While the country celebrates Women’s History Month, we at Garfield are celebrating some exceptional young women leaders we have here. These are just a few of the young women we have in student leadership positions. Leaders at Garfield today. Leaders in the community, state, country, and the world tomorrow!
Garfield Elementary School would like to thank all the families who send their children to school here. We take the responsibility very seriously of providing an education and more to all of our students. We appreciate the work it takes you to get your kids here on a daily basis. We are here for you!
WOOHOO! Way to go Garfield students and families! We bumped our attendance the last week of February. We met and exceeded our goal with an all school attendance of 91%. And a big WOW goes to 3rd grade who led attendance at over 95%! You guys rocked it. Way to go Garfield!
Over the year showing up 45 minutes late for school means missing about 3 weeks of core instruction time. School at Garfield starts at 8 a.m. Most teachers here start the day with 10-20 minutes of team building activities. These activities are crucial to your student feeling comfortable in the classroom and building solid school relationships. Then most classrooms start with core instruction (math or reading) by 8:15 or so. Core instruction then happens throughout the day. Small groups where students are getting more individualized instruction happen from 8:15 until end-of-day bell rings at 2:40. Learning is an all-day activity at Garfield!
We’d like you to meet Nalini Maharajh, the School Home Liaison at Garfield. Nalini can be a great friend, especially to our immigrant families. She will help families who are new to the country, or English is a second language, navigate the school system including school tours and communicating with School Bus Inc. Nalini is also instrumental in helping families deal with the culture shock and will help navigate many things outside of school as well, such as medical and dental appointments. She loves her job and the people she has the opportunity to serve!
YAYYY!! Susan Thies is the winner of the 36th Annual 2024 Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year Award. Mrs. Thies may have won the award but all of us at Garfield Elementary are the real winners by having her be part of our lives. Thank you Mrs. Thies for all you have done for our students and their families. We couldn’t be more happy and proud!
Attendance in the early grades is critical to sustaining the school readiness skills that early grades can help children to develop according to “Attendance in Early Elementary Grades: Association with Student Characteristics, School Readiness and Third Grade Outcomes, Applied Survey Research, July 2011.” The report found that students who arrived at school academically ready to learn— but then missed 10 percent (about 17 days at Garfield) of their kindergarten and first grade years—scored an average of 60 points below similar students with good attendance on third-grade reading tests. That’s one of the many reasons we want your kids here at Garfield. Every minute of attendance counts!
There is still time to get your pictures in for our Family Reading Challenge! Take a picture of you or any adult in your family reading with your Garfield student. IM the photos to us and you will be entered to win an Amazon book credit valuing up to $25.00. Or you can email your photos to Mrs. Neu or Mrs. Christopherson, you can find their email addresses here: https://siouxfallssd.sites.thrillshare.com/o/ge/staff All of the photos will be posted in the school as well as on The Garfield Facebook page, with your permission of course! Challenge ends on March 1, 2024. One entry per student.
More success by our Garfield students! “One book, One school” was a tremendous success this year with all of our grades reading their grade level of The One and Only Ivan. Now it’s time to celebrate! The week of February 26th through March 1st we are going to have special dress up days. See graphic for schedule. And then get ready to have some fun!
If you are having trouble getting your kids to school, you are not alone! A new report by the nonprofit think tank, American Enterprise Institute notes, “The urgent need to recover from pandemic learning loss will be severely hampered by current rates of chronic absenteeism, making it the most pressing post-pandemic problem in public schools.” We aren’t immune here in South Dakota. South Dakota Schools with High and Extreme Chronic Absence Increased from 18% to 40%. At Garfield we want to help our students and their families through this. Let us know if we can help you.
With attendance minutes lead to hours which leads to days which leads to success for your student. When calculating attendance we pay attention to minutes because learning is an all day activity at Garfield. And we want to be sure our students are given the maximum opportunity to learn. According to the study Achievement and Absenteeism by Nate Jensen and Gregory King, “chronically absent 1st grade students in 2015-2016 started the following year at an achievement level 32 percentile points below those 1st grade students who had no absences in the prior year. This gap increased to 41 percentile points by the end of the year.” Every minute counts!
