Cordelia Hills Elementary

Hi everyone, Tomorrow is the final day of school for all FSUSD elementary schools. School is released at 2:33 here at CHE. School will resume on Tuesday, January 3, 2017. Enjoy the Winter Break and Happy Holidays!

Every year, Cordelia Hills nominates and then votes for a Teacher of the Year. This school year, five different teachers were nominated for the honor. This year, our Teacher of the Year is Ms. Courtney Spence, kindergarten teacher. We are proud of our selection and her fantastic work serving our students and community. Ms. Spence has now been forwarded to the District level for District wide consideration.

The December 15th ELAC meeting has been rescheduled to allow for a orientation for our new TK class. The English Language Advisory Council will now meet on January 26th at 3:15 p.m.

Our students and staff are so terrific and they do so many wonderful things for our community every day. Just some highlights from the last week: 1. Cards for Troops: Several of our students have written holiday cards and notes that they are sending overseas to those armed services members who are far away for the holidays. The notes are personal and well-written. 2. Sock Drive: So many students (and families) have brought in new, unopened packages of socks to donate to those in need this holiday season. We are continuing to accept socks thru Thursday and we definitely appreciate the giving by our students so far. 3. Pledge: Every morning, I read the Pledge of Allegiance and every morning I look across the quad and I can see a group of students who stop on the way to a support class. They stop (without adult prompting) and join in the pledge. They are showing respect not because someone asked or told them to show it but instead because they want to show it. Great job to our stude

Good morning CHE! I hope all is well this wonderful Monday morning. A few updates as we near the winter break. School is in session thru Friday, 12/16. That day is a normal schedule day. We return to school on Tuesday, January 3rd. 1. Attendance:  Winter Attendance is so important. Please make sure your student is coming to school everyday. If they must miss, please communicate with the school about the reason for the absence. Our attendance rate is slightly down this year at just over 97.5%. Our goal is to reach 98%, making us one of the top attended schools in FSUSD. We can make it happen! 2. Winter Music Show: Select FSUSD Elementary schools will be holding a Winter Concert tomorrow, 12/6 at the Kroc Center starting at 5 p.m.. 3rd students are invited to attend to play in the song flute ensemble. Also, first grade students and choir students are invited also.  The chorus students and 1st grade students involved need to be at the Kroc Center by 4:30  and the 3rd grade students ne

Hello Coyote Families! Sorry for the delay in notes. It has been a brisk start to the week after the Thanksgiving Break. I hope everyone enjoyed some time with family and friends and some time away from school. As the winter season continues, please remember that the period right before and after the Winter Break is usually marked by poor attendance. Please do your part by sending your child to school every day that it is in session! We greatly appreciate it. A few important updates and reminders for the week are below. Updates: 1. Academic Recognition and Conferences : Thank you for all of the parents who were able to make it to conferences. I think recognizing the work of our students and setting areas of growth is so important. This week, we are recognizing our 1st trimester top academic performers in the 4th and 5th grades. I will be visiting each 4th and 5th grade classroom to recognize each high performing student and to encourage continued excellence into the 2nd trimester.

Hi everyone, I hope everyone enjoys the holiday. We will see you November 28th! ST

Hi everyone, Just a reminder that school is in session thru the rest of this week, including Friday. We return from break on Monday, November 28th and we want to make sure we have all students at school. Hope to see you all this Friday (dismissal at 11:40) and Monday, November 28th (regular schedule).

Good morning everyone! I hope all is well this sunny Monday morning. A few reminders for this week and beyond: 1. Conference Week, 11/14-11/18 . A reminder that dismissal is 11:40 for this week (except for PM TK) for conferences. Lunch is available at the end of the school day in the MPR for students that wish to take advantage of the lunch program. Please make sure to communicate with staff if you are unable to make your scheduled conference. 2. Coin Drive/Food Drive:   We are still accepting coins and non-perishable food to donate to Mission Solano. I feel so lucky to work here and to see the generosity of our families as coins and food pour in over this holiday season. Thank you for your kindness! 3. Election : Some parents and teachers have expressed some concern over election related discussion in classrooms and on the play ground. We are trying to strike a balance between helping our students understand civics but not influencing personal viewpoints. Additionally, we unders

Families, Remember, no school tomorrow, Friday, November 11th in observance of Veterans Day. Also, Cookie Dough orders are available for pick up this afternoon from 12:00-3:30 in front of the school! Lastly, next week is conference week. School is out at 11:40.

