Posted April 11, 2023
Dear Swigert Families,
We wanted to start out with a Swigert staff shout out to our STEM teacher David Miller for being accepted into the Smithsoian 2023 cohort of the Teacher Innovator Institute at the National Air and Space Museum. They only take 30 educators and the majority are middle school teachers. It’s an all expenses paid professional learning experience in the Smithosian for two concurrent summers in Washington D.C. We are excited to see what he brings back to our students. To learn more about the program check out – Teacher Innovator Institute
Last Friday we hosted a conversation on anxiety and perfectionism in our students. It was organized and led by our school psychologist, Kim Irk, Ms Silvia, and our Gifted & Talented coordinator, Robin Bresnahan. The topic is so timely and I know many of us are seeing an increase in anxiety in ourselves as well as in our students. I am sharing the slide show here because it includes some great resources for parents around this topic. Anxiety and Perfectionism Slide Show
We also wanted to share our slide show from the safety meeting we held last Thursday. Swigert Safety Conversation. The Swigert team went over the information on our safety protocols and then opened it up to discussion and questions. We had a productive conversation that led, as you would imagine, to more questions than answers.
The last eight weeks of school is such a busy and exciting time for our school. There are so many events and celebrations on the horizon. I created a list of some of the big upcoming Swigert events to help me organize my own frazzled brain in hopes it will support you as you look forward.
Upcoming Events
April 12th: Bingo Night
Join us for our first ever Community Bingo Night. It’s a family event to come together and have some fun. Mr. Shutts will be our Bingo caller and there will be some fun prizes to win. Thank you PTA for hosting this community event.
April 29th: Swigert Auction
This is a wonderful way to meet families, talk to our staff, enjoy delicious food and have fun together as a community. It is also one of our largest fundraisers and helps to support our school wide IB program, para professionals and spanish. For more information check out this link: Swigert Auction 2023
May 4th: Service Day: This will be our 5th annual service day. We start the day with a whole school assembly and invite speakers to share about the importance of giving back. This year we will have Representative Crowe spearhead the event. After the assembly each grade level partners with a different non-profit to do a community service project including Project Angel Heart, There with Care, Bin Blessed. We also do some grounds projects around our school. Parents are welcome to come lend a helping hand (details to come).
May 5th: Green Day – no school for students.
May 11th International Night and Salad Harvest 6-8pm: A celebration of our school diversity. A way to honor, celebrate, and learn about the diverse cultures represented at our school as well as share the harvest from our school garden. We will have different multicultural activities and performances as well as have family picnics on the field. There will be lettuce from our garden to share.
May 18th: Kindergarten Round Up : An opportunity for all incoming kinders students and families to meet the Kindergarten teachers, see the classroom layout and learn more about the Kindergarten year ahead.
May 19th: Swigert Field Day
Mr. Shutts organizes a day where all students participate in a variety of activities; including but not limited to relay races, hurdles, shoe toss, tug a war and water games. We split the day into two and ECE-2 goes in the morning and 3-5 in the afternoon. Parents are welcome to come watch.
May 23rd: Graduating Swigert Alum – High School Seniors clap out
We are inviting our high school seniors who went to Swigert to go through the elementary school hallways and be clapped on in their cap and gowns by our ECE-5th grade students. We will invite families to this event and send out details as we get closer.
May 25th: 6-7pm, New Family Information Night for ECE4 and 1st-5th grade new families An opportunity for any new families to learn about the year ahead. We will meet together in the library at 6pm. We will split up to do Q&A at the end.
May 29th: No School, Memorial Day
June 1st: 5th Grade Exhibition and Continuation
Swigert Fifth grade students will share their culminating IB exhibition projects to the community and then we will have a continuation ceremony to honor fifth grade students.
June 2nd: 5th Grade Clap Out
All ECE-4th grade students and 5th grade parents will join us to clap the 5th graders out of Swigert and on to middle school- It’s a pretty emotional event. The clap out will begin around 11:50 am.
June 2nd: ½ Day Last Day of School
The last day of school is a noon dismissal. No lunch is served.
Engaging math problem for our students:
Ms Mosley’s class decided to figure out how many blades of grass are in the Swigert field. They started to study this authentic world problem and invited students across the school to participate. Just in case you are dying to know – we had some very interesting student answers to this quandary – everything from 4,550 to 16,000,000,000,010. Mrs. Mosley’s class went from finding the blades in a square inch to a square yard then found the square yards on the field. They came up with 239,695,200. The student with the closest answer outside Mosley’s class and the winner of the nerdy math game is third grader Quinn Fletcher with 120,856,727.
