September 6, 2014

Volume 1 Issue 1 Mossbank School 120—1st Ave W Box 460 Mossbank, SK S0H 3G0

Phone: (306) 354-2449 Fax: (306) 354-2848 http://www.prairiesouth.ca/mossbank

Prairie Lightning News

Nurturing Learning in a Caring Environment

September 2014

Governor General Bronze Medal Winner for 2013-2014

Austin Gosling

31 1

Labour Day

2 Day 1

1st Day of

School

Grades 1-12

3 Day 2

1st Day of

Kindergarten

4 Day 3 5 Day 4 6

7 8 Day 5 9 Day 6 10 Day 1 11 Day 2

QSP Presentation

Meet & Greet

7:00-8:00 p.m.

12 Day 3 13

14 15 Day 4 16 Day 5 17 Day 6

Picture Day

18 Day 1 19 Day 2 20

21 22 Day 3 23 Day 4 24 Day 5 25 Day 6

Terry Fox Run

26 Day 1 27

Scholarship updates - Berkley Petersen won a $700.00 scholarship from SPEA (Sask. Physical Education As-sociation). She was nominated by Mrs. Rutko and was the recipient of one of two scholarships awarded in the province. Congratulations, Berkley!

Please return all of your forms to the school office as soon as possible. Thank you to everyone who has already returned their forms!

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Focus On… New Staff Members

Hello! My name is Miss Schepp, and I will be teaching senior Math, English Lan-guage Arts, and Arts Education. I was born and raised in Langenburg, SK, a small town similar to Mossbank and grew up experiencing – and loving – the farm, the outdoors, and the “small-town community” atmosphere. I feel fortunate to be living in Mossbank and beginning my teaching career here! My interests and hobbies vary greatly; I love gardening, running, and baking to name a few. I also love my new dog, Charlie, and spending time with my family and friends. I am excited to be part of Mossbank School and to get to know the students, par-ents, and people in the community of Mossbank! Cheers to a great year!

Miss Michelle Schepp

My name is Ms. Gorham and I will be interning at your school from September to

December. I grew up in Southey, Saskatchewan and attended Robert Southey

School. I am currently enrolled in my fourth year of the Bachelor of Education

(B.Ed.) degree at the University of Regina, majoring in Secondary English and

minoring in Inclusive Education. I am also working towards the Inclusive Education

Certificate. I am passionate about working with those with varying abilities at

school and through Camp Easter Seal, Campus for All, Best Buddies, and Aston-

ished. At Mossbank School, I will be teaching 3/4 Health, 7/8 Arts Education, 9/10

ELA, 11/12 ELA, and student support. I will be advising the Cross Country, Ban-

tam Boys Volleyball, and SRC extra-curricular activities.

Ms. Kourtney Gorham

Hi! My name is Mr. Tiffen and I am a new teacher to Mossbank School, but not new to this area. I am originally from Thompson, Manitoba, but grew up

in Assiniboia. I will be teaching Practical and Applied Arts, Physical Educa-tion, and History this year, as well as coaching track and field, badminton and

running a fitness club. My wife Nikki and I currently reside in Assiniboia and we have one child, Damian.

Mr. Brett Tiffen

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Library Corner Welcome back to school everyone! I hope everyone had a great summer holidays and had time to enjoy some good books. It’s always exciting to see the new kindergarteners and new books! We have a Star Wars theme to start the year going on with intergalactic books on Darth Vader, astronomy, comets, outer space, and lots more. Question is what would Darth Vader read if he was reading a book? Well, we have a few takes on some Dr. Seuss books—“Are you my father?”, “One droid, Two droids, Red droid, blue droid”, “The Force is the Force of course of course” and of course a take on Laura Numeroff’s book “If you give a Wookie a Cookie!” Just a reminder that we want to make sure that books are available to all the students so please be aware of due dates and class library times. I will be sending an email out to the various elementary classes on when books are due but please, please make sure you take good care of your books, use your library cloth bag to keep your bags in at home so you never have to hunt them down, and have fun reading!! If you get a strange looking email once in awhile with titles of books on it, that is our library software sending out reminders when books are due (or past due). We have lots and lots of new books, especially early chapter books with a reading level in the K-N which is great because sometimes it is hard to find books in that level. We have some new Sarah Dessen books, a Jase Robert-son book, a “Everyone looks better in a beard” book by the family of Duck Dynasty, new Pigeon, Babymouse, Ele-phant and Piggie, Junie B. Jones, and so many more. Just to let you think ahead, next week is that wonderful time of year again of QSP—the magazine fundraiser for the SRC. We had a few individuals last year who wanted to support the fundraiser but did not feel they themselves needed any magazines so they purchased some for the library and this was fantastic! If anyone is interested in helping the library out again this year, please feel free to talk to me after the QSP presentation next week. We have a lot of the older male population especially that do a lot of magazine reading—especially hunting, snowmobile, and motorbike (big surprise around here!) and it would be great if we could keep encouraging them with some good choices. Thanks in advance for your support in the upcoming year and enjoy reading!

Mrs. Singbeil Library Associate

2014-2015 Staff Assignments Leanne Rutko-Principal; ELA 20/A30; 7&8 PE

Deanna Krauss-7&8 Math; 7&8 IP; 7&8 Science, 9&10 Science; 7&8Health; 7&8 Career Ed, Biology 30; Physics 20 & 30

Brett Tiffen-History 10; History 30; PE 9; 10 Wellness; PE 20&30; 7&8 PAA, 9&10 PAA, 20&30 PAA

Michelle Schepp-7&8 ELA; 9&10 ELA; Math Foundations 20&30; Math Pre-Calculus 20&30; Math 9&10; Arts Ed 9&10

Katie Bumphrey-Letnes-Student Support Teacher; Arts Ed 7&8, 1-5 Reading

Ashley Fox-Kindergarten; 1&2, 3&4, 5&6 French

Christina Faris-Grades 1&2

Anita Clarke– Grades 3&4

Crystal Stark-Grades 5&6

Marcia Ray-Educational Assistant

Muriel Fehr-Educational Assistant

Christina Singbeil-Library Associate

John & Darlene Sylvester-Facility Operators

Carolyn Anderson-Administrative Assistant

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Mossbank School Update – Sept. 5th, 2014

Welcome back to school! We are so excited to be back and have our students back with us. We hope everyone had a great summer—it certainly went fast! We have lots of exciting things planned for the 2014-15 school year as well as a few changes in faces. Welcome to Mr. Tiff-en, Miss Schepp, Miss Gorham, and welcome back Mrs. Krauss from mat. leave. We have 104 stu-dents in the school this year (98.5 FTE). We will be having our Meet and Greet on Sept. 11th, 7:00-8:00 pm--come on out and meet the new teachers and see your child’s classroom. We will be continuing our School Academic Goals, focusing on reading grades 1-12. This supports the PSSD and provincial goals of improving reading for all students in the province. As last year students will be exposed to reading strategies in every subject area. This is our goal: By June 2015, 80% of grade 1-12 students will comprehend what they read at grade level as measured by our in-school assessments. We will have periodic updates of our school goals and how we are doing as we go along. Early dismissals will be ever second Monday or so, starting Sept. 29th. Students will get out of school at 2:25 instead of 3:25. This is when the teachers network in their LIT’s to work on our reading academic goals in a team format. This year, we are going back to our Conflict Resolution for the Student Well-Being goal. This will be measured from the Tell Them From Me survey by looking at students’ “sense of belong-ing” and “positive relationships.” We will do this by caring and respecting others and learning how to resolve conflicts in a respectful, productive, and pro-active manner. This also reinforces our motto “Kind Thoughts; Kind Words; Kind Deeds.” We all need to continue to learn how to get along in our school family. Bell times remain the same this year: warning bell-8:50; announcements and O Canada- 8:55 followed by the first class. Noon hour for HS students is 12:16 to 1:11 (warning bell) and clas-ses resume at 1:16. Noon hour for elementary students is 12:16 to 1:01 (warning bell) and classes resume at 1:06. Home time is 3:25. HS has 5 minute breaks between classes, while elementary students have 2-15 min. recesses. We will continue with Wear Pink Day on the first Tues. of every month. To spice it up a bit, we will allow students to wear clothing and accessories that are pink (ex. Shirts, hats, ties, wrist bands, boas, hair bands, socks, etc.) Remember, we wear pink to support the idea that we will not put up with bullying. Our first official Wear Pink Day will be Oct. 7th. We will hold emergency drills once a month. These drills will consist of different emergency procedures like fire drills, intruder/lockdown drills and tornado drills. Staff will walk students through everything they need to know and do. In terms of attendance, if parents know there is a day their children will not be in school, please contact the school by note or phone. This note can go to the homeroom teacher or Mrs. An-derson or make the call to the office as soon as possible. It is up to students to catch up on any work they have missed. Students are also expected to be at registration and in classes on time. Remember, the first morning bell is at 8:50 and the first afternoon bell is at 1:01 (elementary) and 1:11 (high school). Only grade 11 and 12 students are allowed to leave during their spares, and they MUST sign in and out at the office. Supported Learning is from 12:40 to 1:10 in the library. This is in place for students to finish their work from class or do homework in a quiet, supportive environment. It is supervised by our In-tern and our EA’s. If students skip out of Supported Learning and do not get their work done by the next day, they will then be placed on detention. In other words, school work has to get done—it is not an option. This includes online classes this year to ensure that students are keeping up with their due dates.