Hello parents! Sorry this is coming on Monday but Friday was busy with training and report card questions, etc. This past week was a great week at CHE and we are looking forward to another terrific week here. A few important reminders, upcoming events, and other tidbits of information: 1. Traffic Alert--URGENT : This is a reminder that we are a school in a residential neighborhood. We have 630 plus students traversing to and from school everyday. Please remember to drive SAFELY at all times. While I know folks want to avoid being late, it is not worth the risk to our children or surrounding neighbors. Also, a VERY IMPORTANT message about the back gate. The back gate is really for students who live nearby and like to walk to school. Having the gate back cuts down on the walk for those students and families. The court and other streets nearest the gate are not for heavy traffic and we ask that you avoid using the back gate if you are driving to campus. This morning one of our parents r

Arrgghhhh!  Happy Pirate Day! Some amazing spirit in this school to say the least. It has been a brisk week with many exciting things going on here. First, today wraps up Red Ribbon Week. Students sported Red Wrist Bands instead of the red ribbons. Also, PE classes and kinder classes tied red ribbons on the front fences. Many classes also discussed healthy choices and took a pledge to be healthy and drug free. On a personal note, I joined a group of new FSUSD administrators on a tour of the Juvenile Detention Facility  in downtown Fairfield. The visit definitely changed my view of what our county is doing with young offenders. While there is no sugar-coating that the JDF is essentially a jail, the facility is working with county probation to implement some innovative programs to change the lives of some of the high risk youth in our county. Some important announcements and things to remember: 1. Halloween Parade : The parade will start sometime between 8:25-8:30 . Parents should

Another terrific week for CHE is wrapping up today. Without a doubt the highlight of my week is to see the many smiling faces and dancing students in the morning. They come to school with life and an excitement for life. As we make our way towards November, I know our staff is thankful for you sharing your terrific kids with us everyday. Thank you! Highlights for the week include seeing students learn about those serving our local community by making owl boxes for local ranches and open space areas. Students learned about why community service is valuable, about local owls, and about the purpose of the owl boxes. Also, Ms. Wilcox and her 5th grade students participated in a http://www.breakoutedu.com/ game yesterday. The game requires students to critically think, collaborate, be creative, and communicate in order to solve clues and to break thru several locks in 45 minutes or less. A great activity for our students! Some important announcements and things to remember: 1. Trun

Cordelia Hills is partnering with Mission Solano on the annual food drive. Mission   Solano  provides Help and Hope for the homeless and hungry all year round and Food Drives are one of the most effective ways we are able to provide for those that cannot provide for their families.   Mission   Solano  is conducting our annual holiday food drive. We are offering a thanksgiving meal to over 600 families in  Solano  County. Please stop by our main office and drop non-perishables in one of the food boxes located right inside the main door! Thank you for your support and help!

Cordelia Hills Families- To everyone who supported our school and came out to the Fun Run, THANK YOU! Even though the events are over, we are not finished yet.  Our goal is to collect 100% of the funds pledged. All pledges are due  10/20/2016 . Check  funrun.com  for payment options. Checks can be made payable to Cordelia Hills PTA.  Pledging will remain open for one more week for any final donations.  Simply place all pledge money into the collection envelope your students came home with and send that back to school. Also, sponsors can pay online if they entered their email address on  HYPERLINK " http://funrun.com/ " funrun.com . Thanks again for generously supporting Cordelia Hills! 

Over $20,000! That is how much we raised through our Coyote Fun Run. WOW! I know we ask a lot of our parent community and staff when it comes to fundraising but the outcome is pretty amazing and will reap direct benefits in all of our classrooms. Thank you all, especially our PTA board and volunteers that put in an enormous amount of personal time and energy into the first two months of school. Students can still take donations thru the end of October. I mentioned in my last blog update that many from across FSUSD are participating in an informal challenge for the month of October to complete 100 miles (walk/run), 100 minutes of plank, and 100  minutes of meditation. I am at 30 running miles, 28 minutes of plank, and 50 minutes of meditation. I hope some of you can join us. Feel free to tag yourself or your family participating on social media with the tag #movetober! I would love to have you all join me in staying healthy and active! A great article ( Withholding Recess ) on rece