We’re excited about a new friend at Garfield! Steve Martin is the new Reading and Math Intervention Teacher. Steve has taught all over the world before finding his way to Garfield. Steve’s background includes extensive work as an English as a Second Language teacher. We’re sure Steve is going to be a good friend at Garfield.
We are very excited to celebrate Taylor Lindeman’s nomination for the 2024 Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year Award! Taylor is in her 5th year teaching 5th grade at Garfield. She shared this about her classroom philosophy, “ I'm deeply committed to fostering a safe, positive, and fun learning environment for all my students. As an educator, my goal is not only to impact knowledge but also to empower my students to reach their full potential both academically and personally!”
Tuesday, Feb 20 is a NO SCHOOL day, so be sure to stop by Oscar Howe Elementary for the second Community Health & Wellness fair, put on by the Community Learning Centers! There are lots of activities for kids, tons of community vendors, and amazing prizes for all!
Garfield is excited to introduce Troy Miller as our new Behavior Facilitator. Troy comes with a whole bunch of experience including Children’s Home, LSS, and most recently Axtell School. Now he’s excited to be helping our Garfield kids. When not working with kids, he is a dedicated Kansas Jayhawks fan and an avid golfer. Some would say too avid since he jokingly said he “plans to play this summer til his arms fall off.” Troy is going to be a good Garfield friend.
We are excited to announce Amanda Montgomery was nominated for the 2024 SPED Staff of the Year Award! Amanda talks about her career and thoughts about where it has found her. “I found Communication Sciences and Disorders in my college coursebook my freshman year, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I did not know what it was, but the classes sounded interesting. Turns out, I absolutely loved it and threw myself into becoming a Speech Language Pathologist. Now, I am an SLP because I love it, yes, but also because I have a passion for good, effective communication in all facets of life. Great communication can aid all types of relationships, from romantic to friendship, from managerial to coworker, from self-advocacy to basic communication of wants and ideas.
Why I am completing my 10th year at Garfield is much more intentional. I have a passion for advocacy and equality, and I absolutely love working with the Garfield community trying to right the wrong of societal prejudice. My students at Garfield have taught me about their religious and cultural backgrounds, what it means to be resilient, and how to love in the face of hardship. I am beyond honored to be nominated as SPED staff of the year. I love my Garfield kids and their families with my whole being, and I hope they know that!”
CONGRATULATIONS MRS. THIES! She is one of seven finalists for the 2024 Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year Award! The entire school is so happy for this recognition but the students in Mrs. Thies’ classroom are the most excited. She’s a great friend! The award will be given on Monday, Feb 26, 2024 at 7pm at the Ben Reifel Middle School auditorium.
We are very excited to celebrate Susan Thies’ nomination for the 2024 Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year Award! Susan is a 5th grade teacher at Garfield. She says this about the environment she promotes in her classroom, “I try to build a peaceful caring culture in my classroom. Everyone belongs. Representation matters and all children should see themselves in the books surrounding them. I am honored to be a public school teacher.”
We’d like to introduce Sally Sehr as our new Lead Clerical. Anyone who visits Garfield will meet her first thing and she is excited to meet all of you! Sally has always called South Dakota home and enjoys the diverse weather. Her family is close and she and her husband have a blast hanging with their grandkids. She enjoys outdoor activities including camping in the summer and sledding in the winter. She’s going to be a good friend to have!
Earlier this year, there was a call from a classroom for a student that was being loud and disruptive in the hallway. When the behavior facilitator got there he found a very angry, unregulated student. After working with the student for some time, and not making much progress, the teacher poked her head out of the room and asked if she could try again. Facilitator responds, “Sure.”
Eventually the student yells through tears, “I just want to be normal.”
Teacher calmly grabs the students hands, looks the student in the face and said, “Oh. You’re not normal, You’re AWESOME!”
A few tears later, hugs and pinky promised are exchanged and the teacher and student walk back into class. No more calls that day.
