Spring has Sprung!

Sugar Creek is a great place to be!

~Kirstin & Todd

Monday, April 20th:

Swimming Unit began for 1st-5th Grades!

Monday, April 27th

Late Start Monday

Friday, May 1st

Día del Niño Event 5 pm

Monday, May 4th

Late Start & Teacher Appreciation Week Begins

Thursday, May 7th

Community Gathering

Family Reading & Art Night (5-7pm)

Kindergarten Tours (8:15 & 5 pm)

Friday, May 8th

Spring Concerts(see below for times)

Monday May 11th

Late Start Monday

Monday, May 18th

Late Start Monday

Over Spring Break our newest improvement, a large and locally made shade structure, was installed on our front playground (which is an area that has no other source of shade). This addition is yet another example of how our PTO's Fun Run continues to benefit the Sugar Creek community!

Speaking of the Fun Run: we're kicking off planning for this fall's 2026 Sugar Creek Fun Run! Reach out to the Sugar Creek PTO email address (sugarcreekpto@gmail.com) if you're interested in helping plan this great event. We need MANY volunteers to make this super event a success.

Last week was Severe Weather Awareness Week in Wisconsin. The State cancelled their community practice because there were so many real storms last week, but asked all schools to proceed with their own scheduled tornado drills. We did so last Thursday. Teachers previewed with their students what our procedures are, where we go to be safe, and how we must be quiet and listen to adults and be helpers in such moments.

We take safety seriously at Sugar Creek, and all of our students were just super!

We had such a great time on Friday, April 17th. Virhada Holsteins of Mt. Horeb brought one of their cows that produces the milk that is sent to Klondike Dairy in Monroe, where VASD gets the Odyssey Yogurt that is served at breakfast and lunch! In addition, they brought several calves. Students were served, as part of their free breakfast, delicious yogurt parfaits with granola, watched a video of Mr. Brunner telling cheese jokes, AND THEN could meet the cows and farmer.

In addition, our cafeteria was decorated (a big shout out to Ms. Yessenia, Nixida and Aldino, our cooks!) in honor of the day, we had CHEESE pizza for lunch, and all students received a gift bag from the Wisconsin Dairy Farmers!\

Events like this are part of the forward thinking of our Healthy School team of staff and parents, helping to promote healthy eating in our students while building strong farm-to-school connections in our local community. See here for more information.

Take a look at a recent visitor we had on our playground. He stayed put through a few recesses. Maybe he heard about Open Enrollment and wants to attend our great school!

If you are looking for a way to support a teacher or staff person in honor of national Teacher Appreciation Week, please check out our Amazon Wish List.

VASD partners with Americorps in Action, which provides schools across the United States with paid, well- trained reading tutors to help our younger students with their literacy skills. If you, a relative, a neighbor or someone you know is looking for a job and would like to do good work for Sugar Creek’s amazing kids, they can apply here:

https://servicesite-ampact.icims.com/jobs/58524/reading-tutor---sugar-creek-elementary-school/job

Children’s Day is a very special celebration in many Latin American countries, where we honor and recognize the importance of children in our society. Join us any time from 5 - 7 pm on May 1st as we celebrate our children on this meaningful day!

We invite you to bring a dish to share, whether homemade or store-bought. It will be a day full of fun, joy, and community. Bring the whole family and celebrate with us!

Earth Day was April 22. As a school, we celebrated it with our first all-school picnic of the year! These two students took things one step further by spending their recess time picking up any little pieces of trash they could find, and disposing of it properly. Thank you, Clara and Evelyn!

On Wednesday, April 1, the Madison Reading Project in partnership with Sugar Creek’s Library, and Librarian Ms. Jaclyn Vitela-Jacqmin, created a “bookstore” and every single student was able to choose a free, new, book to keep!

This activity reflects one of our core values as a school: putting books into the hands of kids! We do this in such ways as: our internal Free Little Libraries (we actively seek donations of free kids’ books, which may be dropped off on our office), our birthday book program, our PTO’s Books for Kids event each November, our Scholastic Boom Fairs, our decision to open our library each morning to students, our excellent library program, and our summer book check-out opportunity.

Check out the Winners of our Golden Award Trophies at the January Community Gathering

Golden Shoe: 1st Grade TWI

Golden Recess: Ms. Diana's Class

Golden Lunchtray: Ms. Cartwright's Class

Golden Dustpan: Kindergarten TWI

We asked families to take a Fall Conferences Survey, in October. We used that anonymous data at our School Based Leadership Team to reflect on strengths and areas of growth, shared it with our teaching staff for them to consider any grade-specific adjustments, and also shared the results out with you, in our December newsletter.