Sincerely,
Shelby Dennis
shelby_dennis@dpsk12.net
Yearbooks are only on sale through this Friday! To order yours, go to yearbookforever.com and type Swigert into the School Search bar. You can choose between Swigert – Soft and Swigert – Hard for softcover or hardcover options. Sales will close on Friday, April 15th. If you aren’t sure whether you’ve ordered, you can check (under both options; softcover sales will not show up under hardcover, and vice versa) under whichever email address you may have used; or, during office hours, feel free to call Daphne at 720-424-4802 and she will check for you.
Swigert has Kiss ‘n Go lanes on both the east and west side of the school. We are challenged due to the United Construction Project using additional parking spots near the school, limiting our overall parking capacity. We are working with United to figure out a better plan. However, we still need to keep the Kiss and Go Lane’s moving so please do not park in an undesignated parking spot. These areas, indicated with a yellow curb, are designed for parents who want to quickly pull into the parking lot, let their kids out, and then continue on to work. If a space is not available, please continue to make circles in the lot until you connect with your student. Thanks for your understanding.
Please see the attached Earth Month pages.
Please join the DPS GT department for the final GT Social Emotional Series event of the year!
Please share this information with your families/school community- we look forward to seeing you!
Topic: Capitalizing on our Strengths and Talents
SEL Series- English Session
Thursday, April 13th 5-615 PM
Zoom joining info
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2730293445?pwd=S2loSFNMbHNMMkJtTE5wRXIxRlBpdz09
As a staff, we start the class placement process in May for the following school year, and there are many factors that we consider. Grade level teachers, administrators, and our mental health team work together to decide on the best placement for every child. We know your child well, and consider things such as kids who might benefit from being in class together, kids who may need to be seperated, academic needs, and social/emotional needs. We also try to balance classes as far as gender, diversity, etc. We ask that you please trust the process. We know your children well and we will very thoughtfully place them with whom we think is best. The school policy is that we do not take teacher requests from parents. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to the admin team.
Denver Public Schools (DPS) is beginning enrollment for Summer Connections for all eligible families currently in kindergarten to fourth grade. The new EAL program will offer free classes in core subjects to enrolled students, allowing them to get ahead of critical course material and get a head start on the upcoming school year. For more information, please check out the Summer Connections website at https://www.dpsk12.org/academics/summer-connections/ . To enroll your student in the free summer program, go to https://myportal.dpsk12.org/.
We are scheduled to host International Night on Thursday, May 11th this year. This is a community event where we love to recognize, honor, and celebrate different cultures from around the world. International Night is always made better by involving our students and their own backgrounds, traditions, and interests. If your student/family (or your student’s extra curricular group) would like to present, host, or demonstrate something at International Night, please reach out to Tabitha Jones at tabitha_jones@dpsk12.net. Examples of past student performances have included Irish Dancing, Drill Team, Japanese Flag Making, Mexican Folk Dancing, Capoeira, Bollywood Dancing, Polish Dancing, Craft Making, etc.
We’d love to connect with you as much as possible. You will be automatically added to our weekly Swigert Eagle newsletter that comes out every Tuesday during the school year. Please also visit our website at www.swigert.dpsk12.org to learn more about Swigert and events that are coming up. You can also join our “Friends of Swigert International School” private Facebook page – www.facebook.com/groups/friendsofswigert. When requesting to join, please include a note to say you are a new family. We post pictures of events at school, interact as a school family, and you can see friendly reminders of upcoming events.
Who to contact if you have questions about:
| Registration | Daphne Jolley | DJolley@dpsk12.net |
| Technology and events | Richard Fisher | Richard_Fisher@dpsk12.net |
| Daily School Life | Emily Pool | Emily_Pool@dpsk12.net |
| Instruction, Programing, etc. | Shelby Dennis Amber Holthus-Pera | Shelby_Dennis@dpsk12.net Amber_Holthus-Pera@dpsk12.net |
| Health | Nurse Hoang Tran | Hoang_Tran@dpsk12.net |
| IB Program/Service Learning | Caroline Dane | Caroline_Dane@dpsk12.net |
Key Dates
Apr 12 – Bingo Night
Apr 29 Swigert Auction
May 4 Swigert Service Day
May 5 No School for students
May 11 International Night
May 20 Swigert Night at the Rapids