Principal Drumm\\'s Weekly Message

April 8, 2019

4/9/2019

Thank you to the more than 100 volunteers who came in this past Saturday to paint the walls soft colors and brighten up our school. We also had a great first Enrollment playdate, greeting our new Tiger cubs and spending time with old friends.

Enrollment
Enrollment begins April 1st and families have until May1st before we start taking students from the waitlist. Our enrollment is on the rise and goal for this year is 308 students. We will have monthly playdates to meet and greet our incoming families and we welcome current families to join in on the fun. Our registrar Ms. Graham will also be there to collect enrollment paperwork each day and on Saturday, April 27 and enroll families. This year DCPS has new methods for enrolling which may be easier for some families.

ECE Good Touch, Bad Touch Presentations
Our ECE specialists from central office will be leading Good Touch, Bad Touch presentations which include three- 30 minute presentations in the classroom. This aligns well with our social emotional work on assertiveness using your “big voice.” Parents are welcome to join. You can also opt your child out of this presentation. More information will be coming with exact dates.

Testing Season
This week our 5th graders will take their Literacy assessment. This is an opportunity for students to “show what they know”. However, testing can be a stressful time; it helps to have a testing ritual to take away any unnecessary stress like exercise, coloring, yoga, and belly breathing. The adults at Langley are utilizing their social emotional practices to make this time as normal as possible for our Tigers.

Kindergarten Readiness
We will be hosting Kindergarten Readiness Information sessions on Tuesday, April 23 at 8:30am and 5:30pm. Our ECE specialist, school leaders, and kindergarten teacher will be there to share information and answer any questions.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Enrollment Playdates:
- Saturday, April 6: 10am-12pm (coincides with our volunteer day)
- Saturday, April 27: 10am-12pm
- Saturday, June 1: 10am-12pm
- Saturday, July 13: 10am-12pm
PTA Meeting: Thursday, April 11 from 5:30-7pm
Volunteer Day to Paint Our School: Saturday, April 6 from 10am-2pm
Kindergarten Readiness Info Session: Tuesday, April 23 at 8:30-9:30am and 5:30-6:30pm
PARCC Testing window: April 8 – May 24
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

March 25, 2019

3/23/2019

Outdoor Space
Thank you to our families who worked hard this Saturday in order to prepare for our phase 1 outdoor space rebuild. We are excited to have another large space outside for meaningful play, outdoor learning, and gardening!

Enrollment
Enrollment begins April 1st and families have until May 1st before we start taking students from the waitlist. Our enrollment is on the rise and goal for this year is 308 students. We will have monthly playdates to meet and greet our incoming families and we welcome current families to join in on the fun. Our registrar Ms. Graham will also be there to collect enrollment paperwork on April 7 and April 27 and enroll families. This year DCPS has new methods for enrolling which may be easier for some families.

Volunteer Day & Play Date
We have volunteers coming from North Highland to help us beautify our school. We would like to paint each floor a soft color like we did last year on the first floor. We also hope to beautify our bathrooms and add inspirational messages for our Tigers. Please spread the word and join us Saturday, April 6 from 10am-2pm. This will also be the day of our first enrollment playdate. Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Enrollment Playdates:
- Saturday, April 6: 10am-12pm (coincides with our volunteer day)
- Saturday, April 27: 10am-12pm (coincides with our Unity Walk)
- Saturday, June 1: 10am-12pm
- Saturday, July 13: 10am-12pm
District PD Day: April 4 (No School for Students)
School-led PD Day/Records Day: April 5 (No School for Students)
PTA Meeting: Thursday, April 11 from 5:30-7pm
Volunteer Day to Paint Our School: Saturday, April 6 from 10am-2pm
PARCC Testing window: April 8 – May 24
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

March 11, 2019

3/7/2019

It’s been a fun few weeks at Langley! Our students worked hard on their Black History projects and had lots of learning to share with us! We also had a great week of Academic Parent Teacher Team (APTT), thank you families for attending our sessions, learning about data and how to help your child at home.
Enrollment Playdates
We will have monthly playdates to meet and greet our incoming families, we welcome current families to join in on the fun. Our registrar Ms. Graham will also be there to collect enrollment paperwork on April 7 and enroll families. Our enrollment goal is 308 students this year! Let’s get to 100% enrolled before the last day of school! Playdates:

Saturday, April 6: 10am-12pm (coincides with our volunteer day)
Saturday, April 27: 10am-12pm (coincides with our Unity Walk)
Saturday, June 1: 10am-12pm
Saturday, July 13: 10am-12pm

Budget
Our enrollment goal increased dramatically this year, we are predicted to be up 33 students from last year’s budget which helped us over the 300 student mark and increased funding for our school. Some exciting updates for next year:

Full time librarian
Additional custodian
2 additional general education teachers
Additional resource/inclusion teacher
New SPED model (funded by DCPS SPED department)
- AP to coach teachers and staff, oversee mental health department, and lead trainings
- SPED coordinator to handle compliance and transportation
- Additional 0.5 social worker
- New Director of Operations to run the office and take care of facilities so the principal and AP can focus on academic learning

We also have the ESSA funding coming over the next 3 years, we feel very strong going into next year!

Volunteer Day
We have volunteers coming from North Highland to help us beautify our school. We would like to paint each floor a soft color like we did last year on the first floor and get rid of the yucky brown color. We also hope to beautify our bathrooms and add inspirational messages for our Tigers. Please spread the word and join us Saturday, April 6 from 10am-2pm.

After school Tutoring
Our 4th and 5th grader teachers Ms. Wagner and Ms. Williams started an after school tutoring program for our students to prepare them for the transition academically to middle school and close any gaps on Tuesdays and Thursdays, please see them for more information. In addition, we have three teachers who work in our afterschool OSTP program and provide daily tutoring and homework support - Ms. Maduako, Ms. Hopkins, and Ms. Cox. Our Girls on the Run team will be starting next week for girls in grades 3-5, the girls will learn about exercise, self esteem, and healthy mindsets, see Ms. Watson, our school psychologist, for more information.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Step Afrika Performance: Tuesday, March 19 at 2pm
Enrollment Playdates:
- Saturday, April 6: 10am-12pm (coincides with our volunteer day)
- Saturday, April 27: 10am-12pm (coincides with our Unity Walk)
- Saturday, June 1: 10am-12pm
- Saturday, July 13: 10am-12pm
- Volunteer Day to Paint Our School: Saturday, April 6 from 10am-2pm
- Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
- 5th Grade Promotion: June 6
- Field Day: June 7
- Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

February 25, 2019

2/24/2019

We hope you enjoyed the new mid winter-break last week but we are excited to welcome our Tigers Back for our first annual Black History Spirit Week. Thank you to Dean Robinson and Ms. Gunter for planning a special week of activities and to our parents who helped bring in guests speakers and volunteers to our students. See detailed schedule below for more information!

Black History Spirit Week Schedule
Monday- "I Have a Dream" Peaceful Protest Day: We are providing some rally signs that align with the mission of combating social injustices. Our PTA has helped to provide "MLK crowns" for our tigers to wear which will help to promote that sense of unity we are aiming for. We will create our own peaceful protest in front of the school, see times below:
ECE 9:15 am
K-2: 9:35 am
Gr 3-5 10 am

Tuesday - "A Different World”: Students and staff dress in college gear. We will have have visitors in the classroom to read aloud a picture book on a key topic from current and historical events in African American history.

Wednesday- "For the Culture Day" Gallery Walk in Cafe: Students will go on a gallery walk of important African American figures in our history. There will be volunteers to help curating the gallery information and stations for crafts aligned with theme.

Thursday - "Living Museum Day": Students learn about and dress as important African Americans and create living museums take place inside of classrooms.

Friday - "I Have A Destiny": Dress like your future self!

PTA
This week we have a PTA meeting on Tuesday night at 6pm, we hope to see you there! The Langley leadership team would like to recognize this year’s PTA for helping us fund food for our Conscious Discipline parent nights, our lively Winter Wonderland celebration, a Thanksgiving luncheon for our hard-working teachers, and gift cards for our CARE fair. You have stepped up to support our initiatives this year and we appreciate it!

Attendance C.A.R.E Fair
This Wednesday, February 27th at 9:30 am the attendance team is hosting the first annual C.A.R.E Fair. Families who want or need support with housing, healthcare, transportation or anything to make their day to day life that much easier is invited to come. Resources will be available on the spot! If you would like to donate gift cards or resources to the event or have any connections to different departments within DC, please see Ms. Graham in the main office.