Yesterday, as I was leaving school, a few of our students were waiting outside for a ride. The girls stay after school to participate in a program called Girls on the Run. They had wrapped up the activities for the afternoon and were headed home. These girls exuded confidence, strength, and life. Talking with these girls in that moment made me so proud to be here at CHE and to be a partner with you in raising some AMAZING young students. A few of my closest co-workers from across Fairfield-Suisun Unified have joined to get moving this October. We have challenged each other to 100 miles (walk/run), 100 minutes of plank, and 100 minutes of meditation. We are calling it #movetober. We welcome anyone in our school community to join us and encourage you to post your work on social media with the hashtag #movetober. Anyways, enough blabbering from me. Some important announcements: 1. Students of the month : Today, we celebrate our 48 September Students of the Month. We are focusing on

Hi everyone, A few of you have contacted me about a "general" threat to Fairfield schools. The District is working with police to make sure that all of our campuses are safe. Cordelia Hills has not received any threats whatsoever. The police are adding patrols at the campuses mentioned in this article:  Fairfield Clown threat article . It is important to mention that they believe this is a hoax but are being extra cautious. If you have any questions, please free to contact me anytime. ST

Just a quick reminder on Short Term Independent Study: Short Term independent study is for students who are going to be out of school for a minimum of 5 days. The maximum number of days out depends on the grade level (check with main office). In order to qualify for Short term independent study, you must email Mrs. Lissick (helenl@fsusd.org) and your child's teacher. You must give two weeks notice in order to qualify for for short term I.S. When you email, please include student name, dates they are going to be out, specific reason for the request, and the first day returning to school. Please write "Independent study for _________(student name) in the subject line. Please know that all students/parents approved for short term I.S. must sign a contract and under the law, they must follow the guidelines in the contract with no exceptions. Please note, while most teacher do approve requests, they are under no obligation to approve the request. Often, requests are not approve

I hope all is well this terrific, sunny Friday! Things are going well here at Cordelia Hills and we only have 4 students absent school wide! Wow! Today wraps up the last day of the book fair and it has been a tremendous success. PTA still has one after school session left and we hope you can make it. The students and staff have been excited about raising money for Holiday Hope. The final decision (Trotter pirate vs. Trotter merman) will be announced Monday! Late last week our school held our fall IPR (in progress review). During the IPR, District office staff join site staff to review school site data (test scores, discipline data, walk-thru data, etc.) and work with staff to come up with a site goal and action plan centered on achieving that goal. Our IPR goal centers on increasing the amount of academic conversation happening in our classrooms everyday.  Academic conversations  are "back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challen

This last Friday I attended a CUE Rockstar Admin "conference"  in Marin. CUE (computer using teachers) promotes a mission of "inspiring   innovative learners by fostering community, personalizing learning, infusing technology, developing leadership, and advocating educational opportunities for all". I focused my efforts at the conference on learning about improving teacher professional development, on high quality math instructional practices, and on workflow techniques for staying out of the office. The final presenter had basically turned over her office to the PTA and ran her campus from out on campus. One presenter presented on math. I am sharing one of his resources here ( Advice for Parents on Promoting Math ). Now for some important announcements for the week: 1. CHE Book Fair starts today :  Our book fair starts today and lasts thru Friday, September 30th. The fair is hosted by our WONDERFUL PTA and is located in the Music Room (backside of the  cafete

Hi everyone, Tomorrow is the final day of our attendance competition with local Cordelia/GV schools. Today we reached 98.26%. Let's make tomorrow a top day for the last two weeks. Can we reach 100%?!

Hi everyone, The attendance competition is winding down. Only 2 days left. Today, 9/21 saw school wide attendance at 98.11%. Thanks much and let us keep working up towards 100%.

Boy Scouts will hold an informational meeting on Wednesday, 9/21 @ 6:00 p.m. in the MPR. Girl Scouts will join the presentation and all families are welcome.

Wow! 98.89 of our students here today! Amazing stuff everyone. 100% of Tk/K, 1st, and 3rd grade here. Keep up the great work everyone!

The second week of the Green Valley/Cordelia Attendance competition is underway. Our numbers for the week: Tk/K: 100% 1st Grade:100% 2nd Grade: 95.6% 3rd Grade: 95.96% 4th Grade:  99.24% 5th Grade: 96.12% Overall for today: 97.94 Keep up the great work, Coyotes!!

Hi everyone, The book fair is coming up and help is needed. Check out the sign-up genius here:  Sign Up Genius

The attendance competition wraps up the first week with 97.63% for the week. Great job. I think we will need to be above 98% to claim the attendance title. Let's make next week count!

