Dear Parents,

We are a fourth of the way through the school year. By now, you have already received your child’s first quarter grades. You may have noticed that the report card no longer reflects citizenship grades yet still includes comments from each teacher. This is due to our new student information system that we are using this year. Even though citizenship grades no longer appear on grade reports, we still strongly believe that it is important for all students to be good citizens.

The character trait for the month of November is Citizenship. A good citizen is a person that is cooperative, stays informed, is a good neighbor, obeys laws and rules, respects authority, and protects the environment. We will continue to provide our students will character education information during the morning announcements. Please continue to work with your child to emphasize the importance of good character.

As a staff, we have worked diligently to create a mission statement that summarizes what we want for our students. The staff and the School Site Council finalized our statement: Christensen cougars will be creative, collaborative, critical thinkers and citizens of character in an ever-changing community. We are excited to continue to work with this statement to expand it to create our vision.

We are thrilled to offer an after-school homework program again this year. The homework program will be offered four days a week directly after school for an hour and alternate between Mrs. Rhodes’ classroom, room 803, and Mrs. Smith’s classroom, room 801. All students are welcome to attend. We would like to thank the PTA for funding this program this year. We know that this program benefits our students and without this funding we would not be able to offer it.

Please make sure you read the HotMath blurb included in this newsletter. Outside of the homework program and support offered by the textbook, we are thankful that we are able to offer our students an additional resource.

We would also like to announce the lunch time speakers that Regina Brinker is coordinating for our students. She is working with the Livermore Lab to invite speakers to encourage our students to explore a range of career options, set future goals for themselves and to persevere to meet those goals. The speakers will target different audiences to individualize their presentations and make them more meaningful to our students. Students are invited during our morning announcements to attend these opportunities. We encourage students to pack their lunches so that they are able to spend more time with the speaker yet students are still able to purchase lunch and then go to the presentation. If you are interested in speaking, please contact Mrs. Brinker at rbrinker@livermore.k12.ca.us.

As the holidays approach, it is very difficult for students to remain focused and to not get distracted. We also know that with the change in seasons comes illness. Please continue to work with your child to make sure they are getting enough rest and staying healthy as we want the best for our students.

We hope everyone has an enjoyable Thanksgiving break (Nov. 23rd – Nov. 27th). We look forward to another great quarter.

Sincerely,

Amy Robbins, Principal
James Yeager, Vice Principal