Principal’s Message:

This week I want to explore the idea of student responsibility. As we know, to make sure that our school is working as it should be, teachers, parents, church, and students all have responsibilities and a role to play in cultivating Kingdom Builders. With that said, our students must be given age-appropriate responsibilities so that they are able to become flourishing learners, who are independent, creative, critical thinkers, who can be resilient, disciplined and focused in their current and future endeavours. These responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Attending classes on time and regularly.
• Being prepared for classes with all necessary supplies.
• Taking good care of school property.
• Listening carefully to teachers and parents.
• Welcoming challenges.
• Completing all homework assignments.
• Organizing their time well.
• Reading on a regular basis.
• Participating in classroom activities.
• Contributing to discussions and group activities.
• Asking questions when they don’t understand.
• Doing their best.

Announcements:

Virtual Student-Led Conferences – February 24th

A student-led conference is a meeting with a student and his or her family and teachers during which the student shares his or her portfolio of work and discusses progress with family members. The student facilitates the meeting from start to finish. Student-led conferences can be implemented at all grade levels, K–9. Preparation for a conference creates an authentic purpose for good organizational and communication skills. The structure builds students’ sense of responsibility and accountability for their own learning, and it helps to hone their understanding of what it means to meet learning targets.

Successful student-led conferences require changes in the roles that teacher, student and parent have played in traditional parent conferencing. Teachers become facilitators, students become leaders and parents become active listeners and questioners.

What this will look like in a virtual context:

K-3 – Homeroom classes will create student portfolios for students to take home. Inside a student portfolio would be student work that has been recently completed for a variety of subjects. It could/would show a collection of assignments/assessments/project /art pieces etc that have occurred in classes. We then would have teacher “office hours” from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm. During this time, teachers will be on “Google Meet” awaiting for parents to come into the meet. The meet would/could also have an experiment or game set up that the students could take their parents through how it works, but mainly an area where parents and students can pop in to ask the teacher any general questions.

Gr. 4 – Gr. 6 – Students will be asked to create a digital portfolio that includes a personal statement, reflection on academics, spirituality, celebrations, and goals. The “knowledge portion” will have students take a look at their PowerSchool marks, and reflect on how they can continue to grow throughout the rest of the year. We then would have teacher “office hours” from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm. During this time, teachers will be on “Google Meet” awaiting for parents to come into the meet. The meet would/could also have an experiment or game set up that the students could take their parents through how it works, but mainly an area where parents and students can pop in to ask the teacher any general questions.

Gr. 7 – Gr. 9 – Students will be asked to create a digital portfolio (example included) that includes a personal statement, reflection on academics, spirituality, successes, and challenges. It would give an opportunity for students to highlight some of the work they have done, and how it has moved them towards a goal they have established. We then would have teacher “office hours” from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm. During this time, teachers will be on “Google Meet” awaiting for parents to come into the meet. The meet would/could also have an experiment or game set up that the students could take their parents through how it works, but mainly an area where parents and students can pop in to ask the teacher any general questions.

Teacher Role: To organize the conference environment and guarantee success. This includes guiding ‘portfolio’ collection, training students to walk through the folio with parents, and setting up the google meet situations. The teacher would guide students on how to take their parents through the process.

Student Role: Through all stages of the student-led conference process; preparation, implementation, and evaluation, the student becomes the key participant. The student becomes responsible for working with the teacher to identify strengths, identify learning needs, and collect evidence to validate learning. In student-led conferencing, as students prepare to conference with their parents, they engage in a self-reflection process about their achievement and future goals.

Parent Role: Parents become partners in learning when students lead a conference. The opportunity for parents to have one-to-one time with their child focused on learning and achievement is important to the conferencing process. The parent’s role is to listen.

Hot Lunch Proceeds

Now that our Hot Lunch program has been off and running, I wanted to thank you all for ordering. While it is a great excuse to not make lunch for your child, it also helps in other ways. Our Hot Lunch program is actually a school fundraiser and allows the school to purchase things that we may not typically have the funds for. Just this week, we preordered  a new class set of Chromebooks, which obviously comes at a fairly substantial cost. We were able to supplement this order with some of our Hot Lunch money and were able to order more than we would have been able to previously. In the past, we have used these funds to put furniture in the “Den” area for our Jr. High, as well as purchasing sporting equipment and other items students are able to use right away! 
Your willingness to support our Hot Lunch program is very appreciated! 

Parent/Teen Sessions by Dordt College

London Christian High has partnered with Dordt University to present a number of topics on Thursday evenings in February at 5:30 pm MST. Sessions are designed to facilitate conversation between parents and teens about topics that are sometimes hard to talk about. Each Zoom session will last about an hour and will include some “breakout time” for at-home discussions. There’s still time to register for the last session:
February 24: The world of gaming, its beauty and its potential pitfalls (Dr. Brad Hickey)
Go to this site for more information on the speakers and to register for the event.

