March 27th, 2015 - West Bloomfield School District

March 27, 2015
No School -Spring Break–April 3 through April 12.
DID YOU HEAR?—Monday, March 23 the West
Bloomfield Board of Education voted to include 2nd grade at
Gretchko. That means starting in September 2015,
Gretchko will be a kindergarten through second grade
school. We are very excited and looking forward to welcoming the second grade teachers from Scotch to join us at
Gretchko. In the coming weeks please watch the newsletter
for updates.
Gretchko Elementary School
5300 Greer Road
NATIONAL READING MONTH! Wrap up—
Gretchko friends and families—Thank You, thank you,
and thank you again for making our annual Scholastic Spring
Book Fair a rip-roaring success. Special tip-of-the-hat to
our awesome PTO and the MVP's of Mr. Doukas,
Ms. Palazzolo, Ms. Randall, Ms. Swikoski, Ms. Rozenberg.
Parent volunteers, Ms. George, Ms. Roth, and everyone else
who made this month such a success! In case you didn’t
know the 23rd of March our students enjoyed the illustrator of Baby Mouse, Matt Holm. Matt’s visit was sponsored
by our school district’s Pine Cone Reading Incentive Program
and was a huge success. We are completing our month long
celebration of reading with a guest reader on March 30th.
Representative Klint Kesto from Lansing
will be reading to our kindergarten and first
grade students. We truly thank you for supporting your student’s reading efforts. Michael Atkinson, Gretchko Media Consultant,
and the Gretchko Staff.
NEW STUDENT OPEN HOUSE — On Tuesday,
May 19, we will hold an Open House for new parents and
their families. All are welcome 5:30—6:30 p.m.
GRETCHKO KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS SAFETY FIRST—On Tuesday, March 31st we will be
VISIT WHOLE FOODS—Our kindergarten classes holding a “State Required” Lockdown Safety Drill at
celebrated March is National Nutrition month by visiting
Whiole Foods Market! There, they took a tour of the grocery and sampled such tasty foods as all natural Fruit
Loops, sushi and gelato. After the wonderful walk through
the market, our students made a healthy soy butter and
banana burrito snack . The visit ended with our parent
volunteers taking their team on a five food group scavenger
hunt. What an amazing experience! A big thank you to all
of our Kindergarten parents for making this trip a success!
Gretchko. This short drill will be held during our lunchtime.
Students practice throughout the year with their teachers
and will be reminded before we begin the drill.
IMPORTANT—SOC Siblings—If your student
has a brother or sister that you would like to attend WB
Schools, you must fill out an online SCHOOL OF CHOICE
application by April 2 for your student to be eligible to
attend. THIS means ALL New SOC students.
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER
March 30—State Representative Klint Kesto Reads to Gretchko students
April 3—State required lockdown Practice at lunchtime
April 3—No School -Spring Break– through April 12.
April 6—Hungry Howies Gretchko Pizza Night
April 13—Welcome Back!
April 15—PTO meeting 7:00 p.m.
April 22—Late Start School begins at 10:15 a.m.
April 24—Spirit day—Hat Day –Bagel Sale today—$1.00 each
May 2—Hunger Walk today– Saturday
May 4—Hungry Howies Gretchko Pizza Night
May 6—Late Start School begins at 10 :15 a.m.
May 12—Preschool Concert at Gretchko 6:00 p.m.
May 18—WB library presents summer reading program at Gretchko
May 20—PTO meeting– Election of officers for next year
May 27—Kindergarten and First Grade 20th Anniversary Production
May 29—Spirit Day—Sunglasses Day—Bagel Sale $1.00
June 4—Field Day Full School
June 6—Relay For Life/Walk/Run—WBHS
June 9—Gretchko End of Year Celebration
20TH Year Anniversary—T– Shirts are now on Sale! An
order form was sent home for ordering your
own 20th Anniversary shirt. If you have questions or need an order form contact Lindsay
O’Malley at [email protected].
BOWLING INVITATIONAL—On behalf of
the Gretchko, Scotch, and Abbott PTO
we would like to take this opportunity to
THANK YOU for attending our 1st Annual Parent Bowling Invitational. This
was a wonderful opportunity for our
community to come together in unity to honor Alexander
and Gabrielle Mansour The over $1,200 in contributions
raised from this event will help support enrichment activities for our WBSD children. The winning school with the
highest overall score was Gretchko, where the trophy will
proudly be displayed. See you January 2016 at our next
Parent Bowling Night and Student Afternoon Bowling Invitational.
