- Lake George Elementary School
- Principal's Message/Updates
-
Dear LGES families,
As the end of the school year approaches, I have some important information to share with you.
Last Week of School ScheduleThere will be no school on Monday, June 19. Tuesday, June 20, Wednesday, June 21 and Thursday, June 22 will be ½ days with an 11:15 a.m. dismissal. No lunch will be served on the half days, but we will serve breakfast. We plan to have buses pull out at 11:15 a.m. followed by parent pickups. The tradition of students leaving school with a celebration of bubbles will take place on Thursday, June 22. All students will get to walk out the front doors that day and then will be delivered to their parent pick up location. There is no school on Friday, June 23.
Leader In Me MRA Parent Survey - Link here.Every year we have our students, staff, and parents complete an anonymous 5-10 minute survey connected to the Leader in Me. The survey results are reviewed by our Educational Cabinet (our shared decision making team) and they help to guide our building level goals each year. Thank you for completing the survey and helping us evaluate the impact of the Leader in Me, teaching the seven habits and ways that we can improve upon our approach to develop strong leaders, learners, and citizens.
YMCA After School ProgramNext year LGES will be a host site again for the YMCA after school program. The flier is linked here if you’re interested in the program.
Important DatesJune 19 No school - Juneteenth
June 20 11:15 a.m. dismissal - No lunch served.
June 21 11:15 a.m. dismissal - No lunch served.
June 22 11:15 a.m. dismissal - No lunch served.
June 22 6th Grade Moving Up Ceremony, 7:00 p.m.
June 23 No school - Summer vacation begins for students!
Thanks again for your continued cooperation. Please feel free to contact us at any time.The past few years have been difficult for all school communities. I'm proud to share the case study done by our partners at @forNYKids/UAlbany Research department which chronicles the ways LGES stayed positive during a difficult time.
Blog: https://bit.ly/LkGeorge_Report
Case study: https://ny-kids.org/lkgeorge-report-covid-study/LGES Bulletin: Please remember to check the Daily Bulletin (CLICK HERE) every day for the most up-to-date information and announcements.
LGES is a NYS Recognition School!
The New York State Education Department determined that Lake George Elementary School was a 2019-2020 "Recognition" School. Recognition Schools are awarded that designation based on high levels of student achievement and continuous academic improvement. Only 13% of the schools in NYS were recognized as Recognition Schools. Interim Commissioner of Education Tahoe shared: “Recognition Schools across the state demonstrate the relentless commitment of teachers, administrators, staff & parents, without whom this growth would not have been possible.”
I am very proud of all of the staff, students, and families of Lake George Elementary School!!!
Please click on this link for additional information from the NYS Education Department.
Great Schools Ranking: Here's the link to the 2020 Great Schools ranking for LGES.
LGES is a Lighthouse and Academic Honor School
In 2019, LGES was recognized by FranklinCovey Education as a Leader in Me Lighthouse School with Academic Honor for our approach to teaching leadership, our leadership culture, and our academic systems . Fewer than 10% of the 4,500 schools worldwide that implement the Leader in Me achieve Lighthouse School recognition and not all of those schools are recognized with Academic Honor. The Leader in Me approach to leadership is based on the transformational book by Dr. Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Arrival
If possible, please plan to have your child arrive between 7:45 a.m. and 7:55 a.m. You can drop off as early as 7:30 a.m. and students entering school after 8 a.m. are considered tardy. If you are dropping your child off at school, please pull up into our drop off zone and, as always, staff will assist with getting your child into the school and classroom safely. PLEASE do not drop students off at school before 7:30 a.m. as the building is locked and there is no supervision. Students that arrive before 7:45 a.m. wait in the gym until the 7:45 a.m. bell, when students walk to classrooms. Students eating breakfast at school will eat in the cafeteria.
Dismissal
As in the past, students riding buses home will board at approximately 2:15 p.m. and buses will leave campus by 2:20 p.m. Student Pick-up will begin after the buses pull away at approximately 2:20 p.m. Like last year, parents will not wait in the cafeteria, but rather go to the specific locations shown below. Parents with more than one child will go to different locations to pick up their children.
Dismissal Locations (subject to change)
Kindergarten -The playground behind kindergarten
1st -The Kindergarten hallway entrance
2nd -The Library entrance
3rd -The exterior cafeteria door
4th -The front entrance
5th -The front of the building outside of 5th grade
6th -The front of building outside of 6th grade
Thank you for your cooperation as we work together to keep these busy times safe for our students.
Student/Parent Handbook:
Please read the handbook along with your child. It is filled with information about LGES and can be found by visiting the Elementary School web page under Resources. Please return the enclosed sheet by Friday, Sept 16 indicating that both student and parent(s) have read the handbook. As always, please contact us with any questions or comments.
