It’s the last hurrah before the holidays!

Rub elbows with your fellow 1st grade parents this Saturday night for an adults-only social.

You won’t want to miss it! Details and RSVP here.

Be a part of our celebration!

Thursday, November 2nd
6 PM – 8 PM @ GHES

Unity Night is an evening designed to honor and celebrate the diverse backgrounds of the students and families that make up our school community.

What?

This is an opportunity for students and families to share their own cultural heritage, appreciate and connect with the many cultural traditions represented in our school.

Enjoy food provided by families and local restaurants, games from around the world, live performances, and sharing artifacts from our cultures and traditions.

We encourage you to contribute foods and artifacts that are important to your family. Perhaps it is a story about a day you celebrate or a special meal you have every Friday. Waffles for brunch on Sunday? A favorite game or book? Perhaps thinking outside our religious or national identities to include all the traditions that make us who we are.

Please RSVP here  and if you would like to participate, let us know!

Why Unity Night?

Because we believe when a school community honors and celebrates the cultural traditions of ALL families, it helps every student feel valued, welcomed, and empowered to do his or her best. In learning about, honoring, and embracing our differences, we come together. To quote our school song: “we are all a family under one sky.”

Equity Leadership Team working Mission Statement

Genesee Hill Elementary’ s Equity Leadership Team will lead school-based efforts to create a community-rooted, inclusive and equitable educational environment. We will lead community-wide equity trainings, aim to empower voices from our community that are not often heard, and continually analyze and improve upon our school culture.

For those who missed today’s presentation by Ashley Davies, Enrollment Planning Director, and Flip Herndon, Associate Superintendent, we’ve attached it below. In it, you’ll find their enrollment projections along with several boundary scenarios they are considering.

We were lucky enough to have their full attention for over one hour and we covered a lot of territory with many thoughtful questions from the parents. Flip and Ashley have said they will provide responses to the questions, which we will share as soon as we have them!

In the meantime, any additional questions can be directed to capacity@geneseehillpta.org.

PRESENTATION

Congratulations to Joe Jeannot, our September Volunteer of the Month.

Joe joined the PTA Board in a new position of Events Chair and has worked tirelessly this first month of school to ensure the success of our school events. Joe has earned the highly coveted Volunteer of the Month Parking Space out front for the month of October. If you see him around the neighborhood, let him know how much we appreciate his hard work.

A little about Joe:

Being involved in education and event planning has always been part of my life. It has been a great opportunity to become part of the Genesee Hill community through volunteering. As a Seattle native and resident of West Seattle for the past 10 years, you will find me after school hours enjoying time with my family and friends.

Genesee Hill recently showed the film Screenagers to our Genesee Hill community.

Even though our students are not ‘Screenagers’ yet, we wanted to offer a starting point for navigating the use of tech in your homes, including everything from gaming to social media to general personal device use.

We were fortunate enough to partner with South Seattle College Cooperative Preschools on this showing. Below you’ll find links to the materials distributed at this event.

If you missed it, another showing is happening Saturday, October 7th at South Seattle College. For details, click here.

South Seattle College Materials

• Quick Tips
• Screen Media – Family Resources

Screenagers

• Parent Guide
• Be a Mindful Media Family
• 8 Simple Steps to Strengthen Family Connections Every Day

Washington State Education Is Still Severely Underfunded

The recent recommended budget by our state legislature does not achieve the state’s paramount duty to fully fund education. Because of this, PTA funding is more necessary then ever to maintain the integrity of our children’s education.

To quote our Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland, “On July 26, the School Board adopted the final 2017-18 budget. […] The budget put forward by the Legislature does not achieve the state’s paramount duty to fully fund education. It also raises taxes for Seattle homeowners, results in budget deficits for the district, limits our local ability to make ends meet and restricts how we use any new state funding received.”

With that in mind, Genesee Hill Elementary is reaching out to our West Seattle Community to partner with us in bridging the funding gap. Your generous contributions will help us continue to support core fundamental needs like school supplies and classroom materials, library books, reading and math tutors, playground supervisors and equipment, and programs like geography, visual arts, library, physical education, and teacher professional development.

• The Move-A-Thon, scheduled for October 12, 2017, is a special fundraiser in which students raise money for their school and celebrate fitness. The students, staff, and parents jog, walk, or skip around a 1/10-mile course for 30 minutes trying to get as many laps as they can.
• Or, donate an item or service from your business to be used at our Auction on March 17, 2018. Genesee Hill Auction is an amazing community event bringing together over 400 parents, teachers, and staff.

For details on the sponsorship opportunities, click here.

For a procurement form, click here.

Questions? Feel free to email our Fundraising Chair, Olga Hasty, at fundraising@geneseehillpta.org.

Dear Genesee Hill!

With our Kindergarten starting fully this morning, we are now up and running for the 2017-18 school year! I want to thank everyone – parents, teachers, tutors, recess monitors – for pitching in with such great support every step of the way. When Ms. Mears remarks that it’s been the smoothest start she’s ever seen, I take that pretty seriously!

This will be another big week, and I want to make sure everyone in grades 1-5 is planning on joining us for Curriculum Night on Thursday, September 14th. Here’s the schedule for the night:

• 6:00 – 6:50: Grades 1 and 2 present in classrooms, Grades 3 through 5 math presentation in Library (optional)
• 7:00 – 7:25: All-school presentation in Cafeteria
• 7:30 – 8:30: Grades 3, 4, 5 present in classrooms

Hopefully this spread, with Kindergarten on its own night last week, will make it possible for families with multiple children to get to most classrooms easily. (In addition, Kindergarten families are invited to come see how their child’s classroom has developed since the first day of school at an Open House the night of the Hillville Carnival.) While Curriculum Night is structured as an adults-only program, we do not want that to be a barrier to any parents joining us; if it is necessary to bring your children along, please keep them with you as supervision is not otherwise available.

Since we won’t have much time to cover all school programming, I want to preview a few important details that we hope parents will be a big part of through this year:

CCC curriculum: CCC is the Center for Collaborative Classrooms and is our new K-5 English Language Arts curriculum. The adoption of CCC is the first district-wide adoption of literacy curriculum in 14 years and the roll-out so far has also been, by far, the most thorough and supported curriculum implementation I’ve ever seen. The chief curriculum writer worked previously with the Columbia Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, wrote the curriculum that we have been using for many years, so the transition at Genesee Hill should be pretty smooth. It’s most important for parents to know how much the curriculum emphasizes classroom community and student discourse, and over the course of the year, parents will be hearing from teachers about how to support these elements from home.

Math curriculum: Today, we started our “Walk-to-Math” program in grades 4 and 5 for the year (3rd grade starts in a few days). Our program is different from most Walk-to-Math schools because over the last nine years we have built in several elements designed to ensure that each student was receiving grade-level instruction that would effectively meet his or her particular learning needs. We believe that class size drives different instructional practice, and the groups range in size from eight to thirty. The same Singapore Math-based curriculum, Math in Focus, and Common Core standards provide the basis for instruction in all of the groups, and we have found this structure to be highly effective in moving all students forward. Students from all groups, for example, are placed in advanced Math 7 when they enter Madison Middle School. Many factors are considered in placing students in the groups. Using these multiple factors keeps the groups fluid and ensures that all of the teachers in a grade level team are communicating well about each student and each group’s progress. We will readjust the math groups at several natural intervals in the curriculum and school calendar. In keeping with our commitment to tailor the learning environment to the needs of students, we are also running a field test of a different curriculum in the 4th grade math group taught by Mr. Philp and Ms. Wells. This curriculum, called J.U.M.P. Math is Canadian and is the standard math curriculum in British Columbia schools. We think it has a structure that will prove to be hugely advantageous to the needs of these students, and we look forward to feedback from the students and parents alike about how their math learning changes this year.

Science pilot: This month, teachers will be launching the first of three kits at each grade level, newly aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. K-2 will start with a unit exploring the phenomenon of puddles, and grades 3-5 will be studying mag-lev trains. Thanks to the generosity of parents through the auction Raise-the-Paddle, we are excited to be able to join a significant pilot of this curriculum, called Amplify Science. In addition to the curriculum, we’re also busy planning a roll-out of maker space materials that we can incorporate at every grade level and through our new Genius Hour plan (see below).

Growth Mindset: If you have noticed the “Steps to Success” Learning Behaviors on our front steps, you know how much we have been thinking about guiding students at every age to take ownership of their own learning and progress. The next step in this process is building on the important work in “growth mindset.” This will be an important conversation in the coming years as parents and teachers both learn to prompt students to take risks and learn from “failure.”

RULER, Year 2: We are excited to be building on the work we did last year to establish the four elements of the RULER program as the cornerstone of strong relationships and self-regulation in our community. Please plan on joining us to write a Family Charter on October 19th (new date).

Instrumental Music (grades 4 and 5): We are very pleased to be able to bring instrumental music back into the school day and to eliminate the $150-$200 annual fee we have had to charge for the last eight years. Your fourth or fifth grader brought home information last week about signing up for an instrument. Band instruments and percussion will be taught by Ms. Bronson during students’ “specialist” time. They will be grouped in new ways (not by homeroom) based on instruments so no one will miss out on PE or dance. String instruction will happen Friday afternoon by a new teacher, Victoria Smith. Some instruments are available for students to borrow so that there should be no financial barriers for any student who wants to participate. Playing an instrument, however, is not required, and we are waiting to see how the sign-ups go to determine how we can offer a day of “general music” instruction for those students not taking an instrument.

Advanced Learning: At the Kindergarten Orientation last week, I told parents not to be worried about the September 22nd cut-off to request Advanced Learning testing for your child. Every year, Seattle Public Schools spends three times its allocation from the State for advanced learning instruction on testing (i.e. not instruction). The entire staff of the District’s Advanced Learning office is consumed by testing through the month of March. We think this emphasis on testing causes some parents to be concerned that children who appear to be academically ahead of their peers cannot be adequately challenged at their neighborhood school. I’m proud that Genesee Hill proves this to be wrong over and over again, and this year our Instructional Leadership Team is focused on developing a cohesive K-5 approach to advanced learning for our building. This is also the reason that we continue to cultivate our relationship with the Math and Language Arts Departments at Madison Middle School so that we can ensure these advanced opportunities for our graduates going into sixth grade. That said, some Fifth Grade parents will want to consider registering for Advanced Learning testing (by Sept. 22nd) as a way of ensuring this smooth transition for their students.

Genius Hour (GH^2): We are very excited to be developing this daily period (2nd grade on Monday, 3rd grade on Tuesday, 1st grade on Wednesday, 4th grade on Thursday and 5th grade on Friday) when students will have the opportunity to explore new things, dig deep, build, create, and play. All teachers, specialists and other staff (like Ms. Dunn, Ms. Watts, Ms. Thomas and myself) will be involved in teaching these courses (sometimes alongside parent volunteer experts). In the next week, students will be selecting 8-week “courses” (experiences) that they are interested. We’ll rotate students through four quarters over the year.

If you’ve read this far, you are truly sharing in my enthusiasm about our prospects for the year (thank you). It feels great to have the tough logistics of a new building behind us and to have such a great foundation of strong instruction (and great kids) to build on. I hope this overview prompts lots of questions and suggestions, so please send them my way!

We look forward to seeing you Thursday!

Gerrit Kischner

Liz Dunn

Constance Thomas

Dear Genesee Hill Families!

Welcome to the start of the 2017-18 school year at Genesee Hill, our second year in our new building! This is my tenth year with the Schmitz Park/Genesee Hill community, and I know I can speak for everyone to say that we are especially excited to be firmly established in our new building and ready for all the innovation that can come with being settled in our collaboration and our systems. Genesee Hill is a great learning community for kids, and we look forward to getting this year started!

I can’t possibly include everything I want to you to know about in this letter so I am going to limit this mostly to immediate information that all families need to know to get ready for the First Day of School on September 6th.

First, though, I want to use this opportunity to boast openly about one bit of news we received this summer that we are especially proud about because it says so much about who we are and what we do at Genesee Hill. In June, we graduated a fifth grade cohort that represented some of the best work we have done as educators in collaboration with families. This was a cohort that began at Schmitz Park setting a new benchmark from the start. With them, we grew from three Kindergarten classrooms the previous year to four, and they amounted to fully double the size of every other Kindergarten cohort that had come through Schmitz Park since it opened in 1962. That was a learning curve to begin with, but at Kindergarten Orientation we could clearly see the real imbalance: the cohort was 68 percent male!

Despite many different initiatives, we struggled to get good traction with the kids and by the end of their second grade year we started talking about making a move that would disrupt the trend and refocus the student on developing strong learning behaviors. The move we decided to make was to create a “Boys Class” for Third Grade. This would be a class of 16 boys, and the math worked out that in creating this class the other three classrooms would swell to 30 perfectly balanced with fifteen girls and fifteen boys each. The move was controversial because it appeared to shift a lot of resource in favor of the 16 boys in Ms. Williams’s class, but it proved to focus our work as educators on the work we were doing for all of the kids. We pledged that we would commit to being very intentional about returning the kids of fully mixed classrooms for fourth grade.

There is a lot more to this story, but I want to jump to the present. At the end of June, we received the preliminary results back from the Smarter Balanced Assessment to the news that 100 percent of the fifth grade girls had met or exceeded standard in ELA (English Language Arts). 100 percent isn’t a figure we see very much in this business, so it is a pretty huge point of pride. To understand the growth this represents, 77% of these girls met/exceeded standard at the end of third grade. What’s more, the boys posted the same growth, from 71% at/above standard at the end of third grade to 94 percent at the end of fifth grade! Their math results were similarly strong.