Parent Reminder —
What’s happening in the breezeway??
Be sure to stop by the breezeway and see what is happening. Have you noticed the bird feeders just outside
of the doors? We are in the process of transitioning the
area into a S.T.E.A.M work area for classes. We will
have four areas for students and their classes to explore. The first is the garden, (growing fantastically)
then a science area across from that, an engineering
area and a reading resource area. We have magnifying glasses, safety glasses, tweezers, rulers, blocks,
books, etc. already in place, and eventually a microscope or two should be available. All of this is being
done so we can STEAM it up out there by measuring
plant growth, observing plant growth, observing organisms in the garden water, building, researching,
thinking, etc. Our hope is to change it up with the
seasons and provide our student’s classes with other
learning experiences throughout the year. We some
visible thinking posters up to help with the
“Think Tank”. Watch
our knowledge grow.
CONGRATULATIONS GRETCHKO STARS —
The following students were chosen to be last week’s
Stars of the Week. Jace Denton for being respectful,
Davon Bass for being responsible, Ariana Mangrulkar
for being respectful and following directions, Mia
Marchand for being respectful, Cedar Smolash for
being respectful and responsible, Myles Craft for being responsible, Landon Ibriham, for being responsible,
Riya Subnani for being responsible. This week’s Stars
of the Week are: Aiden Richards for being respectful
and responsible, Jaeden Watts for being responsible,
Mason Ermis for being respectful, responsible and
safe, Hussein Hussein made a proactive learning
choice, Charlie Meade, for reading quietly, Madeline
Costa for being responsible, Akari Okada for being
responsible and reading independently,and Mallory Parson for being responsible and reading independently.
We are very proud of all of our Gretchko
Stars and will continue drawing names
from the many, many students nominated
weekly.
Don’t forget to call the safeline at (248-865-6572) if your child will be late or absent from
school. Any unreported absence is considered as an un-excused absence on your student’s record.
NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATION The West Bloomfield School District does not discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, height, weight, religion, marital status, disability or sexual orientation its
programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policies: Mr. Rick Arnett Assistant Superintendent West Bloomfield School District Human Resources,
Labor Relations and Pupil Accounting, 5810 Commerce Road West Bloomfield, MI 48324
20 Year Anniversary T-Shirts on Sale Now!
If you loved the 20th Year Anniversary celebration
shirts as much as we did, and would like to order more,
please fill out the form below and return to the office
by April 24th. Please send cash or checks payable to:
Gretchko PTO
Questions? Please contact Lindsay O’Malley at
[email protected]
_________________________________________
Child’s Name_________________Your Name________________
Teacher: ____________________ Phone/Email______________
Youth Sizes Available ($12.00)
Adult Sizes Available: ($15.000)
____Small
____Small
____ Medium
____Medium
____ Large
____Large
____X Large
____XX Large
SOUTH AFRICAN library PROJECT—Gretchko families have been invited to participate in supporting the African
Library Project of Jeremy Goldman, a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa. Jeremy’s project is to provide books for
the KwaNyezi Primary School in Nquthu, South Africa. Jeremy is an alumni of WVSD. Now through May 8 Gretchko
will be collecting gently-used books. Board books, paperback easy readers, K-8 textbooks (English, math, geography
and science), Encyclopedias, and paperback dictionaries. Go to http://www.africanlibraryproject.org/bookdrives.book-drives-in-action?alpdetail=578 for more information or contact Julie McIntosh, Gretchko PTO.
GRETCHKO 20TH ANNIVERSARY
PRODUCTION
VOLuNTEERS NEEDED!!
Our kindergarten and first grade students will be performing for family and friends on May 27 th and 28th at
6:30 in the evening on the Gretchko stage. Information will be provided at a later date regarding which classes will perform on each day. We need volunteers to help our students learn and practice their production
pieces and prepare for their big stage debut.
Volunteers must be available for a three-hour block of time, one day a week, for a total of six weeks.
Practice sessions will begin Tuesday, April 14TH. (However, we will work with your schedule.) Please come
and help work with our Gretchko Stars to make them shine on Production Day. Please return by: ASAP
Name:________________________________________________________________________
Email/Phone:___________________________________________________________________
Please Contact: Nicole Smerecki for any questions [email protected]