Stacy Deibert, RN BSN is the nurse at Garfield for the past two years. She got her RN from Southeast Tech and her bachelor's degree from SDSU. Her goal is to ensure the health and well-being of all students so they are able to achieve their educational goals.
We recognize you know your kids best and we would never ask you to send your children to school if you feel they are too sick to be here. But, we also recognize sometimes it’s not that simple. Here’s some thoughts to consider when you are deciding when to send a child who’s not feeling 100%.
If they have a fever of over 100.4, keep them home. They should be able to be fever free without Tylenol or Ibuprofen for 24 hours before coming back. If they have COVID, RSV or Influenza the same applies. Fever free for 24 hours. Recently, CDC eliminated the need to be quarantined for a week with COVID.
Vomiting. Maybe goes without saying, but keep them home.
If they have a cold or sore throat, they are ok to be here as long as they are fever free. The same applies with diarrhea; ok if fever free and they are able to adequately clean themselves. However, that situation can be miserable in a school setting so especially with little ones, best to keep them home if they have diarrhea.
They are really tired? In most cases, send them. Often when kids get to school they will get a second wind and be fine, even when really tired as they leave for school. If the second wind doesn’t show up we can accommodate. Some of our classrooms have a spot set aside for kids who can’t stay awake or we have other spots in the building where students can get a few moments of sleep.
It’s a downpour of books! Garfield is making a splash along with the rest of the Sioux Falls School District with this year’s Rain or Shine, Everybody Reads challenge. The challenge runs from March 1 through the 22nd. For every book that is read, we are adding a raindrop to our display. The goal is to have read 12,000 books at Garfield and 300,000 books read community wide. As of Friday March 8th, Garfield has already read 2,434 books and 57,691 have been read in the community. Way to go Garfield students!
We are proud to release the 2023-2024 BIG attenDANCE basketball trading cards. These limited edition, numbered cards will be given to students as rewards for good attendance, outstanding behavior, etc. Then on March 29th during the staff basketball game halftime, we will have a drawing from player names and card numbers. So the more cards students accumulate the better their chances of winning! Keep an eye out… these are going to be SO valuable!
Thank you Sisson Printing for printing the cards!
The first round of the BIG attenDANCE bracket challenge is complete and Grade 3 and Grade 5 moved on. They will now be facing Grade 2 and Grade 4 respectively. If your grade is out of the bracket, do not despair because there will be plenty of other prizes as well including MVC (classroom with the best attendance) and drawings for MVPs (students with perfect attendance for March). Stay tuned!
While the country celebrates Women’s History Month, we at Garfield are celebrating some exceptional young women leaders we have here. These are just a few of the young women we have in student leadership positions. Leaders at Garfield today. Leaders in the community, state, country, and the world tomorrow!
Garfield Elementary School would like to thank all the families who send their children to school here. We take the responsibility very seriously of providing an education and more to all of our students. We appreciate the work it takes you to get your kids here on a daily basis. We are here for you!
WOOHOO! Way to go Garfield students and families! We bumped our attendance the last week of February. We met and exceeded our goal with an all school attendance of 91%. And a big WOW goes to 3rd grade who led attendance at over 95%! You guys rocked it. Way to go Garfield!
Over the year showing up 45 minutes late for school means missing about 3 weeks of core instruction time. School at Garfield starts at 8 a.m. Most teachers here start the day with 10-20 minutes of team building activities. These activities are crucial to your student feeling comfortable in the classroom and building solid school relationships. Then most classrooms start with core instruction (math or reading) by 8:15 or so. Core instruction then happens throughout the day. Small groups where students are getting more individualized instruction happen from 8:15 until end-of-day bell rings at 2:40. Learning is an all-day activity at Garfield!
We’d like you to meet Nalini Maharajh, the School Home Liaison at Garfield. Nalini can be a great friend, especially to our immigrant families. She will help families who are new to the country, or English is a second language, navigate the school system including school tours and communicating with School Bus Inc. Nalini is also instrumental in helping families deal with the culture shock and will help navigate many things outside of school as well, such as medical and dental appointments. She loves her job and the people she has the opportunity to serve!
YAYYY!! Susan Thies is the winner of the 36th Annual 2024 Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year Award. Mrs. Thies may have won the award but all of us at Garfield Elementary are the real winners by having her be part of our lives. Thank you Mrs. Thies for all you have done for our students and their families. We couldn’t be more happy and proud!
Attendance in the early grades is critical to sustaining the school readiness skills that early grades can help children to develop according to “Attendance in Early Elementary Grades: Association with Student Characteristics, School Readiness and Third Grade Outcomes, Applied Survey Research, July 2011.” The report found that students who arrived at school academically ready to learn— but then missed 10 percent (about 17 days at Garfield) of their kindergarten and first grade years—scored an average of 60 points below similar students with good attendance on third-grade reading tests. That’s one of the many reasons we want your kids here at Garfield. Every minute of attendance counts!
There is still time to get your pictures in for our Family Reading Challenge! Take a picture of you or any adult in your family reading with your Garfield student. IM the photos to us and you will be entered to win an Amazon book credit valuing up to $25.00. Or you can email your photos to Mrs. Neu or Mrs. Christopherson, you can find their email addresses here: https://siouxfallssd.sites.thrillshare.com/o/ge/staff All of the photos will be posted in the school as well as on The Garfield Facebook page, with your permission of course! Challenge ends on March 1, 2024. One entry per student.
More success by our Garfield students! “One book, One school” was a tremendous success this year with all of our grades reading their grade level of The One and Only Ivan. Now it’s time to celebrate! The week of February 26th through March 1st we are going to have special dress up days. See graphic for schedule. And then get ready to have some fun!
If you are having trouble getting your kids to school, you are not alone! A new report by the nonprofit think tank, American Enterprise Institute notes, “The urgent need to recover from pandemic learning loss will be severely hampered by current rates of chronic absenteeism, making it the most pressing post-pandemic problem in public schools.” We aren’t immune here in South Dakota. South Dakota Schools with High and Extreme Chronic Absence Increased from 18% to 40%. At Garfield we want to help our students and their families through this. