Dear Cunniff Families,

We hope you and your children had a wonderful time over the Winter break! Many of our staff traveled far and wide, many dealt with seasonal illness, and all are excited to back at the Cunniff. Please read through for some important updates an upcoming events.

Happy New Year!

Julia

We are thrilled to announce that our students chose the name "Courage" for our mascot! Courage got to visit classrooms on the Friday before break, and he will be back for more!

Starting next week, we will be administering several mid-year assessments. Our multi-lingual learners will participate in ACCESS testing, and all of our students will participate various math and literacy assessments. The information we get from these assessments will help inform our instruction and ensure that our students are getting exactly what they need in order to meet (and exceed) grade-level expectations.

What can you do at home to support?

Please make sure your students are getting lots of sleep, eating well, and not stressing. These assessments are really an information-gathering tool for us. However, we do want our students to be their best at showing us what they know!

Our Diversity & Belonging Committee (DBC) gathering this month will be in-person Thurs Jan 9th 6:30-7:30pm in the Cunniff Learning Commons. 

All Cunniff staff, caregivers and kids are welcome (we'll have HS students to organize activities with the kids in room 210).

Light snacks will be provided.

We'll use the circle format for our gathering to connect and build a vision for this year's Multicultural Fair, which will take place March 20th.

Please reach out with any questions: cunniffdbc@gmail.com

As we head into some of the coldest days of the year, I want to share what our process is for determining if students should go outside for recess. We turn to our district nursing department for guidance, but our general rule of thumb is that if the "feels like" temperature outside is below 20 degrees fahrenheit, our wonderful nurse, Jen Cullen, will advise an indoor recess.

Please make sure you are sending your students to school with appropriate cold weather gear (coats, gloves/mittens, hats, scarves), so that they can comfortably enjoy outdoor recess. We strongly recommend labeling your student's clothing/winter gear with their name!

It was so great to see so much Cunniff Pride today!

Next week, we will tear it up with some whole-school dance breaks!