Central Park Public School

Please visit our website to view an electronic copy of our newsletter.

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

1 Grade 8 Transition Visit from Markville SS at 2:00 pm

Food Drive Begins

2

Fire Safety Presentation for Grade 1 at 2:00 pm

3

4

Girls vs Boys Volleyball at 1:10 pm in the Gym

5

Pizza Lunch

8

TORQ Percussion Quartet for Grades 5 to 8 at 2:00 pm

9

10

School Council Meeting at 7:00 pm in the Library

11

Staff vs Student Volley-ball at 1:10 pm in the Gym

12

Food Drive Ends

15

16

Celebration in Song at 7:00 pm in the Gym

17

Celebration in Song Daytime Concert at 9:00 am

MADD Presentation for Intermediate Students at 2:00 pm

18

Intermediate Skating at Centennial at 1:30 pm

19

22 23 24

25

26

29

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Central Park PortraitCentral Park Portrait Central Park Public School

100 Central Park Drive, Markham, ON L3P 7G2

Telephone: 905 940-1444

www.centralpark.ps.yrdsb.ca/

Email:.central.park.ps@yrdsb.ca

DECEMBER 2014

CHRISTMAS BREAK-SCHOOL CLOSED

December 2014

Central Park PortraitCentral Park Portrait

How quickly the time has passed! December is upon us and there are so many wonderful things that have happened here at Central Park.

Over the last month or so, our stu-dents have been engaged in rich learning both in and out of the class-room. We saw the first monthly “Spirit Assembly” put on by staff with the Student Spirit Eagles highlighting the fun and learning taking place. These included

boys and girls senior volley-ball,

leadership training for Grade 7 Spirit Eagles,

Skills Canada (with our Inter-mediate students),

a visit from PACHI in prepara-tion of the Pan Am Games,

National Jersey Day, etc.

Thank you to staff who contributed to all of these important events.

These next few weeks we will see many more exciting things happen-ing at Central Park. Students will be engaged in a number of different activities, including Fire Safety Train-

Message From the Administration Team

Central Park Public School

100 Central Park Drive, Markham, ON L3P 7G2

Telephone: 905 940-1444

ing for Primary students, skating for Intermediate and Junior students, and of course the “Celebration in Song” showcasing our choirs and orchestras. We look forward to seeing you all on the evening of De-cember 16th.

Finally, Central Park will show its holiday heart with the annual food drive. From December 1st to De-cember 12th, we will be collecting non-perishable goods that will be donated and shared with those in need in our community.

Thank you to the parent community for your incredible financial contribu-tions to the school’s curricular and co-curricular programs via the Spoo-kathon and Investment in Education. Thank you also to the parents/guardians who met with staff during parent-teacher conferences.

Strong communication between home and school is critical to stu-dent success and we are always appreciative of your ongoing in-volvement in your child’s education and well-being.

At this time, Central Park would like

Vice-Principal: Joanne Lomanno-Aprile

to welcome Mrs. Kimberly D’Ambrosio who is back from maternity leave this month, as well as Mr. Robin Pineau who joins our caretaking team for a short term.

We also send out our congratulations to Mr. John Ilias who is retiring this month after a long and successful ca-reer with the York Region District School Board, most of which has been here at Central Park. While we cele-brate this milestone with John, we are sad to see him leave as he has been an integral part of the caretaking team.

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to Mr. Wally Robinson for his leadership as Interim Principal, and a hug welcome back to Ms. Alison Hall as she returns to Central Park this week. We are so very fortunate to have you both here over the next couple weeks.

On behalf of the entire staff, we wish you all a safe holiday season filled with love and laughter, surrounded by fam-ily and friends. See you all in the New Year!

Wally Robinson & Joanne Lomanno-Aprile

Principal: Wallace Robinson (Interim)

Reporting Absences To ensure the safety of our children, it is critical that

parents contact the school

office, on a daily basis when your

child will be absent or late

for school. The voicemail line is

available 24 hours per day at (905) 940-1444.

If our Safe Arrival is not able to locate information

regarding the student’s

absence in a timely manner,

the York Regional Police

will be contacted. Your child’s safety is

our most important priority.

