Lea Express for Friday, December 14

Posted on January 17, 2019
Categories: Lea Express

IMPORTANT DATES

Wednesday, December 19 – World Heritage Day

Saturday, December 22 – Tuesday, January 1 — Winter Break

Wednesday, January 2 — First day of school after Winter Break

EVENTS & ACTIVITIES

Dancing Classroom Philly Semi-Finals
Congratulations to all of our fifth grade students who performed in the Dancing Classrooms Philly Semi-Final competition this past Tuesday, December 11th, and for finishing in 2nd place!! We are proud of you! We are very grateful to Mrs. Coyne, Ms. Green, and Mrs. Kessler for their amazing support of our students, and thank you to Mr. Mark McLeod for his expertise and coaching.

Winter Concert
Congratulations to all of our students who performed in the Winter Concert this past Wednesday, December 12th! And a big thank you to all of those who helped make the concert a success: Mr. Nuissl, Mr. Gregory, Ms. Sweeney, Ms. Anea, Ms. McGlone, Mr. Gottschalk, Mr. Brown, Mr. Rich, the facilities staff, and all of the Penn student volunteers!

Lea’s World Heritage Celebration
Each year, Lea celebrates our diversity with a World Heritage Celebration in December.  Please join us in celebrating our traditions, culture and history next week!

Attendance Awards and PBIS Events
Next Friday, December 21st, we will celebrate the students that have attended every day of school for December without being late with a Pajama Jammy Jam!  Students will watch a movie and have snacks in the Auditorium. They will be notified next Thursday if they qualify to participate!

Also next Friday, our 6th-8th Grade students with $75 Lea Bucks will be eligible to buy tickets for our Winter Express Station Rotations, where they can participate in fun activities for this afternoon.  Please encourage your students to participate!

AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM INFORMATION

Lea After-School Program
The Lea After-School Program’s last day of programming before Winter Break will be Friday, December 21st, and the first day of programming after Winter Break will be Monday, January 7th.

Lea’s after-school program director, Ms. Arttia, has started an enrollment wait-list for interested families. As after-school spots open up, Ms. Arttia will contact families on the wait-list.

Moving forward, the Lea After-School Program will dismiss at 5:00 pm on Wednesdays for staff professional development. Thus, all after-school students must be picked up by no later than 5:00 pm on Wednesdays.

Young Quakers Community Athletics
Young Quakers is still looking to recruit more middle school girls interested in lacrosse. If interested, please see Ms. Arttia in Room L3!

FAMI-LEA INFORMATION

School Advisory Council (SAC)

The Lea SAC has been discussing enrollment and community dynamics between the Lea School and Penn Alexander School (PAS).  We share a boundary and Lea serves as one of the overflow school for students who are on the PAS waitlist. The enrollment movement between the schools puts some pressure on Lea that interacts with the leveling process, where we almost lost several teachers.
In order to address this issue in the coming years, both SAC groups are meeting to brainstorm ways to work together to provide more information for families who are choosing schools, to work with the Office of Student Placement, and to consider other pro-active actions.
The SAC will also engage in both the Title 1 Parent Funds discussion and broader strategic planning exercises in the Spring as we lead up to our yearly budget process.  Please look out for notices about those meetings if you would like to get involved in helping shape the direction of our school.
We will be holding SAC Elections this Spring as well. We hope to launch the nominations process in January, have candidate forums in February, and then voting take place between March and April.  We are looking to recruit about 5 new SAC family members to join our SAC, please consider running!!!
Finally, we discussed recent successful EL family events, other school-wide trips and upcoming celebrations, and heard updates about FACE activities and the ongoing partnership study at Lea.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Molly McGlone, mcglone.molly@gmail.com, or reach out to the main office at (215)400-7660.

The next SAC meeting will be January 9th from 4:30-6:00 pm in the Lea Library (please note that this is the second Wednesday of the month).

SAC meeting dates for 2018-2019: 1/9/19, 2/6/19, 3/6/19, 4/3/19, 5/8/19

Home and School Association (HSA)
The next  monthly HSA meeting will be on Thursday, December 20th  at 3:30 pm in Room 105.

The HSA is selling Lea swag as a fundraiser! We have “be-LEA-ve” t-shirts as well as Lea pop sockets and stickers! Ask an HSA officer or email us at leahomeandschool@gmail.com. Baseball T’s are $15, regular T’s are $10, and pop sockets are $3.

HSA meeting dates for 2018-2019: 12/20/18, 1/17/19, 2/21/19, 3/21/19, 4/11/19, 5/16/19

Lea Family Survey
Our Family Survey is designed to help us learn more about families’ perspectives on our school and its programming. A link to the online survey is available both in the “Spotlight” section and the “Parents” section of the Lea school website (https://lea.philasd.org/), and paper copies are available on the Partnerships Office bulletin board (Room 125 next to the Visitors Entrance stairway), which should be returned to Mr. Rich’s mailbox. It takes about 10-15 minutes to complete the survey. Please consider taking a few minutes to share your thoughts with us!

Family Café
Our Family Café program is an opportunity for Lea families to come together to support one another. The final meeting of Lea’s Family  Café will be on Friday, December 21st, from  9:00-11:00 am in the Lea Library. During the final meeting, participants who have consistently attended Family Cafe will receive a certificate of completion and a Walmart Gift Card. For additional information, please speak with our Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Liaison, Mr. Brown (antbrown001@gmail.com).

Volunteering at Lea
In order to volunteer in any capacity this year (including chaperoning field trips), parents/guardians and community members must attend a mandatory Volunteer Orientation Training at Lea with our Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Liaison, Mr. Brown.

The next training will be Friday, January 11th, from 2:00-3:00 pm. Please RSVP to Mr. Brown (antbrown001@gmail.com) if you plan to attend.

Cold and Flu Season
*FREE flu-shots* are available at CVS, Target, and city Health Centers. Flu vaccines are the best way to protect yourself. Other ways to fight the flu: (1) Boost your immune system: eat well, drink water, and sleep enough. (2) Wash your hands and don’t touch your face. (3) Cover your cough. (4) Wipe down and disinfect frequently touched surfaces. If your child has the flu, do not send them to school until their fever has been gone for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications.