Hello Sugar Creek Families,

Welcome to our February Family Newsletter. Students have all been looking forward to Friendship Day this week, on February 14th. There were so many friends wearing friendship colors and celebrating their classmates. And speaking of kindness, our staff thoroughly enjoyed the annual “Souper” Bowl provided by families recently. With the cold and the snow, it was a very much appreciated event!

Monday, February 17th-No School

Wednesday, February 19th-Extended Day

Monday, February 24th-Swimming Unit Begins

Monday, February 24th-Late Start

Wednesday, February 26th-Extended Day

Monday, March 3rd-Late Start

Wednesday, March 5th-Extended Day

Thursday March 6th-Community Gathering

Friday, March 7th-Imagination/Author Fair and Spring Book Fair

Monday March 10th-TWI Interest Form Closes

Monday March 10th-Late Start

Monday March 10th-PTO Meeting

Wednesday, March 12th-Extended Day

Please make sure you have multiple emergency contacts listed in our system, and that you include their full names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Also, it is good to consider having emergency contacts who live nearby, so that they are readily available in the event that they are needed. Thank you!

We recently shared with you how you can support our teachers and staff with obtaining small but important items that would benefit their work through donating at the Sugar Creek

Recently our students completed their goal of earning blue tickets on the playground for following the Fantastic 4. The acknowledgement for this goal being completed was a students vs. staff Basketball challenge! The students won :-) See below for a few fun photos!

Recently, VASD asked families to share their thoughts about their child’s school. Here at Sugar Creek, it is important to us that we maintain open lines of communication with our many stakeholders. This includes people such as our students, our staff, our central office leaders, our families, and even our substitute teachers.

In the interest of being transparent with you, here are the top responses, in order:

The highest three scores were for:

* I believe the school is clean and well-maintained

* I am treated with respect at this school

* I believe the teachers, staff and administration at this school demonstrate a genuine concern for my child

The lowest three scores were for:

* I regularly receive feedback from school on how well my child is learning

* I receive positive phone calls, emails, or notes about my child from the school

* I believe my child has every opportunity to be successful at this school

We will share the results with representatives of our two public sector unions at Sugar Creek (the VAEA and VESPA), and other school leaders to celebrate what’s going well, and to give thought and direction to what we can do better.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the results, let me know. I share this today, not only for you to see what’s top of people's minds at Sugar Creek, but to show you how we are working to continually improve Sugar Creek. Thank you for your partnership with us.

Want to support our teachers and staff? Please consider donating small but important items that they have added to this “wish list.” All items will be much appreciated and sure to benefit their work for kids. See here: Amazon Wish List Link.

Battle of the Books is a nation-wide reading in entice program. Sugar Creek had over 100 Fourth and Fifth Graders choose to participate in this activity, under the leadership of our librarian, Ms. Vitela. On Wednesday, February 12th, teams from across VASD gathered at the Verona Area High School for a day of competition, celebration, special guests, and food. Our students were SO excited to participate, collaborated very well together, and all came back beaming at the end of the day. We’re very proud of them!

Sugar Creek as free libraries INSIDE our school, which as kids all know are open daily. These help us fulfill our goal of getting books into the hands of students. Donations, like the large one from Kindergartener Olivia Zweifel (pictured here with our custodian Jim Storch) go right into the hands of kids!

Please see this link to learn about opportunities in VASD, and Sugar Creek: https://www.verona.k12.wi.us/departments/humanresources/careers Incidentally, if you ever want to discuss positions you see, or have questions about your own professional growth or employment opportunities, reach out to Mr. Brunner or Ms. Houghan. We have numerous staff who themselves are past or present Sugar Creek parents, who have found a home for their career development here.

January Golden Award Winners:

Golden Lunch Tray-Ms. Wallace

Golden Shoe-1st Grade TWI

Golden Recess-Kindergarten TWI

Golden Dustpan-Ms. Peterson

Our students’ perceptions of school are important to us! This year, we surveyed all Third, Fourth and Fifth graders and had 328 (!) responses. The questions are designed to Provide feedback on how a student feels about school, and Inform continuous improvement on a systems level.

You, as the families of our students, may agree that their impressions of school are important. Here are key take-aways from the 2024-25 student survey at Sugar Creek:

The highest running responses included:

* I believe my principal(s) is a good leader

* I feel my family is treated nicely or with respect at my school

The lower ranking responses included:

*I believe the bathrooms are cleaned and well maintained during the school day

*I feel students are nice or show respect to each other at my school

While our scores were overall strong, there are certainly responses here that give us pause and we are taking these results to teams to try to think about good next steps. This includes our student council. Mr. Brunner and Ms. Houghan have met with the student council to work on next steps for addressing the lower ranking responses and will bring those ideas back to classrooms.

Our counselors are presently delivering their annual lessons on bullying prevention, using the Second Step curriculum as part of our instruction directly connected to the K-12 Wisconsin Social Emotional Learning standards. All VASD elementary teachers and counselors use Second Step.