Hello everyone, I hope all went well this week. Again, your kids rock and I think we are lucky to be able share so much time with them. A few announcements, topics of interest, and calendar events for the next few weeks. Have a great day! 1. Parking : Many of you had many questions about parking and drop-off/pick-up. A few reminders and news:               -The staff lot is closed for drop off and pick up. While this is clearly marked at the entrance, I know the informal practice has been to allow drop off and pick up in this lot. We are now closing the gate during drop off and pick up. We want to protect student safety and avoid having students walk thru the lot with cars moving. Additionally, some employees arrive and depart right at the end of school and often are unable to leave because they are blocked in.               -The front lot is closed during morning drop off and afternoon pick up. Many students are entering and exiting the front of the building and having moving

Oh no! We had 17 students absent today. Keep up the great work from earlier this week and let's make this happen! Go Coyotes: TK/K:   98.30% 1st:      97.80% 2nd:     94.50% 3rd:     98.90% 4th:     99.03% 5th:     99.72% Overall, we are at 97.61 for the first four days. Go Coyotes!!

Cordelia Hills continues to seek members for our English Language Advisory Committee. If you are interested in joining the ELAC and you have an English Learner student, please feel free to email me at stevetr@fsusd.org or contact our school anytime. The ELAC generally meets 3-4 times a year and discusses and advises the school on how to best support English Learners. We appreciate all of your support and help!

We rocked Day 3 with only 6 students absent school-wide: TK/K:   99.10% 1st:      97.82% 2nd:     97.80% 3rd:     100% 4th:     99.01% 5th:     100% Overall, the first three days has us at 97.99%. Go Coyotes!!

Our updated percentages after 2 days of the attendance competition: TK/K: 97.9% 1st:     96.56% 2nd:    97.80% 3rd:     96.86% 4th:     98.04% 5th:     98.86% Overall: 97.79%. Wow. We went up today! 4th and 5th grade with perfect attendance. Fantastic work students (and parents)!

The sign-up genius for volunteering at the Book Fair is now available. Follow this link to sign:  Book Fair Sign-Up Genius . Also, just some information on the fair: Book Fair :  The Fall Book fair is coming up the week of September 26th. The fair will be open before and after school in the music room (stage area). The PTA will be looking for volunteers and will post a sign up genius link soon. The theme for the Book Fair is Pirates. Also, we are sponsoring  ALL FOR BOOKS charity drive. For every dollar we raise, Scholastic donates a book to the cause of our choice. In order to encourage students to raise money, I will allow them to vote on a costume that I will wear in the near future. Apparently, mermaid is the top choice so far (wow!).

Our attendance competition with area schools is underway. Today, we are as follows: TK/K: 97.5% 1st:     95.65% 2nd:    97.80% 3rd:     97.91% 4th:     96.07% 5th:     97.72% Overall: 97.15 %. Here we go CHE. Make it happen!

Hi everyone, I feel so lucky to work here with your students! They have to be some of the kindest little human beings on earth. Below are updates for the upcoming week and events. Have a terrific week! 1.  Our attendance competition  started today and lasts thru September 23rd. We are so excited to go up against Nelda Mundy, Oakbrook, and Green Valley Middle to see who can have the highest attendance percentage over the next two weeks. Friday, Officer Holecek from FPD visited to celebrate attendance and to say hello to kids this morning. Some other events related to the event:   a. T he grade with the highest attendance percentage over the two week period will earn a frozen fruit bar party/free recess for the entire grade on the week of September 26th. I will announce and post the percentages out front everyday.  b. We will select 10 students from each grade with perfect attendance over the period to sit at a special lunch table in the lunchroom on the week of the 26th. c

Hi everyone, Check out this link about the clean up Freeborn Creek on Saturday, September 17th. Freeborn Creek Clean-up Have a great day!

Good morning everyone, I hope the week has treated you well. A few important updates for the upcoming week: 1 . No School   on Monday in observance of Labor Day. 2 . Support the Cordelia Hills PTA!: Support the great work of our CHE Parent Teacher Association by joining the PTA today. The membership is $10.00 and the whole family is encouraged to join (parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles). This fall we are holding a membership drive competition with Putnam Elementary in New York state. If Cordelia Hills wins, students with family members who have joined the PTA will be able to duct tape Mr. Trotter to the courtyard wall. Also, the PTA will have a drawing for two chromebooks and an Apple Watch for those who join the PTA during the drive. For more information, check out cordeliahillspta.org 3. GATE referrals due by September 16th : If you are interested in having your 2-5th grader GATE tested, please complete the Test Request form on the FSUSD GATE webpage by Friday, S