This is a story that I feel is important to understand about our journey as a school because it speaks to the success we have had managing our substantial size (we will open with about 725 students in September, the largest elementary school in Seattle) and working together to address the needs both of individual students and whole cohorts at the same time. It speaks also to our growing focus on teaching learning behaviors, students learning to be masters of their own learning, and growth mindset. This is ongoing and exciting work, and we have a staff at Genesee Hill dedicated to pushing into new frontiers. This year, you will first notice teachers’ implementation of new literacy (ELA) curriculum from The Center for Collaborative Classrooms (CCC), new science units, and a return to our roots with Singapore Math. By the end of September, you will start hearing about GH^2 (Genesee Hill Genius Hour) . . . teaser alert!

Clearly, there is a lot to talk about, so here are some quick bullet points of information families need to know BEFORE school starts, in somewhat chronological order:

• No school supply purchase needed: Once again the Genesee Hill PTA is supporting our efforts to reduce cost and hassle by purchasing supplies in bulk and convenient sets for teachers. Your child needs only a backpack, water bottle and, if bringing lunch from home, a lunch box. Please see the attached letter from PTA President Christine Kraynek about how you can help the PTA continue this great work.
• In-school medication needed BEFORE school starts: Please see the attached letter from our great nurse, Sue Heffernan, regarding new procedures around medical information and student medication. She needs your help to get this fully organized before the first day of school. Follow these links for Medication Authorization Form and the Student Health Information Form.
• First annual Back to Business Day is Thursday, Aug. 31, from 9 am to 6 pm: This is an optional day supported by the Genesee Hill PTA to help parents take care of all the paperwork for the start of school before school starts. Parents can watch the video regarding sexual harassment that is required to register as a volunteer (you only need to watch this video once) and renew their Washington State Patrol check (required every year). Fifth grade parents will even be able to write a check toward the class trip to Islandwood on November 27th. We hope many parents will find this drop-in time useful ahead of the rush of the school year, but participation is entirely optional.
• Bell times change substantially this year: 20-minute later dismissal time four days a week and a 75-minute early release on Wednesdays (please note, this Wednesday release was stated incorrectly on the Seattle Public Schools calendars that families received last week).
  • Mondays: First bell at 7:45, tardy bell at 7:55, dismissal at 2:25.
  • Tuesdays: First bell at 7:45, tardy bell at 7:55, dismissal at 2:25.
  • Wednesdays: First bell at 7:45, tardy bell at 7:55, dismissal at 1:10 (**all Wednesdays EXCEPT the first day of school, 9/6 – dismissal at 2:25)
  • Thursdays: First bell at 7:45, tardy bell at 7:55, dismissal at 2:25.
  • Friday: First bell at 7:45, tardy bell at 7:55, dismissal at 2:25.
  • All days: Supervision starts at 7:30 (playground for grades 1-5, front toy yard for Kindergarten)
  • Breakfast service starts at 7:30 in the cafeteria.
• Getting to school: Every morning, well over 1,000 people converge on our school – please do your part to keep this routine safe and efficient for everyone. If you would like to participate in a Walking School Bus route, please contact Sara McDougall (and come to Back to Business Day to get your volunteer paperwork taken care of). If you are dropping a student off by car in the morning, ALL drop-off traffic must go to the drop-off zone on Genesee east of 51st street. There must be no drop-off traffic on Dakota or streets leading up to Dakota (i.e. 50th or 49th). As a community, we must be good neighbors and keep the streets leading up to the school safe for pedestrian traffic. We understand SPD will be present to help enforce traffic rules. When Kindergarten starts on Monday, 9/11, please keep both sides of 51st beyond the bus zone available for Kindergarten families to park and walk their children to the front play yard. A helpful map is available on the PTA website.
• Get organized for after-school child care and Enrichment: The Genesee Hill PTA has a long tradition of supporting kid and families with great opportunities after school. This year, Study Club will start on Monday, 9/11, and Enrichment classes will start Monday, 9/25. Registration for Study Club will start this Monday, 8/26, at 7:00 pm. See the attached list of classes and contact Chau Pho-Tung at enrichment@geneseehillpta.org with questions. In addition, Hiawatha After-school Care (Seattle Parks/ARC) continues to operate at Genesee Hill and Schmitz Park (call 206-684-7441). We have also received word of a new option operated by Island Time Ministries with potential school bus service within the Genesee Hill zone at 41st and Andover (contact islandtimekidsplace@gmail.com ; inclusion here is not an endorsement).
• Classroom assignments will be posted on Friday, September 1st: If you want to know who your child’s homeroom teacher will be, drop by the front windows of school starting the morning of September 1st where lists will be posted (usually by 9 am).
• Come meet new staff on the First Day of School: Since we know it won’t be raining 😉 on the first day of school (grades 1-5), please join us on the playground. Students will greet their new teachers on the playground and proceed into school (look for raised signs with teacher names). After the students are inside, parents, grandparents and guardians please join us for a parent coffee in the cafeteria. For those of you who still remember our opening Flag Ceremony at Schmitz Park, we will still have an all-school ceremony before dismissal to kick the year off together. We are looking forward to everyone getting to know our new staff joining our team:
  • Constance Thomas, Assistant Principal
  • Theresa Njoku, Library
  • Shawn Cudney, PE
  • Michael Washington, Kindergarten
  • Erin Munavu, 1st Grade
  • Jennifer Kwintner, 3rd Grade
  • Per Junkerman, 4th Grade
  • Shirley Smith, 4th Grade
  • Lauren Fuller, 5th grade