Langley T-Shirt Sale
We have our royal blue t-shirts for children and adults on sale in the main office for $15. Students can wear them in place of their uniform any day of the week. Thank you to our PTA for funding this in advance so we could have shirts to purchase in bulk in the office.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

PTA Meeting: February 26 at 6pm
Boundary Stone Live Music PTA Fundraiser: March 2 from 3-6pm
Academic Partnering Meetings: March 5 and 8 afterschool (check with your teacher for your date)
Step Afrika Performance: Tuesday, March 19 at 2pm
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

February 4, 2019

2/7/2019

January flew by, it’s hard to believe it’s already February. Last Friday we celebrated our hard-working students by making Friendship Mix (our version of trail mix) reminding us all that our diversity is a strength. A special thank you to the many families who attended our Conscious Discipline parent workshop and our Winter Wonderland School Family Night, it was wonderful to spend time with you!

Black History Spirit Week
This year we are celebrating Black History month with a spirit week of learning the week we return from our mid-winter break February 25-29. We will kick it off with a school family assembly on Monday and we will have guests throughout the week coming in to read to us and teach us about important figures from our history. Black History is OUR history! We encourage families to use the mid-winter break to read and research one important figure as a family and then Thursday we will have a living museum where students can dress up and share about their person’s accomplishments.

Attendance C.A.R.E Fair
February 27th at 9:30 am the attendance team is hosting the 1st annual C.A.R.E Fair. Families who want or need support with housing, healthcare, transportation or anything to make their day to day life that much easier is invited to come. Resources will be available on the spot! If you would like to donate gift cards or resources to the event or have any connections to different departments within DC, please see Ms. Graham in the main office.

ESSA Update
We will be collecting data the next two weeks from current families about your experience here at Langley and then using that in our planning for the next few years with our ESSA funding. Check your email for the survey or come in to do one in person, a booth will be in front of the auditorium.

Langley T-Shirt Sale
We have our royal blue t-shirts for children and adults on sale in the main office for $15. Students can wear them in place of their uniform any day of the week.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Mid-winter Break: February 18-22 (Springboard will be running programming please sign up on their website)
Black History Spirit Week: February 25-March 1
PTA Meeting: February 26 at 6pm
Academic Partnering Meetings: March and March 8 afterschool
Boundary Stone Live Music PTA Fundraiser: March 2 at 3pm
Step Afrika Performance: Tuesday, March 19 at 2pm
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

January 21, 2019

1/20/2019

I am so grateful for the service and dedication of our teachers and staff who came in on Saturday to engage in a full day of literacy professional development and our parents and students who came in Saturday as well to paint, organize, and beautify our school. What a wonderful exemplar of service to showcase the important legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We also are hosting the Officer Friendly program at Langley on January 30th for classroom visits and a musical performance and Step Afrika will be performing on March 19th at 2pm - parents are welcome to join in on the fun.
ESSA Update
Our community focus groups have been rescheduled for January 31st to coincide with our Winter Wonderland night. We will conduct 3 thirty minute focus groups and rotate families through to work with the DCPS team. Our students and staff recently participated in their groups and we are excited to see the results of the needs assessment and how we can tweak and revise our 5 year plan to better meet the needs of our students.
We are excited for this funding which will allow us to change some aspects of our instructional program similarly to how we researched and implemented our own Social Emotional Learning (SEL) program at Langley. It’s important we identify the best that will work for our children on the academic side as well. This past week we started work with Shawn Bender, our new literacy consultant of Bender and Derivan, LLC and Southern Regional Education Board, who visited classrooms and designed professional development tailored for our staff and students. AP Jennings and I will also be visiting a few other schools’ professional development and find the best fit for our school this winter. We also will be allowing other schools with progressive mindsets to visit and learn about our SEL work.

Langley T-Shirt Sale
We have our new royal blue t-shirts for children and adults on sale in the main office for $15. Students can wear them in place of their uniform any day of the week.

