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Happy New Year, Graceland Park Families!

Welcome back! I hope everyone enjoyed a refreshing winter break filled with relaxation and time with loved ones. We’re thrilled to see our students returning, ready to dive into the new year with enthusiasm and energy. It’s always exciting to welcome everyone back, and we’re looking forward to a fantastic start to 2024 together.

As we settle back into our school routines, we understand that the transition from holiday comfort to classroom structure can be a bit challenging. Returning to our familiar routines provides a valuable opportunity to re-establish good habits and set new academic and personal goals. This time of year is perfect for reflecting on our achievements and embracing fresh opportunities for growth and learning.

Our focus for this new semester is on staying proactive in our learning. By keeping up with assignments, participating actively in class, and preparing for the potential impact of winter weather, we can make the most of each day. Staying organized and ready for any unexpected changes will help keep everyone on track, even if we encounter winter disruptions.

As always, your support at home plays a crucial role in student success. Encouraging a consistent study routine and fostering a positive learning environment helps students stay focused and motivated. We are grateful for your partnership in this journey and for helping us create a thriving educational community.

Let’s make 2025 a year of growth, success, and memorable achievements for all our students. Should you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Looking forward to a wonderful semester ahead!

Warm regards,
Ms. Mullally
Principal, Graceland Park

Let it Snow, Let it Glow!

Our musical concert was a packed house. We are thankful for all of the support received from our families and school community to make our winter concert a huge success. A special thank you to our music teachers, Mr. Mandawe and Ms. Lisondra for all their hard word, effort, vision and creativity to make this a magical concert! All the growth we have seen from our students the past few years since the initiation of our music program is wonderful! If you would like to see the musical performance in its entirety, visit this link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12KYRE5pjMZTq2qSbG-BSAf_WbBFdSlZG/view?usp=sharing

Winter Spirit Week Highlights

Who doesn't love a spirit week? The week before winter break we has a spirit week celebration to kick off our well deserved time off.

Merry Monday was a day to wear a festive holiday sweater.

All of the unique headwear worn Tuesday was spot on for Topper Tuesday.

Is there a blizzard inside? Nope, just White-out Wednesday.

To close out spirit week, we had Frosty Friday. We think this was everyone's favorite spirit week celebration as students and staff can wear their pajamas to school!

Nothing says winter more than plaid and flannel. Timber Thursday was a big hit! This was our school custodian Mr. Adams favorite spirit day!

Important events for January 2025

January 2, Students Return from Winter Break
January 7-January 31, Amplify & i-Ready Diagnostic Testing Window
January 8-February 18, ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 (WIDA) Testing Window
January 10, Grade 5 Field Trip, JA BizTown
January 14, PTO Meeting, 8:00
January 17, Early Release for Students, 11:15
January 17, Quarter 2 Attendance Incentive
January 17, ASCBC (SGA) Field Trip, 9:00
January 20, School Closed
January 21, Start of Quarter 3
January 23, Parent Power Workshop, 8:00
January 23, Food Pantry Distribution, 11:00
January 29, Quarter 2 Report Card Distribution

It is time for our grade 8 students to apply for their high school of choice. More information, choice catalogue, and step-by-step resources can be found on our school website at https://baltimorecityschools.sites.thrillshare.com/o/graceland/page/school-resources

Assessments are an indicator schools use to measure student growth. Starting January 8th, all students identified as Multilingual Learners and enrolled in English Language Development classes will participate in WIDA. In addition to WIDA, all scholars in grades K-8 will take district diagnostics in reading and mathematics. Encourage your child to do their best when it comes to taking assessments! If you have questions about testing, please contact Mr. Brandt.

Applications for YouthWorks is now open! If you have questions about the application, contact Ms. Scribner, Community Schools Coordinator.