There is a lot more share. Please plan on coming for Curriculum Night on September 14th (grades 1-5, specific times for grade levels will be forthcoming). At that time, we’ll provide plenty of information about how you can support kids this year at Genesee Hill.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone soon! Please let us know if you have any questions!

Gerrit Kischner, Principal, gakischner@seattleschools.org

Liz Dunn, Assistant Principal, eadunn@seattleschools.org

Constance Thomas, Assistant Principal, cothomas@seattleschools.org

Pam Jones, Administrative Secretary, pkjones@seattleschools.org

The first day of school is quickly approaching!

Swing by the Genesee Hill auditorium on August 31st, to fill out all required paperwork* for the upcoming year in one swoop. You can come any time – we’ll be there all day!

Back-to-school paperwork includes:

• Volunteer forms
• SPS/Genesee Hill Paperwork (Student Information Verification
  Form, Survey to identify Disabled Students, Health Registration Form, Family Education Rights and Privacy Form, Emergency Release Form and School Directory Opt in
• PTA Membership

*If you are unable to make it, don’t worry! Students who do not have paperwork filled out will be sent home with the packet of forms at the start of school.

UPDATE 6/15/2017:

The Council voted to approve the funding for a two-tier system. Here is a Seattle Times write-up on the vote: With Grant, Seattle Schools to Change Start Times

—————————————-

Genesee Hill Families!

We need you to advocate on behalf of Genesee Hill families and the community as a whole to support the City and Seattle Public Schools in funding a switch to two-tier start and ends times starting next year.

We need you to take action NOW because the City and the School Board are voting on this Wednesday, June 14th, which could either confirm the switch – or – lock us into three-tiers moving forward. We know at least two council members oppose the proposal and the School District has made it clear that if the Council does not approve the funding next week, they will revert back to a three-tiered schedule for the 2017-18 school year.

Currently, all students in Seattle Public Schools fall into one of three-tiers for start & end times next year:

• Tier 1: Elementary Schools (including Genesee Hill) start at 7:45 and end at 2:15;
• Tier 2: Middle and High Schools start at 8:35 and end at 3:25; and
• Tier 3: Select K-8 and some Elementary Schools from start at 9:25 and end at 3:55.

We have the opportunity to remove this 3rd tier and re-align start and end times to the following schedule if we can compel the City of Seattle and Seattle School Board to provide one-time funding, allowing for only two-tiers moving forward:

• Tier 1: Elementary Schools would start at 8:00 and end at 2:30
• Tier 2: Middle & High Schools would start at 9:00 and end at 3:50

These time frames are supported and recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – most importantly, they just make sense! Many K-8 and select elementary school parents have expressed concerned about their young children coming home from school after dark during the fall and winter months.

Please ACT NOW and send the following message to the Seattle City Council and School Board. For greater impact, please personalize with your own spin and subject line. If you have been negatively impacted by the change to three-tiers, please include a note as to what that impact has had on your child and family. (Email addresses are listed below.)

———————–

Dear Seattle City Council and Seattle School Board,

As a parent of Elementary-aged students attending Genesee Hill Elementary school, I ask that you fund the one-time cost of transitioning student start & end times to two-tiers for the 2017-2018 school year and beyond. This transition is in the best interest for all students of Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you,

Genesee Hill Elementary School Parent

———————-

EMAILS
spsdirectors@seattleschools.org
ltherndon@seattleschools.org
bruce.harrell@seattle.gov
lisa.herbold@seattle.gov
rob.johnson@seattle.gov
debora.juarez@seattle.gov
mike.obrien@seattle.gov
sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov
tim.burgess@seattle.gov
lorena.gonzalez@seattle.gov
leslie.harris@seattleschools.org