Good afternoon Oxbow Families,
Happy Friday! What a fun filled week of school spirit and smiles! I personally love Spirit Week. Thank you parents and families for helping your child to participate in this week’s events.
A few important dates to remember:
10/6-LHS Parade at the Bogie Lake Campus @ 5:30 pm
10/10-Early Release @ 2:37 pm
10/13- Color Fun Run in the afternoon
10/16-10/20- School Safety Week in HVS
10/18 Hungry Howie’s Night 4-8 pm
10/20- UM vs. MSU Gear today
10/20-Popcorn Friday @ $.50/bag and Hoot Shop
10/26- UM vs. MSU (sport your favorite schools colors or gear)
Color Fun Run:
Our Fun Run is scheduled on the afternoon of Friday, October 13th this school year. We can’t wait to have some fun together! As you know, parents are invited to attend the event, since it is planned for the outdoors on the back field. All parents will be asked to sign in out back, not in the main office.
If you have not yet registered, please be sure to do so as soon as @ mybooster.com . All monies raised go right back into our students, classrooms and building. We need your help!
We recently hit the $15,000 mark! Please continue working hard to keep those donations coming and help us to meet our goal of $30,000. Great job so far!
On the day of the Fun Run, please send your child to school with gym clothes, including tennis shoes, shorts/pants and their Color Fun Run t-shirt (which is provided free of charge thanks to Leo’s Coney Island of White Lake).
Color Fun Run Schedule
12:35-1:00 pm Stackpoole, Sadler, Fedorka
1:05-1:35 pm Domlovil, Zaleski, Borrie
1:40-2:05 pm Utterback, Walker, Abray
2:10-2:35 pm Brinkman, Chema
2:40-3:05 pm Tingley, Pipkin, Nardell
3:15-3:45 pm Wahtola, Dobrin, Hewitt
Scholastic Book Fair:
A big thank you to Mrs. Laura Becker, Oxbow’s Media Tech, and all parent volunteers that helped to make the Book Fair a success again this school year! Our Owls enjoyed shopping and purchasing new books, as well as reading them. Mrs. Becker also found a way to ensure that almost every Owl received at least 1 free new book.
We appreciate your support of literacy and this event in our building! I will report back final numbers once we receive them from the vendor.
Positivity Project-
This week our school community will be focusing on the Other People Mindset of Being Present and Giving Others My Attention. This means when I’m with other people, I’m present and give them my full attention.
This element of the Other People Mindset is so important today due to the increasing number of distractions vying for our time and attention. Phone calls, text messages, emails, social media notifications all have the dangerous capacity to pull us away from the present moment and, what’s most important -- our relationships with other people.
Just like plants need sunlight to grow, our relationships need attention. If we don’t give our attention to the people we’re building relationships with -- whether family members, close friends, or even distant colleagues -- we can’t build those relationships. It’s vitally important that we pick our heads up from our cell phones and truly listen to other people when they’re talking. A positive culture is built on positive relationships -- and we can’t build positive relationships without attention.
To practice and encourage the character strength of perspective with your child, please visit the Positivity Project’s P2 for Families (password: P2), where together you will watch a video, read a quote, and talk about the answers to three questions.
Green Tags at Dismissal-
At Oxbow, we utilize bright, green fluorescent name tags for afternoon pick up. Each family received two green tags at the beginning of the school year. This helps ensure that our students are safe getting into the vehicle of an approved family member or family friend. In addition, this helps the car line move quicker, as it makes it easier for staff to identify your vehicle.
Our staff noticed that there were a handful of cars that did not have their green tags during the Inclement Weather Dismissal on Thursday. Please ensure that you help our staff by having your tag visibly displayed on your dashboard or windshield. As you can imagine, having to locate a family’s name, hold an umbrella, a walkie and assisting children can be quite challenging in inclement weather.
During an Inclement Weather Dismissal, students will be dismissed from indoors, helping to keep them safe from the weather. We often used this type of dismissal on rainy days or extremely snowy or icy days. This may make dismissal a few minutes longer than normal. We ask for your patience and grace as we dismiss on days that the weather is not in our favor.