A reminder to parents dropping off lunches for their child(ren), a parent volunteer receives the lunches at the front entry doors between 12:40 to 12:55 each day. The lunches should be clearly marked with the student’s name. . If you are able to volunteer to receive lunches, please contact the office.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Lunch Drop Off

Beginning the week of December 8th, Central Park is opening a Snack Shack. The Snack Shack will offer healthy snacks for sale every Wednesday morning recess for one dollar and any profits will be do-nated to our school’s fundraising efforts. Snacks sold will meet the School Food and Beverage Policy and offer ex-amples of healthy snacks that students can purchase from local vendors when packing lunches and snacks to bring to school. So send a loonie with your child on Wednesdays and support Central Park’s inaugural Snack Shack.

Preparations have already begun for the Central Park Public School annual holiday concert. "A Celebration in Song" will feature performances by the Primary Choir, the Intermediate Choir and the String Orches-tra. The concert will take place on Tuesday, December 16th at 7:00 p.m. in the school gymnasium. Admission is free of charge, so please join us for an evening of seasonal music!

CELEBRATION IN SONG

Snack Shack

SKILLS CANADA PRESENTATION FOR

INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

On November 18, Skills Canada paid Central Park an enjoyable and very informational visit. We all learned a lot about trade jobs such as Electricians and Plumbers.

No one expected to learn that Electricians are very well paid and they lead very interesting and exciting lives. Or that Surface Blasters are basically paid for blowing things up! We also learned about the requirements for various trade jobs. For example, most chefs learn from on-the-job training, apprenticeships or formal education from culinary schools.

Report prepared by: Jena

Kindergarten registration will commence on January 16, 2015 for the 2015-16 school year. Registration forms are available on YRDSB’s website: www.yrdsb.ca.

Children who turn four or five years old during 2015, live within the school boundary and whose parents are public school tax supporters will be eligible to register for kindergarten. A kindergarten information session for parents is being planned for this spring. For more information please visit the YRDSB website or contact your local school.

Kindergarten Registration to

Commence January 16, 2015

French Immersion Information

Sessions and Registrations Information sessions for the French Immersion (FI) program will take place at Reesor Park on January 15, 2015 at 7 p.m. FI registration will begin January 16, 2015. In order to stream‐line the registration process, parents or guardians of Senior Kindergarten students entering Grade 1 in 2015, and wishing to enrol in the FI Program, can visit or call the school office and request an Office Index Card ‐ short version. The Office Index Card must be signed by the principal of the home school. Parents or guardians then take this form, along with one piece of identification showing their address to Reesor Park PS to register between January 16 and February 13, 2015. This eliminates the need to provide duplicate enroll‐ment information or to pre‐register. YRDSB’s FI Accommodation Plan provides long‐term consis‐tency and equity of access to all students in York Region and will enable YRDSB to continue to offer the FI program to all who wish to enrol. The FI program will be offered in Dual Track or Single Track settings, in a variety of configurations. In order to meet community needs and optimize available space in our schools, a community's Grade 1‐8 FI program may be provided over more than one school during the course of a student's FI education. This will allow flexibility in addressing community needs and the opportunity to use ex‐isting space in schools. More information is available on the Board’s website: www.yrdsb.ca. Please note: Some of the FI accommodation plans will require facility modifications or the development of new schools and will require short‐term transition plans that might include overflow while we work toward the long‐term vision. Overflow refers to situations in which the Board directs students to attend a school other than their community school or optional program for a spe‐cific period of time, as defined in Policy #108.

HOLIDAY FOOD DRIVE

It’s time once again for Central Park’s Holiday Food Drive which began on December 1st and runs until Friday, December 12th. In support of the event, there will be two volleyball games and entry to each game will be one item of non-perishable food.

The first game will feature boys vs girls volleyball on Thursday, December 4th starting at 1:10 pm and the second game will be held on Thursday, December 11th with Staff against a mixture of girls and boys from the school’s teams. There may be a third game on Wednesday, December 17th with the male staff trying to beat the female staff!

Some food suggestions are soup, pasta, pasta sauce, rice, canned vegetables, fruit juices, cans of tuna, cans of salmon and baby foods. All food col-lected will be donated to the Unionville Alliance Church.