Upcoming Events:

• September 1-First Day of Classes Grades 1 to 12

• September2-First Day of Kindergarten

• September 11-QSP Presentation; Meet & Greet 7:00-8:00 p.m.

• September 17-Picture Day

• September 23-Assiniboia Career Fair

• September 25-Terry Fox Run

• September 29 –Early Dismissal Day

• October 13-Thanksgiving

• October 20-Early Dismissal Day

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The policies and procedures of Mossbank School appear in the front of the student agenda books. Parents may want to become familiar with them. If you have any questions about them, please enquire at the office. Please note there are two new ones: Technology and Technolo-gy Devices, and Academic Integrity and Responsibility--please become familiar with them. It is also good to get students into the habit of using their agenda books, as they are also a great communica-tion tool between home and the school/teachers. We respectfully ask everyone to abide by our parking lot rules: DO NOT walk between the buses; DO NOT walk through the staff parking lot on the elementary side; and DO NOT leave the parking lot in a vehicle at the end of the day, unless the buses have left before you. Please drive in a cautious manner whenever you are on the streets around the school, obey the stop signs, and al-ways be on the look-out for children in the school zones. We do have a dress code policy, so we ask that everyone dress in a respectable manner--no slinky clothes, plunging necklines or short shorts; also no alcohol/drug labels, or rude/explicit say-ings, and underwear should be covered up. We reserve the right to request students to change or cover up. Remember younger eyes are always watching. We encourage students to snack on healthy foods at breaks and bring nutritional lunches. This year, we are banning energy drinks at school--they will be confiscated and poured out. We also ask high school students to not keep 2L pops in their lockers or 6/12-packs of pop. Water is a healthy alternative. Please do not send pop for elementary students at all—and we will be asking organizations who sell food in our school for fundraising to offer juices or water instead of pop. When students are using computers, social networking sites like Facebook, game sites and You Tube are not appropriate places to be unless they are doing an assignment using those sites. School work shall ALWAYS be done first, including online classes. This also applies to iPod and iPad use—school work comes first. Having these devices in school is a privilege, not a right. If students misuse it, this privilege will be revoked. If you DO NOT want your grade 7/8 student to go down town at lunch hour, please notify us. Elementary bus students are not allowed to go down town unless they have permission from home. Town students may go home for lunch as usual. Please remember to send the forms back promptly to the office. That helps us to keep things running smoothly. We will continue to contact families occasionally by email this year. Please make sure you include your email address on the registration form. We also have a school-wide an-nouncement system called Synervoice that will contact you by phone. It is an automated system, so you may hear Mrs. Anderson or me periodically give you particular school information.

Leanne Rutko Leanne Rutko Leanne Rutko Leanne Rutko –––– Principal Principal Principal Principal –––– Kind Thoughts; Kind Words; Kind Deeds.

2nd Annual Rock-A-Thon at the Museum 1:30-3:30 Sunday, September 21st Pledge sheets available from any museum member and Town Office or by phoning 306-354-7724. Bring your rocker, your child/grandchild and a book or your lullaby voice. There will be a truck available to bring your rocker for you upon request. Old fashioned games for children. Please join us for team and ice cream and a visit.