Instilling a love of reading early gives your child a head start on expanding their vocabulary and building independence and self-confidence. It helps children learn to make sense not only of the world around them but also people, building social-emotional skills and, of course, imagination.

Our Lexia challenge was only the beginning of your child's lifetime adventure. If your student has finished Lexia, they are ready for big chapter books. Have them try a SERIES of books. What is so great about a series is that each book gets harder (and better). Try books like Harry Potter, Uglies, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Percy Jackson, Magic Tree House, Clubhouse of Mysteries or The Chronicles of Narnia. There are so many choices. It's been proven that readers are leaders and that the proof is in your children's excitement throughout this challenge.

March has now left us. The standings as of last Thursday (with one more day remaining in the challenge), were as follows:

K-2

1st Place: Ms. Armer 2nd Grade (2,466 units)

2nd Place: Ms. Miller 2nd Grade (2,173 units)

3rd Place: Mrs. Mackall 1st Grade (2,109 units)

3-5

1st Place: Ms. Taylor 4th Grade (2,464 units)

2nd Place: Ms. Bella 3rd Grade (2,149 units)

3rd Place: Ms. Castille 4th Grade (1,890 units)

Our bees completed 24,201 total units between March 1st and March 30th. What a great accomplishment! Tuesday morning during announcements we will announce the FINAL numbers for the Read Across-LEXIA challenge. We don't want to spoil the surprise today. Watch your email for the final results next Tuesday. In the meantime, thank you, thank you for encouraging your student to discover how amazing and rewarding it is to read.

It has been said that our imagination is not restricted by the walls of the norm, but it goes way beyond that. That is why people rely on curiosity and imagination of advancement. Through imagination, we are able to create something bold, something new and something better in the hopes of creating something that will stimulate change.

We are all aware of the tragedies that have taken place. Our first priority is the safety and well-being of our students and staff. 27J has a highly-trained safety and security team who works collaboratively with staff and local law enforcement to provide a safe learning environment for our 20,000 students in every classroom, every day.

Southlawn has an emergency action plan and the staff make security awareness a daily priority. We practice our safety procedures and drills throughout the school year and are trained in how to respond in emergency situations.

Our Deputy Superintendent,Will Pierce, sent out a letter concerning Community safety. If you happened to miss it, please check it out by clicking here.

Starting next fall, we will have a full-time School Resource Office (SRO) on campus. An SRO is present in our schools to support school safety efforts led by administrators. They can, as requested, support investigations and complete welfare checks. SROs also work to build relationships between the community and law enforcement while serving at our schools. As information becomes available to us, on who our SRO will be, we will pass that on to you.

Also, last Tuesday it was reported that one of our exterior doors was slightly ajar. Upon learning that our door had malfunctioned and not closed properly, we contacted our District's Safety and Security Department as well as our District's Facilities Department to correct the problem. A 27J Facility Crew Member reported to our bilding and manually adjusted the door so that it now forcefully closes after the last person enters or exits the building. Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention because as we have always said and believed, student and staff safety is our number one priority.

Thank you for partnering with us to make sure that all students are safe while they are at school. If you have any additional questions please contact the office at 303-655-6200.

As we begin preparing for the 2023-2024 school year, we would love to hear from our current Kindergarten - 4th grade families. Your feedback is vital and appreciated for planning next year. Please click HERE to let us know your plans for next school year. We will have the Intent to Return link open through April 10th. *Please fill out one survey per student.* Thank you!

Many of you have been eager to experience a bit of what we do in the music. Your children have been working so hard and are excited to share the skills and talents they have learned and discovered. It’s so exciting!

Each grade level will be putting on their concert in the Southlawn Gym on Wednesday, April 12th. The schedule is:

3rd Grade 5:30-6:00 PM

4th Grade 6:15-6:45 PM

5th Grade 7:00-7:30 PM

You won’t want to miss this!

Can you believe that this school year is almost over? On May 24th, we will be commemorating the end of the school year with a celebration for both our Kindergarten students as well as our Fifth Grade Students. The Kindergarten celebration will take place at 9 AM and our Fifth Grade continuation will take place at 6 PM. Both celebrations will take place in our gymnasium. Just a quick note: in order to remain in compliance with the fire code, we will be limiting the number of friends/family members for this event to four (4) per family. More information will be coming as the plans are just now being made.

Are you looking for child care for your son/daughter ages 5-12 this summer? Do you wonder what the summer program offers? Guess what! 27J is offering summer child care at four locations (Second Creek is the closest to Southlawn).

So far, the program at Second Creek (which is amazing!) has spots available. Remember, space is limited. If you are interested, take the step to register. If you receive the message that there are no spots available, place your name on the wait list.

The summer program runs from May 30th through July 28th. There will be one away field trip and two in-house field trips/events each week. So far, the activities already put into place at Second Creek are:

AMF Bowling

Adventure Golf

Carpenter Park and Pool

Bouncy House

They also offer STEAM-based activities for the kids throughout the day as well. Many more activities are planned, but these are the ones we are aware of so far.

For more information, please check out the SD27j website.

If you have a student who is or will be attending Stuart Middle School this fall, you will begin to receive updates and information the latter part of July. In the meantime, you may want to join and keep an eye on their Facebook page.

Email: nastor@sd27j.net
Website: https://www.sd27j.org/Page/12351
Location: 10075 Walden Street, Commerce City, CO, USA
Phone: 303-655-6200
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086760044330