Cold Winter Weather and Hot Academic Expectations

January 27, 2014

Good afternoon!

I hope everyone had a great weekend with their family and friends as we braved the elements.  There is no doubt that we are looking forward to Spring arriving.  Last Friday, we spent the morning talking about my favorite subject, our students' accomplishments. During these Awards Assemblies, we recognized those students that were: Students of The Month, Principal Honor Roll, Merit Roll, Honor Roll, Bringing Up Grades (without dropping others), showed Outstanding Effort, Perfect Attendance, and recognized for their Academic Achievements.  It was fantastic to see the amount of students here at Columbia Elementary accomplishing great things!  We truly appreciated the number of parents, grandparents, and other family members, that joined us for this celebration.  The partnership that we have in your child's/children's education means a lot to all of us!

All of our grade levels accomplished their quarterly goals in Reading, Math, and Behavior.  As a result of these accomplishments our students in Kindergarten through Second Grades had Pajama Day last Friday, while our students in Grades 3-5 will be having a Dance Party this Friday from 2:30-3:30pm.  Congratulations to all of those students!

As winter weather is still in our upcoming forecast, I wanted to share with you the district’s plans regarding future calamity days.  As of this letter, we have missed five (5) days of school due to inclement weather.  The district has adopted a calendar which excuses the first five (5) calamity days due to inclement weather with no makeup.  Furthermore, the district  will excuse the next three (3) days providing students complete an online learning component at the High School/Middle School  and Blizzard Bags at the elementary levels.  Days missed beyond eight (8) will be made up at the end of the year. Therefore if you have not already received a Blizzard Bag from your child's teacher, you will be receiving one. The expectation that we have for the student is that this work will be returned back to school completed when the student returns back to school.


The state of Ohio has changed the way we administer our state tests. Beginning this school year there are two different types of tests: 1) Performance Based Test (Beginning in February) 2)End of the Year Test (Beginning in April). These tests are like the Super Bowl and World Series for our school. It is vital that our students are prepared and present for these tests. These tests will be on the following dates:

Required State Performance Based Tests:

Grade 3:
2/19 & 2/20=Math

Grade 4
2/26 & 2/27=Math
3/2, 3/3, 3/4=English Language Arts
3/11=Social Studies

Grade 5
2/17 & 2/18=Math
2/23, 2/24, 2/25=English Language Arts
3/10=Science


Required State End Of The Year Tests:

Grade 3
4/15 & 4/16=Math
4/22=Reading

Grade 4
4/14=English Language Arts
4/23 & 4/24=Math
5/5=Social Studies

Grade 5
4/21=English Language Arts
4/28 & 4/29=Math
5/6=Science


If your child is not already involved in our after school program and you would be interested in your child attending every Tuesday and Thursday until 4:45pm, please contact me at 1-740-393-5975 or mdill@mvcsd.us. This is a great way for your child to sharpen their Reading and Math Skills. Our district offers free transportation to those students that normally ride the school bus to and from our school for this program.

Upcoming Important Dates:
1/30-Grades 3-5 Dance Party from 2:30-3:30pm 
(for achieving their Second Nine Weeks Academic Goals)
2/2-Google Training for PTO from 6-7pm (Be Sure to Check out THIS LINK)
2/2-PTO Meeting at 7pm

As always, it is a pleasure to serve your children!

Go Tigers!
Matt