Our entire school split into two large groups and each half enjoyed a walking field trip recently to the Badger Ridger Performing Arts Center for “Whoopensocker.” In their one words, they “are a group of mostly grown up people who love playing games, making up stories, and putting on shows, and we got to spend some time with the third graders at Sugar Creek! In Whoopensocker, every idea is a good idea, and Sugar Creek Third Graders had a LOT of good ideas.” This was an extended artists-in-residence program between UW-Madison and Sugar Creek. Read more here:

https://www.veronapress.com/news/sugar-creek-students-create-something-extraordinary/article_90192160-ea35-11ef-849a-ef93cf7e8032.html

Black history is American history, and while our books and lessons often incorporate the contributions of Black Americans, we are celebrating them in additional ways this month. For instance, Ms. Houghan has created an interactive bulletin board with facts, trivia, and information about Black Leaders, we are reading a quote a day from famous Black Americans over our announcements, and our Multicultural Team has launched a school-wide door decoration contest.

The Sunshine Committee is a wonderful group that provides help to families in our school that are having troubled times such as a serious health problem, a car or other accident, permanent or temporary loss of a family member, or a death in the family. The committee offers a little “sunshine” by coordinating to make meals and/or help provide for other needs during a stressful family time.

When Mr. Brunner or I become aware of a family in need of support, we will contact the family. We will find out how the Sugar Creek community can help the family during their tough time. We will then contact the members of the Sunshine Committee to help meet these identified needs without disclosing the identity of the family seeking support. The Sunshine Committee will donate or provide the tools to meet these needs to Mr. Brunner and me. This might be preparing a meal, purchasing a gift card, going on a grocery run, or giving a Sugar Creek friend a ride. The privacy of the family in need will be a top priority, so the Sunshine Committee will bring donations to the school to then be delivered to the family by myself or another Sugar Creek staff member that the family feels comfortable with.

Would you like to be on the Sunshine Committee?
Make a meal
Grocery run
Carpool/transportation
Playdates/babysitting
Clothes/supplies
Flowers/cards
Clothes/supplies
Other donations

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP TO HELP !

Do you or someone you know need some sunshine? Contact Trista Kaja, Sugar Creek social worker

*If an immediate response is needed, please call the school office and ask for Mr. Brunner or Ms. Kaja.

Thank you for helping to make Sugar Creek a warm and safe place for our students and their families!

Ms. Kaja
School Social Worker
kajat@verona.k12.wi.us

WITESOL is accepting student entries for the 2025 WITESOL Writing and Art Contest! From now until March 1st, have your child write an essay or poem, or create a work of art that fits the theme "Creating Connections and Community". There are cash prizes for student winners! Student age level categories are K-2nd, 3rd-5th, etc.

To find out more details of the contest, to submit student entries, head to https://www.witesol.com/contests-and-awards/contests/.

At the start of each month’s PTO meeting, there is a school portion where a topic parents have suggested is covered. At the February meeting, Ms. Gaby Freire, First Grade Two Way Immersion Spanish teacher, shared all about our new Social Studies curriculum, TCM (Teacher Created Materials) and the many benefits of it that she has seen, both for students and for teachers. You can see the presentation she shared here.

If you’re interested in hearing school topics, please do consider attending a PTO meeting. The first part of each meeting is given over to a school topic. See the weekly PTO Backpack Bulletin in your child’s teacher’s newsletter for more information of upcoming meetings.

Continental Math League (CML) is a national mathematics problem solving competition, offered right here at Sugar Creek for interested 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders who are seeking advanced opportunities and challenges in mathematics. CML competition is designed to increase student engagement and excitement in math and to supplement existing mathematics education where students can collaborate with school peers and compete with others both regionally and nationally. Sugar Creek’s participation in CML runs from October-May.

Prior to each CML challenge “meet”, the students have class weekly and will have the opportunity (at school and at home) to solve CML problems from previous years in their CML workbooks. This helps them explore various problem-solving strategies and become familiar with the types of problems they may see during the meets.

During the monthly math meet, students have 30 minutes to complete six challenging multiple step math problems on their own. After the meet, scores are entered and students have a chance to share their thinking with peers.

All students are given a completion certificate and awards are given to grade level top scorers in our school. We’d like to recognize and thank our CML team:

Hillary Whitehorse, CML instructor Grade 3 whitehoh@verona.k12.wi.us

Jamie Schultz, CML instructor Grades 4 & 5 schultjl@verona.k12.wi.us

Lori Martin, Math Teacher lori.martin@verona.k12.wi.us

Swim Letter

Please see this important note from Ms. Curtis and Mr. Rose regarding our upcoming Grades 1-5 Swim Unit, starting on February 24th!

Immunization Clinics

Illness is all around our community and we need your help in keeping our school a healthy place to be.

Students with a temperature of 100.0 F or greater must stay home from school until they have not had a fever for 24 hours AND they have not taken any fever-reducing medications such as Tylenol or Ibuprofen, or medications that contain Tylenol or Ibuprofen.

Students with nausea/vomiting or diarrhea must stay home from school for 24 hours after the last episode of nausea/vomiting or diarrhea.

Students must be able to participate in their school day, including recess, field trips and Physical Education, when they return.

Please contact Ms. Borelli, our School Nurse at borellik@verona.k12.wi.us, or 608-354-1102 if you have any questions.