• Most families are happy with the conference format.

• 100% said it was easy to sign up for a conference, and 100% said it was easy to have an interpreter present if they needed.

• Our strong data looked similar from Fall to Spring

• Replies in Fall generally were representative of our student body.

One piece of data that was not as strong as we wished was that 9% of respondents mentioned not having enough time to ask questions. Our teachers discussed ways to ensure that if parents don’t have enough time to have all their questions answered at the moment, how they can get answers later.

See here for more information about swim lessons from our Natatorium

In spring, our teachers carefully create the following year’s class lists. Then, around the first week of August, VASD elementary schools email families their teachers’ names to families (always ensure we know if you change your email address.) Let your teachers know if you have any questions about this. In addition, we work with Badger Ridge Middle School staff to assist them in their placement process for our current Fifth Graders.

In the coming months, we will share more about our school’s enrollment, budget, and staffing plans for 2026-27, once we have the necessary information from our Central Office.

Meanwhile, and directly related to this, if your family will be moving away please let us know, so we can help ensure a smooth transition process to your child’s new school; and if you have a new neighbor with children, be sure they contact VASD’s Registrar ASAP at 845-4301 so their children can receive the free public education to which they are legally entitled.

VASD administers a staff survey each winter. At Sugar Creek, we view this as one more way to delve into what’s going well and where opportunities for improvement may be. We recently held a well-publicized opportunity for our entire staff together with Mr. Brunner and Ms. Houghan to review results and comments and talk about next steps.

Some key points, we’d like to share with you today:

*We had a 14% increase in the number of our staff who took the survey this year over last.

*In every category, our school’s score was above the district average, in many cases significantly stronger than that average.

*Particular strengths at Sugar Creek include our:

Staff have a clear understanding of their expectations,

Staff have a clear understanding of the goals of the district,

Staff are proud of where they work,

Staff feel our employees regularly share and exchange ideas, and

Staff believe their school leaders care for them.

*The lowest score for both our school and district related to staff feeling district-level resources are allocated in a way to maximize effectiveness. (In a large district, one could see where the allocation of funds might be confusing when not everyone has all the information.) This is a theme our central office leaders have noted.

The summary conversation around the table was one where we feel very lucky to work with each other at Sugar Creek, where there is a great deal of trust and collaboration, communication and problem solving to make this a great place for your children!

Spring Concert

“Songs In The Key Of Sea”

We are excited to announce our upcoming spring concert at Sugar Creek Elementary. Students in Grades 1st through 5th will present their concert entitled, “Songs in the Key of Sea” on Friday, May 8th, 2026 in the Sugar Creek Gym. Our musicians are busy rehearsing and are so thrilled to perform for you. The concert times for each grade level are listed below:

Grade 1: 8:00-8:20 am

Grade 2: 8:45-9:05 am

Grade 3: 9:30-9:50 am

Grade 4: 10:15-10:35 am

Grade 5: 1:00-1:25 pm

Here is a link to a helpful Parking Map. Please be sure to give yourself plenty of time to find a parking spot, get to the entrance, and then find a seat in the gym. (Kindergarten students will perform at their picnic on the last day of school. More information about this fun event will come from their teachers.)

Please be aware that students will perform during their portion of the concert and then they will return to their classroom. We would like to request that no siblings of student performers be pulled out of their classroom instructional time to attend the concert or art show. All students will be able to view a school only recording of the entire concert during their music classes. Thank you for being understanding. If you have any questions regarding our concert, please contact us. We look forward to seeing you there!

‘Sing’cerely,
Marie Kyle, Music Teacher, kylem@verona.k12.wi.us

Caitlin Xavier, Music Teacher, xavierc@verona.k12.wi.us

Spring Art Show

"Luminosity of the Deep"

In conjunction with the spring music concert, we look forward to celebrating each and every one of our student artists. Classes are busy creating artwork for the show “Luminocity of the Deep” and we are excited to share our artistic creations with you.

Our entire collection of colorful artwork will be available for viewing in the auxiliary gym on two dates. We hope you will pick a day that works best for you. Please note the the following times:
 

• Thursday, May 7th (5:00-7:00 pm) - Kindergarten through 5th Grades. This evening is dedicated to viewing and enjoying all the artwork alongside your student artist.
   

• May 8th (Before or after scheduled 1st through 5th grade music concerts)
   

While families may view artwork at this time, students will not be available to view along with them as they will be engaged in concert prep and/or classroom work.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing the artwork from each of our students!

Ann Kruse, Art Teacher krusea@verona.k12.wi.us

Tiffany Laxton, Art Teacher laxtont@verona.k12.wi.us