Winter Gear:
White Lake Police Department and White Lake Fire Department are helping to provide Oxbow students with winter gear this year! If you are in need of support to get your child(ren) winter gear for our upcoming winter season, please fill out and submit this form. If you have additional child(ren) in your home that do not attend Oxbow or are not school age yet, and they need winter gear, please add the information below. We will do our absolute best to get all items needed, once we have all Oxbow students covered.
https://forms.gle/QbhBHeVpvae2...
Holiday Help:
Please fill out this form in order to submit your wish list and register for the 2023 holiday help season. We are going to try our best to meet the needs of all our families who request support. It is critical that you fill out your forms on time. Failure to respond on time could lead to us not being able to help your family this year.
Oxbow holiday help will look a little bit different this year. This year, we are having each family request one want for each child (such as a toy) under $25 and also a need for each child (such as clothing or shoes). With this set up, we are hoping to help more families and give more students an opportunity to open up a couple of presents during the holidays. Please note: If you need any winter gear, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/QbhBHeVpvae25u7K7.
Some of the organizations that support “Holiday Help” at Oxbow require direct contact with the family (i.e. Shop with a Cop and The Cosur Foundation, etc.) Please indicate on the form if you are open to being referred to one of these programs/organizations.
Arrangements for pick up or delivery of the gifts are made during the last “school week” of December.
Please also indicate on the form if your family is interested in receiving a Thanksgiving basket, if we are able to provide it this year.
https://forms.gle/TLpjmrJbxhii...
We are looking forward to this holiday season!
Sheryl Litt and Lauren Scanlon
Halloween Parade 10/31:
Our annual Halloween Parade will be on Tuesday the 31st at 2:30 pm. Parents are invited to attend if weather permits and we can hold it outdoors. Unfortunately if it is indoors, parents will not be permitted to attend, due to lack of space and safety within the building with almost 415 students.
All students will head outside to the back field and complete a lap outside. More information will be shared on where parents can stand, watch and enjoy.
Parents will not be able to take their children home from the back field. This is a safety issue and students would need to be signed out from the main office/vestibule. This is our standard procedure.
If parents have already communicated with their child’s teacher about volunteering for classroom celebrations, you will arrive at the time of your child’s classroom party and sign in, in the main office. All volunteers have to have a current CRC on file.
In addition, all items that are donated to classrooms must be store bought and pre-packaged, no open items or items made at home. In addition, please be sure to communicate about what may be donated, as there are many allergies. Most teachers will have a concrete and specific list of items that they need or are hoping for.
There are some classrooms that will not need volunteers due to the activities that they are planning.
Halloween Costumes:
Please ensure that costumes are school appropriate, no weapons, gore or violent costumes. Please also try to avoid culturally insensitive or offensive costumes here at school. It is also very helpful to have your child practice putting on their Halloween costume at home, so that they can get dressed independently here at school. Some costumes have masks, you can send in your child’s mask with their costume. If a child is having a difficult time walking with their mask, they can hold onto it during the parade.
Please remember to send in your child’s Halloween costume in a labeled bag with their name on it, as children are asked not to wear costumes to school.
Phones on Buses:
I wanted to bring something to parents' attention regarding phones on buses. Some bus drivers are ok with their students bringing and using their phones on the bus, while others are not. Unfortunately this decision is solely based on the bus driver that your child has. As long as your child has the approval from their driver, they are permitted to have them. I kindly ask all parents to please have a conversation with their child about what is appropriate to view on the school bus. Content must still be school appropriate and age appropriate. We are currently having some children view gory or scary videos and this is scaring some students. We appreciate your cooperation on this important matter.
The policy at school still stands, that phones must be turned off and stored in backpacks throughout the school day. If phones are seen by a staff member, they will be taken and placed in the Main Office for the remainder of the day.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Greenleaf
#WeAreOxbow