Important information regarding H1N1 is coming home in weekly folders. Please take the time to read over the letters and handouts. Help us educate our students on ways to stay healthy, such as effective hand-washing, covering your mouth when sneezing or coughing, and staying home when ill.

We are seeing students with flu-like symptoms, which likely indicates the seasonal flu as well as the H1N1 flu virus. In the past few days, students at our school have been diagonsed with the flu.

According to the county health department, most of the flu circulating in our community at this time is H1N1, so having cases of H1N1 is not unexpected. Please read the updated letter going home in weekly folders and posted on the global email. Please don’t hesitate to call with questions.

Welcome! We are so glad that you have chosen Ralston for the 2009-2010 school year. Our teachers and staff look forward to working with your children. We recognize that every child brings special and unique gifts to the classroom; our job is to nurture these gifts so that your child grows socially and academically throughout the year.

Ralston has experienced a lot of changes over the summer and we are opening a new classroom wing this year. Thoughtful planning by staff, parents, and district experts has created some great new spaces for our kids.We have added five classrooms in a new primary wing, a stage/music room, a remodeled kitchen and cafeteria, remodeled tutor rooms, and a staff lounge/book room.

In addition, a security vestibule in the form of a glass wall (with double doors) now routes visitors into the main office, providing added safety for our students. In addition, we will continue our “high achieving” Power Library status this school year. Our teachers collaborate with our teacher-librarian to integrate technology such as Smart Boards and laptops into core instruction.

Our tutor program will also continue to serve kids of all abilities, thanks to our generous parent support. We will use more tutor hours in the “co-teaching” model to help with anticipated larger class sizes. We will be implementing intentional differentiation in math at all grade levels with pre- and post-testing. This allows us to flexibly group students based on their achievement levels
on specific math skills.

Finally, our partnership with parents continues to be a valuable tool at Ralston. We believe that a parent is a child’s first teacher; an essential component to a successful education is a good school-home connection. This includes communication as well as partnering on skills and concept reinforcement.

Thanks again for choosing Ralston. We’re looking forward to a great year.