Posted: October 14, 2024
Families of Shortreed,
We hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with friends and/or family! It has been lovely to hear and see all the gratitude activities from the students this past week. We also hope you enjoyed the Northern Lights last week. Our photo comes from a community member who snapped a beautiful shot of the Aurora Borealis over Shortreed (it almost looks like a huge eagle over the school!).
It looks like there will be some heavy rainfall this week. Please ensure your child comes to school with a coat (and boots). If you need some help with this, please let your child’s teacher know.
Hallowe’en is coming up soon, and we have some reminders about it. We have a Halloween Costume exchange set up near the office. If you need a costume, please check our selection before you buy one. If you have gently used costumes, we would love to have them so others can use them and enjoy Halloween this year. When deciding upon costumes please keep the following in mind:
- If your child’s costume has a full mask and/or weapons (sword, bow and arrow, etc), they can wear this for the parade but not at other times as this can get in the way of learning and scare other children (there are exceptions for the Mask guideline so please email Mr. Wejr if you have questions). Replica guns are not permitted.
- Please avoid any costumes that encourage violence and/or can scare younger children (ex. scary clowns, costumes that feature blood, etc). We want to make sure this is fun for all students.
- A culture is NOT a costume. Any costumes that imitate/emphasize cultural regalia and/or stereotypes are insensitive and offensive to the diverse backgrounds represented at our school and will not be permitted.
- We do have some students who are afraid of clowns. Please keep this in mind when choosing a costume.
- If you have any questions about whether or not a costume is appropriate for school, please ask your child’s teacher and/or email Mr. Wejr (cwejr@sd35.bc.ca).
We had a wonderful turnout for our Terry Fox Run on Friday with many parents lining the streets and the pathways cheering the students on. We gathered for an assembly before the run, and we watched a video from the Terry Fox Foundation and listened to some beautiful words from Ms. Bowers about what fundraising for cancer research means to her. She shared about how the research helped her become a cancer survivor and go through the treatments while still being there for her kids and maintaining a bit of a healthy lifestyle. She reminded us all that fundraising not only helps find a cure for cancer; it also helps with the side effects of the treatments so patients are not severely ill throughout the treatment. Thank you, Ms. Bowers, for your courage in sharing your story! Thank you to all those parents/family members who made it out to cheer us on and/or donate to the Terry Fox Foundation. Our goal was $1000, and we reached this goal online! With the schoolcashonline and cash brought into the school, we did REALLY well, Shortreed! We will share the total this week.
In our 3rd and final cross-country race, our Eagles got absolutely drenched (it POURED rain) and had the best overall team showing in the seven years that I have been involved! We had several students who jogged the whole route this time and walked much of the way in the first race; we had about half our students reach their personal best in overall finish; and we had two runners WIN the race! Congrats to Ryu and Adam for winning the grade 5 and grade 4 boys’ races. We also had another student make it into the top 10 and qualify for the championships this Wednesday. Congrats to Isaac, whose 6th place finish joins him with Ryu, Adam, Connor, Sam, and Raiya as district qualifiers. Thank you to ALL those parents/family members who could drive and to coaches Gandouin, Kaur, Mostat, and Wright. Thank you, and congrats to all the Eagles athletes for a great season. Good luck to the 6 who are running on Wednesday.
As always, we want to acknowledge that we do our important work to ensure every child belongs on the unceded ancestral territories of the Màthxwi (Matsqui) First Nation. We acknowledge this to honour the land and the people and share our commitment to learning in our journey for Truth and Reconciliation. As part of our learning, we must UNLEARN some of the narratives and perspectives we were taught growing up in school. Thanksgiving is a good time to reflect on these narratives. Although Canadian Thanksgiving originated differently than American Thanksgiving, many traditions come from the country to the south. Growing up attending school in the ’80s and ’90s, I was taught that explorers came to North America and worked peacefully and respectfully with the Indigenous Peoples. We learned that Europeans taught Indigenous Peoples updated, new ways of life and worked together to create progress, navigate, and build upon the land. Sadly, we were only taught a European context of Canada’s history. We now know much differently about how Indigenous Peoples were treated when settlers arrived and how it was far from peaceful and mutualistic. We can still be thankful for all we have in Canada, and on your journey of learning the truth, I hope you can also reflect on how you might have been taught about explorers and their relationships with Indigenous Peoples and the perspective that was NOT taught in schools.
The Week Ahead
Wednesday – District XC Championships
Thursday – Great BC Shakeout EQ Drill – 1:00
Friday – PAC Meeting 9am
Saturday – Don’t Forget to VOTE!
