Francis J. Varieur Elementary School

Newsletter - December, 2019

Dear Varieur Families, 

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends near and far. December is upon us, as quick as this cold weather. With that being said, our first trimester is over.  Parent- teacher conferences are December 5th.  Please make sure you have set up an appointment with your child's teacher for either a day or evening time slot.  

We are looking forward to December 12th when Hasbro will be at Varieur to celebrate their Global Day of Joy. This is an exciting day for our children who can't wait to see Hasbro staff in their elf hats passing out toys and games.  

Parents, please continue to get your children to school on time.  It is imperative that your child arrives to school on time as a lot happens the first fifteen minutes of class time.  Also, if your child is absent from school, we need a note from you or your child's doctor stating why they were absent per Pawtucket School Department policy.   Please place that note into your child’s folder and the teacher will make sure it gets to the main office. We have been in school for 60 days and our school has a total of 757 absences at this time.  

Also, if you are picking your child up from school early, you must send in a note with your child which is then sent to the main office.  If a note is not received and you come and pick your child up, you will be asked to fill out a form stating why they are leaving. Please know we certainly understand emergencies  happen and sometimes you need to come pick up your child when a note was not written in advance. 

The book fair will be held from 9:15AM to 3PM December 2-4. On the 5th, the book fair will be open during conferences, but will close a half hour before conferences end.  This year Scholastic is offering eWallet, which allows parents to open an account, set a spending limit, and fund it before the book fair. Unused funds are returned when the fair is over. Students will receive the information next week during library classes.  Here is the link to the eWallet. https://www.scholastic.com/bf/francisjvarieurelemsch1

Our RICAS scores came in last month and even though Varieur outperformed the state in both ELA and Math, our teachers are diving deep into our data to see what we need to improve and how we will do that as a school.  Our teachers are continuing to refocus on Common Core State Standards. These past two weeks students are focusing on data vocabulary words in every grade. Data words and definitions are read over the intercom each morning (data, survey, graph, etc.)  Teachers then use that language in their everyday teaching...even for the non testing grades. So, please ask your child what the word of the day was.

Thank you to everyone who has been ordering the Holiday pops.  Once all orders are in on December 6th, I will contact the candy company and they will deliver them to us and we will then send them home with your children. This money continues to go to field trips, special events, celebrations for the students and for buying things students ask for their classroom.    

Thank you to everyone who came to our annual  PTA BINGO night. It was a great success! Because of the success of this BINGO night, we are going to do another one in the spring. A big thank you to the parents and teachers that gave wonderful prizes and volunteered at the snack table.  

I would also like to thank the Varieur PTA for their generous donation of $105.00 that went to the Wreaths Across America project being held at Goff Middle School again this year.  The PTA bought a wreath to represent each grade level here at Varieur. The wreaths will be placed on veterans graves this holiday season.  

Continue to have your students do IXL and read at night.  Students are showing much growth in these areas. This kind of nightly practice only helps to reinforce what is being taught in the classroom.  It is wonderful practice for them. We will be celebrating the children who completed their trimester goals in the next several weeks. After the students collected all the data, it looks like some children would like to have pancakes with principal and another group would like to decorate a cookie and have hot chocolate.  

Mark your calendars for Friday,  December 13th. We will be showing the movie The Grinch.  More information to follow next week.  

Please join us for our next PTA meeting which will be December 18th from 6-7 in the school library.  

This month there will be no calendar attached as I will put important dates below. 

 December 4th: Report Cards sent home  

 December 2nd-5th: Scholastic Book Fair 

 December 5th: Parent Teacher Conferences -No School 

 December 6th:  Last day for Holiday pop orders

 December 12th: Hasbro Day of Joy

 December 13th:  The Grinch movie sponsored my Ms. Boucher and the teachers  

 December 22 - January 3rd: Winter Recess  

I would like to wish you and your family a very special holiday and Happy New Year!

Ms. Boucher

Twitter: @bouchervarieur