiple Intelligences helps children know they are smart in many ways. Standardized tests, like CSAPs, are only one way for teachers to understand how well students are learning.

• Adult action, vocabulary and tone of voice must send messages that feeling some nervousness is normal and can even be motivational, that many kids feel this way and "we love and respect you no matter what the results."

• Prior experience with similar testing formats and discussion of basic test taking strategies.

• Well-organized accommodations for students with identified special needs.

• Physical exercise, rest and positive visualization prior to testing.

• Positive self-talk and deep breathing during testing sessions.

Dr. Casbarro goes into much more detail in later chapters as he discusses pre-testing strategies and in-progress strategies for schools, parents and students themselves. In an appendix he actually covers how nutrition plays an important role in childhood anxiety. In conclusion he challenges us.

"As we attempt to help our students in an era of increasing accountability, we must effectively address the impact of high stakes testing. No longer can the preparation for these tests be limited to drilling for content and taking practice tests. We must remember and incorporate a wider range of strategies and techniques to ensure that the negative effects of test anxiety do not contribute to lower performance."

As the brunt of our annual testing approaches, we as a faculty are aware of the anxiety these kinds of tests can create in children. We help students understand that while it is important they do their best, this is only one way to measure how "smart" they are. We do what we can to keep the adult anxiety about these tests to a minimum, teach kids about deep breathing, positive self-talk and other anxiety reducing techniques to help them stay focused, provide healthy snacks and fun activities once sessions are finished and repeatedly give them messages that we have confidence in their ability to do well. We will breathe a collective sigh of relief when this period of the year is behind us.

Test Anxiety and What You Can Do About It is available to any Shepardson parent or caregiver and can be found in the resource library in the counselor's office.

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YOUTH ART MONTH Youth Art Month is being celebrated at the Lincoln Center from March 1 to March 31st. The purpose of Youth Arts is to celebrate the achievement of students studying the arts in their schools, to encourage and stimulate thought and action about the importance of the arts in a student's education, and raise awareness that the impact of the arts on our lives is profound and universal. Each art teacher in the district could submit five students' artwork for the show. From Shepardson the following students will have their work displayed at the Center for this celebration. They are Tawyna Miller, Miranda Blas, Julia DeMoss, Rachel Helzer, and Erin Dowdy. Gallery hours: M-F 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 12 - 6 p.m. Admission is free.

(Table of Contents)   (Top) ELK'S LODGE WRITING CONTEST WINNER

A Shepardson student reached the stars on Tuesday, March 2nd. Maisie Iven of Mrs. Cooke's fifth grade class was awarded first place in the annual Elk's Lodge Writing Contest! More than five hundred other fifth graders from Ft. Collin's schools competed for this award. The topic, "What Old Glory Means to Me", would be difficult for most writers, even adults. So imagine our pride and delight when we read the following essay:

Old Glory Stands For

By Maisie Iven

What Old Glory represents to me is a majestic country that is totally free. We can practice whatever religion we want. Here we are free to disagree with each other. We're not told what to read and write. We have the freedom to vote on who we want to lead us, into war and into peace. Though some may disagree with the things we say and do, they have no right to stop us from speaking our mind. With all this freedom there is also responsibility to control our actions, to live by the law and to respect others. Through war and through peace, one thing will always shine through to us to represent our amazing country: the American flag, with its red and white stripes and its fifty bright stars standing four our united country.

Congratulations Maisie! The four hundred dollar savings bond you received will come in handy when you are ready to pursue college and/or a career. We are so proud of your accomplishment and fortunate to have you at Shepardson! Keep writing!

(Table of Contents)   (Top) OFFICE DEPOT REBATE

Office Depot will give schools 5% of your qualifying purchases to provide credit for materials purchased there for school purposes. Since we frequently purchase from Office Depot, we invite you to use our school's ID number: Shepardson 70017820 We thank you for helping us in so many ways!

(Table of Contents)   (Top) YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Did you know that Shepardson has a school wide postal system? This year it began operation on February 15. The postal system's objectives are: to motivate students to use their writing skills, to enhance the teaching of writing strategies, to create another avenue of communication among our school community and to gain skills in writing a friendly letter and addressing envelopes. The students in Mrs. DelMonte's 3rd grade class are the postal workers. They collect, sort, and deliver the mail each day. In addition to enhancing their writing skills, they are practicing other skills, such as categorization, scanning, matching, counting, and responsibility. Each postal carrier has signed a work contract.

Her are a few tips to help your child write letters at home. To make the addressing of envelopes realistic, the students should include the receiver's name, street (pod name), city, state and zip code (class code). Also, please include a return address. If your child does not know the name of the teacher that the child he/she is writing to, just have your child check with his/her teacher. Happy writing!

Kindergarten's address:		Kindergarten Ct.
1st and 2nd Grade Pod:		12 Alpha Centauri
3rd and 4th Grade Pod:		34 Nova
5th and 6th Grade Pod:		56 Polaris
Office Address:		Office Place

Example:

John Doe 12 Alpha Centauri Ft. Collins, CO 5B Susie Smith 34 Nova Ft. Collins, CO 3D

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