Welcome New Teachers
Please join us in welcoming our new second grade teacher Miranda Rigby and our new Special Education Teacher for our BES 3-5 program, David Clark. Ms. Rigby recently completed her internship at Langley this fall in Ms. Wagner’s classroom and completed her degree from Brigham Young University; we are thrilled to welcome her officially to the Langley family as she is already familiar with our SEL and academic programming. Mr. Clark is an experienced Special Education teacher from Prince George’s County and Baltimore City Public Schools, he has already utilized his experience to bring structures and learning to our classroom.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Conscious Discipline Parent Workshop #2: Thursday, January 24th 5:30-7:30pm
Winter Wonderland Family Fun Night & ESSA Focus Groups: Thursday, January 31st from 5:30-7:30pm
Mid-winter Break: February 18-22 (Springboard will be running programming please sign up on their website)
Boundary Stone Live Music PTA Fundraiser: March 2 at 3pm
Step Afrika Performance: Tuesday, March 19 at 2pm
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

January 7, 2019

1/7/2019

Welcome back to our Langley school family in 2019! We hope you had a wonderful week and a half off and enjoyed time with friends and family. Last week, we had a very smooth few days back. We thank our amazing teachers and staff, they planned a SEL re-boot for the first two weeks of January and Dean Robinson led us in daily school family assemblies to re-teach some routines and practice our social emotional strategies. January is a busy month with events, please check out the important dates below, we hope to see you there!

ESSA Community Night
DCPS is conducting a thorough needs assessment by working with all stakeholders, parents, students, and staff and conducting school walkthroughs and data dives, they will collect the information and present it to me in a report so that I can form our plan of attack. Please join us Monday, February 14 from 6-8:30pm. Childcare and food will be provided.

Summer Camp at Langley
This year we will be the first school in DC to host Flex summer camps. We also will be piloting a camp for our youngest Tigers, rising PreK3 and PreK4 in addition to the traditional rising K-5 camp. We hope this will be a support to our families looking for childcare over the summer and be an easy transition for our students who already feel comfortable at Langley. Spread the word! Enrollment begins in February.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

PTA Meeting: January 8 at 6pm
ESSA Community Night: January 14 from 6-8:30pm
Conscious Discipline Parent Workshop #2: Thursday, January 24th 5:30-7:30pm
Winter Wonderland Family Fun Night: Thursday, January 31st from 5:30-7:30pm
Mid-winter Break: February 18-22 (Springboard will be running programming please sign up on their website)
Boundary Stone Live Music PTA Fundraiser: March 2 at 3pm
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

December 17, 2018

12/17/2018

As 2018 winds down and the holidays approach, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you. The school year has been full of learning, energy and excitement for our students, as well as our staff. We see strong academic and social emotional instruction in all of our classrooms. This fall we hosted Dr. Becky Bailey and a team of lobbyists who identified Langley as a model school for Conscious Discipline. This year’s Annual Back to School Barbecue was attended by more than 70% of our families and our first Night of Consciousness was enjoyed by more than 30% of our families. We also worked together to plan a redesign for our garden and put some sweat in cleaning the garden over the weekend. Thank you to our PTA for supporting our Langley events, updating our website, and advocating for our lovely school family.

I also want to thank you, families, for trusting our team with your children each day. I feel so fortunate that I matched with Langley two years ago and serve this wonderful and diverse community. I’m excited to see what we do over the next years together! Have a wonderful winter break and we will see you in January.

Winter Break Learning

This year teachers will be sending home a task or challenge to keep the learning going over the break. It should be something fun to do as a family. I am also sending home information about our blended learning (online) resources, our children can login to any of our resources at home or the public library during all of our breaks.

STAR Report Card

Thank you to those of you who attended the ESSA meeting last Thursday night. The mood was positive despite the Level 1 score; we know Langley is on the rise and this funding will allow us to do some very special things here for our children. In January, we will be doing a thorough needs assessment starting with interviewing student groups to help inform our action plan for funding.

Cold Weather & Lost and Found

Please check the lost and found located in the main entrance lobby before leaving for winter break. We will be donating all items left behind over the winter break.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Winter Concerts: Thursday, December 20
- 9:45am PreK-Grade 2
- 2:00pm Grades 3-5
PTA Meeting: January 8 at 6pm
Conscious Discipline Parent Workshop #2: Thursday, January 24th 5:30-7:30pm
Winter Wonderland Family Fun Night: Thursday, January 31st from 5:30-7:30pm
Mid-winter Break: February 18-22 (Springboard will be running programming please sign up on their website)
Boundary Stone Live Music PTA Fundraiser: March 2 at 3pm
Summer Splash Family Night: May 23
5th Grade Promotion: June 6
Field Day: June 7
Spring Concerts: June 13

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

November 29, 2018

11/26/2018

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break! At our last PTA meeting, I shared that the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Obama will be going in effect in our city. All public schools both charter and district will be on a website with a rate from Level 1 to Level 5. Scores will be based on PARCC achievement and growth, in-seat attendance, and re-enrollment. We expect to be a Level 1 school since our PARCC scores have not shown growth yet. AP Jennings and I have been working the past 2 years to secure strong teachers and focus our school improvement plan on academic and social emotional learning for all students. Last year we exceeded all of our goals for achievement in K-2 so we expect to see gains on PARCC this year and years going forward but we are not there yet. We will continue to work to turn around our school and make it a great neighborhood school for all children. Please see the school plan update for more information. We will also be hosting a principal chat and presentation on ESSA on Thursday, December 13 at 6pm.

Reminder! Volunteers Needed for Garden Clean Up
We are working on rebuilding our garden this spring to create more student friendly spaces including an outdoor classroom and new beds for students to plant in. First, we need to clean all debris from the garden and let it sit for a few months to clear up the rat issue. We need adult volunteers on Dec.1, from 10am-2pm to help volunteers from Food Prints.

Cold Weather & Lost and Found
The weather is getting colder and our school does not open until 8:15 am daily, please make sure students are equipped with coats and other cold weather gear. Our Lost and Found located in the main entrance is growing now that we have entered into the coat, hat, and mitten season. Please make sure your child’s name is in all articles of clothing so that we can do our best getting those items back to students.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Saturday, December 1: Garden Clean Up from 10am-2pm
Thursday, December 6: ECE Parent Cafe 5:30-7pm
Thursday, December 13: Principal Chat about ESSA/school plan
Thursday, December 20: Winter Concerts
- 9:45am PreK-Grade 2
- 2:00pm Grades 3-5
Conscious Discipline Parent Workshop #2: Thursday, January 24th 5:30-7:30pm
Winter Wonderland Family Fun Night: Thursday, January 31st from 5:30-7:30pm

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

November 15, 2018

11/14/2018

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving break, this is a great time to practice the skill of encouragement we have been teaching our Tigers. We are teaching our students to notice kindness, helpfulness, and safety in our world which helps change the mindset from seeing the “bad” in the world to seeing what is positive. This improves overall mood which builds happier children with stronger brains! Example: Ms. Jennings, you walked a student to the bus so he had a positive end to his day. That was kind. We have been using the sentence frame:
“You did it! You ___ so____. That was helpful/kind/safe.”

Garden Clean Up- Volunteers Needed!
We are working on rebuilding our garden this spring to create more student friendly spaces including an outdoor classroom and new beds for students to plant in. First, we need to clean all debris from the garden and let it sit for a few months to clear up the rat issue. We need adult volunteers on that day to help, we have some volunteers coming from Food Prints but we need more volunteers from 10am-2pm.

Thanksgiving Bundles
Our law firm partner will be distributing Thanksgiving kits for dinners for families on Tuesday afternoon. Please contact Ms. Graham in the main office if you would like a kit.

Fall Harvest Festival
Our first fall harvest festival was a big success, our children enjoyed playing games, jumping in the moon bounce, and we earned some money for our PTA. Thank you to our PTA for planning the fun-filled event and Mr. Ted for volunteering your time and materials.

Cold Weather & Lost and Found
The weather is getting colder and our school does not open until 8:15 am daily, please make sure students are equipped with coats and other cold weather gear. Our Lost and Found located in the main entrance is growing now that we have entered into the coat, hat, and mitten season. Please make sure your child’s name is in all articles of clothing so that we can do our best getting those items back to students.

Upcoming Events- Save the Date!

Wednesday, November 21: No School for students
Saturday, December 1: Garden Clean Up from 10am-2pm
Thursday, December 6: ECE Parent Cafe 5:30-7pm
Thursday, December 20: Winter Concerts
- 9:45am PreK-Grade 2
- 2:00pm Grades 3-5
Conscious Discipline Parent Workshop #2: Thursday, January 24th 5:30-7:30pm
Winter Wonderland Family Fun Night: Thursday, January 31st from 5:30-7:30pm

Wishing you well!
Principal Drumm

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