Ms. Argeroplos, Grade 7 Mathematics

Ms. Argeroplos is our 7th grade Math teacher at Graceland Park. She attended Mercer University, where she studied Biology and Spanish. After spending a semester in college teaching an English class to adult English learners, she decided to pursue a career in education. In 2019, Ms. Argeroplos moved to Baltimore to attend John's Hopkins University, where she earned her Master of Science in Education degree, with a concentration in Secondary Mathematics.

Ms. Argeroplos is in her fifth year teaching here at Graceland Park. She spent her first year teaching as a student teacher under our 8th grade math teacher, Ms. Sanoy! Her favorite part about teaching at Graceland is getting to know and teach entire families. "I love when I meet the younger siblings of my students, and then I get to know them in my classroom a few years later" she says.

Favorite Quote: "Empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable, while encouraging students to take risks." -Bell Hooks

Each morning, a character trait is highlighted on morning announcements. These character traits embody the spirit of a Graceland Park scholar. Here are the words that will be highlighted this month.

Week of January 2 - Perseverance - Perseverance is pushing through barriers to achieve our goals. It is continuing to try even through something that is challenging. Perseverance requires a lot of determination and courage to work through difficult situations to continue to move toward our goals. How will you persevere to reach your 2025 goals?

Week of January 6 - Accountability - Accountability is being responsible for our actions and owning our behavior. Accepting responsibility and consequences for our choices is part of being accountable. An example of accountability would be admitting when you broke something and accepting the consequence that comes with that mistake.

Week of January 13 - Motivation - Motivation is what gives someone a reason to do something. It is what guides our behavior to continue to move forward and pursue our goals. People are motivated by a lot of different things such as the desire to grow, enjoyment, rewards, and money. Think about what motivates you to come to school every day and work hard. Keep those things in mind, especially when things get difficult.

Week of January 20 - Caring - Caring is showing kindness and concern for others. It is being thoughtful and considerate of other people's feelings. We can show we care for others by being generous, polite, and going out of our way to make others feel special. An example of showing caring is making a card for someone for a holiday, birthday, or special event.

Week of January 27 - Resilience - Resilience is being able to withstand or overcome adversity and hardships. We show our resilience in how we bounce back during times of stress. Resilient people tap into their strengths and support systems to work through problems and difficult experiences. One way to show resilience is being able to adapt well to change and be flexible.

Do you know know CORE is?

CORE is a low-tech visual tool to help facilitate communication. CORE vocabulary is made up of 80% of what we say throughout the day. The CORE vocabulary board is made up of what City Schools determined to be the 50 most appropriate words students use during the academic day. Our goal is to use this tool school-wide to help increase communication and understanding for our students, especially in the early childhood grades. Our January CORE focus words are want and help.

The Maryland Book Bank Ravens Bookmobile stopped by Graceland! During their visit, each student in grades Pre-K through Grade 3 were able to go onto the bookmobile and select a few books to take home with them to keep. We were incredibly fortunate to have the bookmobile come visit our school.

Graceland's Unified Bocce team recently placed third in the City Schools Middle School Athletic league. Congratulations for the hard work! Also, here is a look at our girls volleyball team.

The Jonathan Ogden Club (JO Club) from Patterson High School brought a jolly special friend to bring some cheer to our little learners. Each student received a gift and a stuffed animal from the special friend and it brought lots of holiday cheer! The partnership between the JO Club and Graceland has been going on for over a decade. It is amazing to see the JO Club members step up and bring so much to our school community. They did an AMAZING job with our little learners!

We are thankful for Brewers Hill Neighbors and their continued generosity to our school community. They do so much for our school and we are so grateful. For the holiday season, they organized a gift donation for three deserving families. It really takes a village and BHN is a wonderful partner!

Grade 3 went to the Baltimore School for the Arts to see a production of The Nutcracker. It was amazing to see fellow City School students perform!

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company Theater hosted our seventh graders for a production of the Christmas Carol.

A special thank you to the Loretta Warfield Foundation for spreading holiday joy to some families for the holiday season!

Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students gathered the last day before break for their annual Polar Express viewing. It is a tradition that has gone on at Graceland for years.

HELLO! Who didn't play banana phone when they were little? A cute moment captured during lunch.

Mr. Holifield of the Schuster Foundation donated coats to Graceland for students who may new drip for the winter season.

The PTO's first pupusa fundraiser was a huge success. They look forward to having another one in the near future.

Here is one of our Wellness Team bike raffle winners with his new bike. Best day EVER for him - bike raffle winner & Lion Leader!

Students in Ms. Teleisha's ELD group work in a small groups to improve foundational reading skills.

Thank you to everyone who took holiday photos with Ms. Guth. The money raised from this endeavor will help us fund student activities this school year. KUDOS to Ms. Guth for all her work!

Visit our school website for the most updated information and calendar events
Grade level newsletters will be posted on the school website by the 10th of each month! Check out what your child is learning in their class!
Attendance matters! Make sure you have your child come to school every day and on time! With GREAT ATTENDANCE (absent two days or less) comes special perks. See the flyer below for the quarterly attendance incentive.
Parking - Do not double park or yield to let passengers out of your vehicle on the streets around the school. This is for the safety of ALL students. All vehicles picking up students at dismissal should be parked on Gusryan as that is the designated "car rider" area.
Snow - Please look at our instructional plans below in case there is a snow emergency. It is important that all families are aware of this information!
English - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LamBFmiyzyUuztuoFzxw-iSTpOnHhnaAkLA6ZXs04Jo/edit?usp=sharing
Zoom Links - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wUL3RedETAaVoVbzWND7DvywY4iRzL3i2oNTiOaluGY/edit?usp=sharing

As the weather turns colder, remember that all students will still go outside for recess if the "feels like" temperature is above 32 degrees and there is no precipitation forecasted.

Attendance — If your child has GREAT attendance, they will get to have their GLOW ON for our quarter two attendance incentive!

Calendar Reminder: Student return from Winter Break on January 2!

Join us each month for Parent Power - a workshop tailored to parents to help their child at home with their education and provide them with resources. This month the Parent Power meeting will be on Thursday, January 23rd. Be on the lookout on ClassDojo for more details closer to the date.

A new year is filled with possibilities, so dream big, and believe in yourself this year! May the new year of 2025 bring you more happiness, success, love, and blessings! I hope that you have a truly remarkable year.

During the month of December, our partners displayed the value of caring for our school. Partners adopted families and supplied them with everything on their “Wish List”. The school would like to thank the Brewers Hill Neighborhood Association (BHN), Loretta Warfield Foundation, and Endside Out for their donations that put smiles on the faces of our parents and scholars. Additionally, thank you to Officer Holifield and the Shuster Foundation for donating coats for students who needed them.

Graceland, in partnership with the Y after school program, surpassed their goal of $300 donation toward the Y Turkey Trot. Thanks to staff and parents, the school raised $500 to support after school programming at Graceland!

The Graceland PTO is planning activities for the year 2025. We would love to see more parents involved in the PTO. Our pupusa fundraiser on November 22nd was very successful and we are planning another one in the upcoming future.

TRAFFIC: Parents for the safety of our students, please do not double park on either side of O’Donnell Street. Double parking to let students out in front of the gate is unsafe and is causing a traffic backup on O’Donnell Street in the morning. Baltimore City Traffic Enforcement will be monitoring and issuing warnings. Please be advised.

The Y after school program is looking forward to 2025. There is still space for scholars in grades 1, 2, and 3. The program runs from 2:15 to 5:15 p.m. Scholars receive supper, snack, academic small group, and enrichment. If you would like more information on the program please contact Mrs. Celina, the OST Director.

I am looking forward to partnering with all stakeholders in making sure our scholars are successful for the rest of this school year and beyond!

Family & Community Newsletter January 2025

Important events for January 2025