Christmas Program Virtual; Winter Sports Underway and Other LCO School Reports

Submitted by Jessica "Hutch" Hutchison

LCO Ojibwe School k-12 Superintendent

2nd Quarter Parent Teacher Conferences

K-12 principal Brad Cody and I would like to invite parents and guardians to Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday, December 8th from 2:00-5:00pm. This will be an early release day for students. Masks WILL BE REQUIRED for anyone entering the building. We ask that anyone experiencing COVID-19 symptoms call for a virtual conference and not enter the building.

Christmas Program

As you may already know, your child has been working hard to prepare for the upcoming Christmas Program on December 21st, which will take place at 10:00am. As a Covid-19 safety precaution this program will be closed to the public. The program will be livestreamed on our Youtube channel and will be recorded and posted on our school Facebook page for everyone to enjoy. This is also an early release day with the start of Christmas break. Buses will leave at 12:15.

Winter Testing at LCO

NWEA Measures of Academic Progress Testing will take place on Tuesday, December 7th for all students in grades 6-12. Students will be required to complete a reading and math test, the results of which are used to provide school staff data to assure that the highest quality of intervention, enrichment and scheduling options are in place for each student.

Please encourage your child to get plenty of sleep, to eat breakfast and to try their best on these assessments. We will have combo bars as a snack the morning of the test as well.

Middle School students that hit their projected growth or the 60% on both tests will be treated to a skating party before winter break, and high school students hitting projected growth or the 60% on both tests will be excused from classes on December 21st.

Winter Sports

Our winter sports team are in full swing and we are happy to report that we have a full varsity boys and girls basketball teams as well as a boys junior varsity team for the first time in school history. Athletic schedules can be found on our school website under the athletics tab. Spectators are welcome to LCO games, however all guests are required to mask while in the building.

Social Emotional Learning at LCO

Members of the Counseling Team and the Curriculum Director have worked to develop a K-5 Social Emotional Learning curriculum for LCO students. The curriculum focuses on topics such as growth mindset, resiliency, self-control, friendship, bullying, respect, mindfulness, and understanding feelings and emotions. Intervention has begun in elementary classes once a week with members of the counseling team which is continued throughout the week with classroom teachers. Our plan is to teach our students about these topics through books and discussion. Students will have the opportunity to learn through the examples of the characters in the books while working towards literacy goals at the same time. Our hope is to continue researching and incorporating culturally relevant books into the curriculum so our students can feel represented in the stories they hear. Our goal is to provide students with examples they can reflect on to help develop necessary social emotional skills.