Volunteers

As you may have read, we are now able to have some volunteers in the building during school hours. While I know this is exciting, teachers are being asked to ensure that their helpers have specific learning tasks to do in the classroom when they are here and to limit the number of visitors that are in each class to one person. 

Celebration

We continue to do weekly virtual assemblies, which we call Celebration. Celebration will be held on Wednesdays for the month of February. An invitation with the link for Celebration will be sent out via email on Tuesdays.

Spring Program Request

We are now in the thick of planning for Shrek Jr. The Musical this March 23-24, 2022

Special thank you to all that have donated wood and paint over these past few weeks! Because of your generosity, we now have enough for our production.

We are asking for a little more help from the community to provide supplies to help keep our costs down.

BUILDING SUPPLIES:

NEWSPAPER – We will be using a lot of newspapers for paper mache. If you have any, let me know or drop them off at the school.

PEX AND PVC PIPE FOR OUR DRAGON – We are constructing a giant dragon for the drama out of PVC and PEX piping. If you have any of these items laying around the house that are not being used, we would greatly appreciate them.

Any of these items can be dropped off at the school.

Just a quick note, Grade 8 Parents, Construction Day is February 26. More information will be made available to you soon.

Dress-Up Days!!

Pink Shirt Day TODAY! – Wear a pink shirt to raise awareness about bullying prevention and healthy relationships.

100s Day (March 2) – help us celebrate making it through 100 days of school by dressing up in your best 100-year-old outfit.

Virtual Book Fair

It’s time for our school’s Virtual Book Fair! Join us from March 7 to March 20, 2022. Shop online from over 450 items! Best of all, purchases still support our school for more learning resources. You can preview books via the following link. (Note: you cannot make purchases until the online store is live on March 7) .

Covenant Christian Scholastic Virtual Book Fair

Lost & Found

We will continue to post a photo of our Lost & Found each week in the Chronicle. If you see an item that is your child’s, please have them pick it up the next day or email the office and we will make sure it gets home with them.

Athletics:

Basketball

As you probably heard, junior high athletics are now back on! Basketball games have begun this week! However, spectators are not allowed at this time.

If your child is on one of the basketball teams, please complete the permission form on PowerSchool and make payment as soon as possible. As the season has been shortened this year, the fees have been reduced to reflect this. The fee for the junior team will be $50, plus a $10 jersey rental fee. The fee for the senior teams has been reduced to $62.50 with the jersey rental fee of $10 as well. IF you made a payment previously, you will see an overpayment on your account and that can and will be used for future fees.

LSCE Update:

Fundraising Opportunites

Our spring fundraising options are here! We will be offering Stawnichy’s Mundare Products and Purdy’s Chocolatier.

Orders and payments for Stawnichy’s are due Friday, March 18. Orders and payments for Purdy’s are due Friday, March 25. Payments can be made over the phone by credit card or by e-transfer to [email protected]. Pick up of all orders is scheduled for Tuesday, April 12.

Please download the letter below for more details and keep an eye on The Chronicle for specific pick-up times. Easy to access links are below and can also be found on the Covenant Christian School Fundraising page on Facebook. No paper order forms will be available. Any questions can be sent to [email protected].

Please also save the date for our 2022 CCS Golf Tournament which will take place on June 26. Registration is not yet open but mark your calendars!

Stawnichy’s Mundare Product Order From
Purdy’s Chocolatier Order Form (https://fundraising.purdys.com/828991-93619)

Calendar:

February:

• 23 – Pink Shirt Day
• 24 – Student Led Conferences

March:

• 1 – Hot Lunch – KFC
• 2 – Early Dismissal @ 2:30 pm
• 2 – 100s Dress-Up Day
• 7-20 – Scholastic Virtual Book Fair
• 8 – Hot Lunch – Boston Pizza (Pasta)
• 11 – PD Day
• 15 – Hot Lunch – Subway
• 18 – Stawnichy’s Order and Payment Due
• 22 – Hot Lunch – Dominos Pizza
• 27 – Purdys Order and Payment Due
• 28 – Spring Break Begins

Community Events:

Please click on the image below to learn more about community events in our area! Also found under our Parents menu on the website.

Odds & Ends:

Sign In/Out Form:

In an effort to reduce the amount of shared touched surfaces, we will be using a QR code that you will need to scan with your phone for signing in and out of the school. You can also use this link if you are in your vehicle and need to sign out a student but can’t scan the code. This means that students/parents/visitors can scan the QR code when entering or leaving the office/school to sign in or sign out on their own phone/device.

Parents will also be able to sign their kids out from their vehicle in the parking lot when they arrive to pick them up for appts. etc. please use the link above if you can’t scan the QR code. We do ask that parents pull into a spot (not bus lane) where you can contact the office to let them know you have arrived and we can make eye contact with you
from the staff/office door. Students must also stop by the office before leaving the school. At that point, once a connection is made, we are able to send students out to you.

Facebook Page:

Check out our Facebook page for more highlights of happenings at CCS by clicking here.