Shortreed Calendar: Did you know Shortreed has a digital calendar to view and subscribe to? Once you subscribe, you will get all our school events right to the calendar on your phone and/or devices at home. Click here for more info.
Langley Schools calendar that includes Pro-D Days, etc,
Month at a Glance
Wednesday, October 23 – PAC Treat Day Cob’s Bread; Fire Drill 1:30
Thursday, October 24 – Informal Learning Updates; Cultural Assembly – David Lane 1:00
Friday, October 25 – Provincial Pro-D Day – no school for students
Thursday, October 31 – PAC Haunted Gym; Halloween Parade 1:30 (families invited to watch)
Friday, November 1 – PJ Day!
Wednesday, November 6 – Gr. 5 Rem Day Field Trip; PAC Hot Lunch – pizza
Thursday, November 7 – Remembrance Day Assembly 11:00; Photo Retakes after lunch
Friday, November 8 – Design & Assessment Day – no school for students; Nat’l Indigenous Veterans Day
Monday, November 11 – Remembrance Day – schools closed
Tuesday, November 12 – PAC Meeting 7pm
Friday, November 15 – Fire Drill 9:30; PAC Movie Night!
Information and Reminders
Election Day – Use of School Sites – On Saturday, October 19th, many of our school gyms across the District will be used as provincial election polling stations from 8am – 8pm. As guided by Section 81 of the Election Act “accommodation in a school that is the property of a board of school trustees under the School Act must be made available by the board for use as a voting place.” Please take note of extra pedestrian and vehicle traffic in the area of these sites on election day. The District appreciates the support and cooperation from families and community members. The District is encouraging everyone eligible to do their civic duty and vote. For a list of school sites being used, visit the District website here.
Emergency Procedures & Response – Health and safety are a priority in the Langley School District. Schools follow emergency procedures to ensure students, staff, and any visitors in our schools or sites are safe when unexpected incidents or events happen. At the start of every school year, administrators, teachers, and staff review these emergency procedures. Schools practice a set number of drills annually in preparation for unexpected situations. The District encourages families to become familiar with these staff emergency procedures and the drills that are completed in schools. You can read them in the Staff Emergency Procedures Poster here or find them posted in areas throughout District buildings. If you have questions or concerns about emergency procedures, please contact your child’s teacher or principal.
- All toys should stay at home. We are seeing an increase in volume of toys being brought to school and these cause problems as they can get lost or stolen or create distractions. Thank you for your help with this.
Communicating With Your School Schools and families continue to work together to ensure student success. If you have an issue or concern but don’t know who to speak with, the District encourages you to read these helpful Communicating with your School guidelines for parents/guardians found on our District website here. As an additional reference, review this one-page resource here.
- Strive for FIVE Days (or Less) – Attendance is crucial to your child’s learning as it helps with academics, social-emotional well-being, and peer connections. We understand children get sick, but please send them to school as many days as possible and strive for FIVE or fewer!
Attendance/Absence – If your child is going to be absent, arriving late, away or leaving early due to an appointment, please notify the school of your child’s absence by emailing SCEAttendance@sd35.bc.ca or calling 604-856-4167 and state the following information:
- Student First Name and Last Name
- Grade
- Division
- Length of Absence
- Reason (illness, late, appointment, vacation)
- If your family needs support for breakfast before school, our breakfast program runs from 8:20-8:35 each day. Students must register and come every school day.
- Our school parking lot is closed between 8:15-9:00 and 2:00-2:45 (other than daycare, buses, and vehicles for people with a disability). The church across the street graciously allows us to use their parking lot for pick-up and drop-off so please park there or along 28th Ave. Do not park in the “no parking” (coned) areas along the yellow curbs. No u-turns.
- West Coast Recess – As we have done over the past few years, every day is an outside day at Shortreed. Unless there is a severe rainstorm (or snowstorm), we will be heading outside. Please make sure your child has a coat to wear outside. We have a good selection of coats in our FREE Coat Exchange near the office, so come by and check them out.
- Please bring inside shoes for your child. This helps to keep our school clean and dry. If you need some help with shoes, check out our FREE Shoe and Boot Exchange at the office.
PAC Info
Haunted Gym – There are three weeks until our amazing non-spooky Haunted Gym can be decorated! We are looking for volunteers. Please sign up if you can.
PUMPKIN CARVING CONTEST – For the pumpkin patch area we are running our PUMPKIN CARVING CONTEST again!! All pumpkins will be entered and we will choose a few by random draw to win a special prize.Community Events and Information
Multi-Sport and More Pro-D Day Program October 25th Grades 1-4
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