Communication Methods:
In an effort to efficiently communicate with our families and community, we will continue to use our website and Facebook page. In addition, all notes sent home in students' backpacks will be available on the Elementary School website under the Virtual Backpack Quick Link and on Teaching Team web pages. Please ensure we have a current email address on file (you can do this on the Parent/Guardian/Contact form included in this packet) and that you are signed up for our SchoolMessenger program.
Student Images:
If you do not want your child’s name and/or photo and video used in any school publication, newsletter, newspaper, mailing, posting, website etc., please submit a written request to Lisa Fox at the main office in the elementary school.
Strategic Planning at LGES
In 2022-2023, LGES will continue to focus on our district mission to “personalize opportunities that empower all students to be lifelong learners, leaders, and global citizens”.
Lake George Central School is in the 6th year of our current Strategic Plan. In conjunction with that plan, our shared decision-making body (LGES Educational Cabinet) establishes 1 year building goals.
We will be developing Cabinet Goals for 2022-2023 utilizing feedback from our student and parent surveys. The focus of the goals will be improving our survey scores in the following areas:
1. Student Leadership : Self Advocacy
2. Supportive School Environment: Trusting Relationships
3. Goal Achievement: Student Goal settingi-Ready
In 2019 LGES made a decision to move away from AIMSweb assessments as a benchmarking system for ELA and Math. After a great deal of research, we determined that i-Ready was a better option for us and provides us with better information. i-Ready is administered three times a year (Fall, Winter, Spring), to all students in grades 1-6 and twice at K (Winter, Spring) to help identify student needs and strengths in reading and math. Several weeks ago, we administered our first round of i-Ready benchmarks, and we are sharing those results with you today. This letter is intended to help explain i-Ready and simplify the reports.
The i-Ready Diagnostic is an adaptive assessment given on the iPad or laptop. The diagnostic adjusts its questions based on your child’s responses. For example, a series of correct answers will result in slightly harder questions, while a series of incorrect answers will yield slightly easier questions. The purpose of this is not to give your child a score or grade, but instead to determine how best to support your child’s learning.
When you look at your child’s diagnostic report you will see a blue bar stretching up towards a green box. The green box indicates an understanding of the current grade level standards. At this point in the year, it is not likely that a student’s bar is into the green since they haven’t been taught much of this material yet.
You will also see several horizontal lines. The larger solid line indicates the middle score target for the end of the year. The smaller solid line is where your child is expected to grow from where they are now with a typical year’s growth. The dashed line indicates a “stretch” growth or a more lofty target to reach. At LGES, we will work towards stretch growth for all students by focusing on the individual needs of each child.
You’ll see a number of items listed to the right of the graph that have been scored. These Overall Domain scores are in relation to what we would expect a beginning of the year student to know. Green indicates that they’re currently on target for that skill. Yellow indicates an area of need that’s not on level requiring a focus on skills taught from the prior year. Red indicates an area that is more than one year below grade level requiring reteaching and/or intervention.
There is additional information on the report under “Placement by Domain.” It shares what was measured and some areas of focus for your child to help them improve and continue to grow.
We are hopeful that i-Ready will provide you with information regarding your child that makes more sense than our AIMSweb reports did. We are finding the information very useful for us.
Please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher or our curriculum coordinator Ashley Gershen with additional questions that you may have.
The Board of Regents adopted revised English Language Arts and Mathematics Learning Standards on September 11, 2017. The Common Core was replaced by the NYS Next Generation Learning Standards . At Lake George Elementary School we will follow the implementation timeline developed by NYS and ensure that changes in curriculum are made in a timely manner. The new standards have been the result of over two years of collaborative work to ensure New York State has the best learning standards for our students. Over 130 educators and parents worked together to make recommendations and revise the standards, resulting in a new set of revised English Language Arts and Mathematics Learning Standards.
Thanks for your commitment to making sure that your children are in school every day and on time. I’m very proud of the achievement of our students, but the best teachers and curriculum won’t help children be successful if they’re not in school. Our attendance data for the past eight years clearly shows that students missing 10 or more days of school a year are not achieving at the same levels as their peers. In fact, there is a direct connection between poor attendance and a need for reading support or special education services. There are exceptions to this rule; however, the large majority of our students with attendance issues struggle academically and/or don’t reach their potential.
Price Chopper Tools For Schools Program: Please register your Price Chopper Card to help LGES earn free educational equipment and supplies. There's no cost to do this and items that you purchase at Price Chopper add up quickly! Thank you. Our school code is 16340.
Please stay connected by following Mr. Conway on Twitter at twitter.com/jconwaylg
The staff at LGES is working hard to stay on the cutting edge to ensure the very best for our students. Please explore our website to learn more about our mission, curriculum, special programs & the arts, school news, and our unique approach to teaching children.
Thanks again for all that you do to support your children and our school. As always, feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.James Conway, Principal
Lake George Elementary School
conwayj@lkgeorge.org