So students, come out and cheer for your favourite team! See you there!

MADD PRESENTATION for INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

On Wednesday, December 17, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) will be at Central Park for a presentation to our Inter-mediate students.

MADD offers a National Poster Contest with cash prizes for the top 3 entries. For more information and entry forms, please access the website below:

http://www.madd.ca/madd2/en/services/youth services con-tests.html;

School Council Corner

Greetings from the School Council! In a few short months, we’ve accomplished a lot as a school community. Most recently, Spookathon was a huge success with lots of happy faces (with and without cupcake on those faces) throughout the day. Pizza Days continue to be events that excite our children. Lots of parents and guardians have volunteered their time to help with classrooms and special events. We have a lot to be proud of, as parents, guardians and families of children attending Central Park PS. And we're even more excited about what we could accomplish as a Central Park PS community in 2015. The 3 school council meetings we’ve had so far have been packed with great discussion and ideas. In the last meeting, 4 areas of fo-cus emerged as our priorities:

Student Achievement: working with teachers, administration and students to elevate our children's accomplishments in and out of school

State of the Playground: managing short-term and long-term improvements to the school playground

Anti-Bullying, Self Esteem and Relationships: helping students learn more about how to best relate with each other and deal with any bullying that might arise

Parent communication and engagement: finding ways to improve communi-cations between the school, school council, parents / guardians and families

Subcommittees have been created to focus on each of these priorities. If you’re interested to help out or learn more, please contact the council at cppssc@gmail.com, or come out to our next meeting (pizza and babysitting will be provided) on

December 10 from 7pm to 8:30pm, at the Central Park PS library! Have a safe and wonderful holiday season - and see you in 2015! Wendy, James, Amy, Michelle, Lucas and the rest of the Central Park School Council

SCHOOL TRUSTEE: BILLY PANG

Character Trait of the Month ~EMPATHY

At the end of every month we stop to recognize the character of our students. Each month we focus on one particular character trait and during the whole month we look for students who are ex-emplifying that trait. Our December Character Matters is EMPA-THY -

“We strive to sense and appreciate the emotions of others, to “stand in their shoes”. We demonstrate appreciation of and concern for their feelings. We try to understand issues from their perspectives even though we may not agree with them personally.”

JK/SK

Andrew, Ali, Matheus, Andrew, Sava, Eunice, John, Francis, Tristan, Sara, Emily, Edwin

GRADE 1

Frank, Eamonn, Musa, Joyce, Alex

GRADE 2

Mike, Audrey, Andy, Ethan, Jayda, Brandan, Jack, Jehanne

GRADE 3

Ary, Caitlin, Ella, Bethel, Annika, William

GRADE 4

Mikaela, Alan, Kailey, Noelle, Ajeythan, Jierui, Daniel, Sophia

GRADE 5

Kara, Simon, Kevin, Kimberley, Tiffany, Karrie

GRADE 6

Alan, Ashley, Neeraj, Kin

GRADE 7

Brian, Vanessa, Katherine, Jennica, Connie, Chris, Cameron, Arvnav, Ahmad

GRADE 8

Connie, Angelina, Angel, J.M., Labros, Simon

STUDENTS WHO HAVE DEMONSTRATED COURAGE IN NOVEMBER

60 Wellington Street West, Box 40

Aurora Ontario L4G3H2

Public #(647)461-9965

E-mail: billy.pang @yrdsb.ca

Togogganing is one of many terri-fic Canadian winter activities for students and at Central Park, staff sometimes take their stu-dents outside to toboggan and play in the snow during gym classes. We would ask, however, that students not bring their per-sonal toboggans to school without permission from their teachers. Toboggans made with durable and stronger plastic or wood often re-sult in accidents that cause injury when excited students forget to take turns and are not patient enough to wait until a path is clear. Tobogganing will only be permitted under direct supervi-sion of a staff member and NOT during recess or lunch times.

TOBOGGANS AT CENTRAL

PARK

LOST & FOUND Our Lost and Found continues to accumulate a large number of items. Please ask your student to stop by the front lobby and check for any items you may be missing at home. All items that are not collected by the Winter Break will be do-nated to a local charity.

Also, please label your children’s clothing to enable us to re-turn the lost items.