Hello Gardner Families,

This week students have been settling into their classroom routines and becoming familiar with their new grade level.  We even had our first fire drill that was successful, but our goal is to be faster exiting the buildings next time.  As a school community, we are learning our new school-wide rules: Grizzlies are Kind, Safe, Respectful, and Do their Best and talking about our character trait of the month.  Our character trait for the month of August is Empathy and during Friday’s morning assembly 5^th graders Sahana, Aidhan, and Ruby did a very nice job of explaining this trait.  They also shared with us their own experiences of feeling empathetic towards others.  Here are a couple of articles with some tips for parents and educators on how to teach children empathy.  For a little splash of humor, here is a short but very sweet Sesame Street video. 

Moving forward, our Gardner community will learn a new character trait each month and coming up in the month of September is Caring.

Solar Panel Installation Update

Last week we had a parent information meeting with Randy Kenyon, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services, who answered questions about the solar panel installation project that is scheduled to start on September 18th.  Very soon his presentation will be made available for those of you who could not make the meeting.  Our PTA and I are working closely together and have several ideas in motion to make for a smooth transition and process during construction.  To help with that planning, there will be a “Trail Parking Lot Closure” on Thursday, September 7^th all day and a debrief during the Coffee with the Principal on Friday, September 8^th.  The City of Los Altos Hills and Sheriff’s Office as well as the district office will be on campus during the trail parking lot closure and will participate in the debrief on Friday.  The trial parking lot closure will simulate what we will be working with during the 8- 10 weeks of construction.  Please be on the look out for more information, as we get closer to the date.

Here are some things to be thinking about and preparing for as we proudly move towards reducing our footprint and going green: 

• Carpool
• Walk or Wheel (WoW!)
• Walking buses
• Bike trains

21 more days until construction begins

Homework Policy

Last school year the parent community and staff had multiple and meaningful conversations about homework taking a new look at 1) do we give homework? 2) if so, how much? and 3) for what reasons? While you will hear from your teachers more about classroom homework during Back to School Night on Thursday, August 31^st, I wanted to share with you our school-wide policy.  Following LASD’s and the National PTA’s guidelines and recommendations, kindergarten and 1^st grade will have 10-20 minutes of homework and each grade thereafter will have an additional 10 minutes.  That means, 2^nd graders will have 20 minutes, 3^rd graders will have 30 minutes, 4^th graders will have 40 minutes and so forth.  Our focus overall will be literacy with a strong connection to the good work being done in Readers Workshop.  The teachers will all explain their individual classroom policy within those boundaries on Back to School Night. 

Speaking of Back to School Night below is our schedule for the evening and we hope to see you here with us! 

• 6:00-6:45:      4^th, 5^th, 6^th grade presentations: (4^th: classrooms, 5^th: Staff Lounge, 6^th: STEM)
• 6:50-7:10:     Principal/PTA/LAEF presentation (multi)
• 7:15-8:00:     1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd grade presentations (classrooms)

Hot Lunch Volunteers

I would like to take a moment to personally thank Gaylene Biggs and Camilla Gonzalez for their tireless leadership with the Hot Lunch Program.  They volunteer hours and hours of their own time and do an excellent job.  They could not do it without the help of many volunteers such as Nancy O’Neil, Shannon Campos, Laura Schmidt, Niki Selden, Anne Schmidt, Roxanne Borel, Jennifer Makower, and many more who also volunteer hours of time.  Thank you to everyone who helps to make sure this program continues for our students.  The GB community appreciates you! 

Girls Leadership’s Book Club is Up and Running! 

Girls Leadership:  Girl and Grown-Up Book Club for 2nd- 8th graders.  Visit girlsleadership.org/BookClub for more information

Have a wonderful week, 

Nadia Oskolkoff, Principal