Orange Park Elementary October 2009 From the Desk of the Principal Hello Everyone! I am looking forward to a great school year at OPE. We have had a very smooth opening and the students seem to be settling in. As you know, we received an “A” last year. The students worked hard last year in order for this to happen. Tremendous learning takes place every day at OPE. We are very proud of our OPE family for all of the effort that makes it all come together. Thank you for your help and support. Please welcome the following new teachers and staff to OPE: Kelly Alfano is our new Kindergarten teacher. She comes to us from Oakleaf Village Elementary. She has many years of experience as a teacher. Keith Compertore is our new Art teacher and we are happy that we again offer art to our students as a resource class. Keith comes to us from Wilkinson Elementary. Jennifer Viola is our new grade 6 Social Studies teacher and comes to us from Doctors Inlet Elementary. She also taught in North Carolina. Tami Williams is our new Reading teacher and was at Oakleaf School last year.

1401 Plainfield Avenue Orange Park, Florida 32073

Deborah Serda is our substitute teacher for Grade 6 math for Donna Hicks. Donna is still serving in the National Guard in Iraq and should be back in the states in October (if the military plans stay as they are now). She should be returning to OPE sometime during the second nine weeks. Ms. Serda was a student intern with grade 5 last year and knows the OPE way of educating children. We welcome all of these fine people to our wonderful school. If you get a chance, stop by and say hello to these excellent educators.

O.P.E. Office Hours are: 7:00 am to 3:00 pm The school phone number is: 278-2040 (This is the only number that rings in to the school)

O.P.E.’S website is: http://orangeparkelementary.googlepages.com

Clay County School Board website: www.clay.k12.fl.us

As always, OPE is a great place to be! Jane Bromagen Principal

Hello! My name is Kelly Perkins and I am your PFA president for the 2009-2010 school year.

Wolfe’s Den Welcome back everyone! We have made it through the first couple of weeks and things are running very smoothly. The children and staff have settled into their daily routines.

This is going to be an exciting year! We already have several items on the calendar. For the month of September we have the Sally Foster fundraiser, and we will kick it off with a wrapping paper fashion show on the 22nd that you won’t want to miss! On the 25th will be our first Skate night of this school year. Skate station will be closed to the public, and we receive money for every admission. PLUS the class that has the most students present gets a pizza party in the party room at the end of the night! We look forward to seeing you there!

A big congratulations to all the students and staff for making an A for the 2008-2009 school year! We welcome all of our new students and parents to OPE. We are very happy to have you here. I hope everyone has a wonderful school year.

Also, don’t forget to join the PFA. Your $5.00 per family does so much for our school and teachers to enhance our children’s academic experience. Thank you for your support of your PFA, and I am looking forward to a wonderful year with all of you!

Dawn Wolfe Assistant Principal

Kelly Perkins PFA President

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Media Moments

Very Important Attendance Information

Welcome back to another great year in the Media Center at OPE! Although the Resource team will continue to send out their terrific newsletter, we are not planning to put out a newsletter right a way and there are a few items I would like to address immediately.

This letter is to inform you that we and all Clay County District Schools will be following school board policy regarding attendance. The two relevant school board policies are:

We all know how hot it still is outside and how important it is for our dear children to stay hydrated. I am asking that you consider putting your child’s library books in a plastic bag or put the water bottles in a plastic bag. We have had several water bottles ruin library books this week and we are only in week two of the year. This is really traumatic for your child, because they really do try to take good care of their books. Find a solution that is best for your family. We just want dry books and happy children. The other request from the media center is Clorox wipes or Lysol wipes for the library tables. Between allergies and the flu, we are doing our best to keep the library safe. We are wiping down every table after each class, which uses lots of wipes. If you can find it in your budget to send us a container once in a while, we would be so appreciative.

4.01 D6. Accumulated unexcused tardy and early departure time equivalent to one full school day may be counted as one unexcused absence in the total number of unexcused absences for possible legal action. 4.02 G. Attendance at school is to be encouraged. Perfect attendance certificates for all students who have been neither absent nor tardy during the school year are available for issuance to students. In the past, tardies did not count against perfect attendance; however, now they will be counted.

Thinking GREEN at OPE! We have partnered with a recycling company this year that will actually PAY us for our paper! They will put a recycling bin out in the back parking lot in the next couple of weeks. They will take all paper products EXCEPT cardboard and phone books. Please save all of your paper products to dump into the bin.

Many hugs from the library! Mrs. Callihan and Mrs. Diley

Community Service Club Our second year of Community Service Club is about  to begin.  We welcome all students in third through  sixth grades who would like to reach out to help  other people in our community.      Some of our beginning projects will be knitting, writ‐ ing storybooks for destitute children, creating post‐ ers and collection boxes for the new recycling pro‐ gram.      Sign‐up forms were sent home the first week of Sep‐ tember. Additional forms are available in the Media  Center. The community service club will meet Thurs‐ days from 2‐3pm beginning Oct.1st.      Sponsors for this year include Mr. Harris, Mrs. Lewis,  Mrs. Rauth and Mrs. Callihan with guest appearances 

Also, if you know of any businesses (churches too!) that would let us put a recycling bin (see picture) at their location, we can get paid for paper collected from other locations! We want the whole community to dump their recycled PAPER in our bin. In this way, the community can help us at no cost to them! The community service club will be making paper collection boxes for the classrooms, teacher’s workrooms and the offices. Questions or help in this project can be directed to Mrs. Callihan in the Media Center.

Odyssey of the Mind

Ask your child, “Are you a bucket filler?”

It’s that time of year again, when Odyssey of the Mind teams are forming! If you are not sure what Odyssey is, you can go to their website at www.odysseyofthemind.com to see what all the excitement is about. We always have plenty of students and not enough coaches, so if you can find some time in your schedule and some room in your heart to coach a team we would love to train you! Teams meet after school and are not part of the normal school day. If you were not able to come to the awareness meetings posted on the school calendar, send a note to Mrs. Callihan in the Media Center and she will send some information home for you and your child to consider. Please do not call the library for information.

Orange Park Elementary PFA — October 2009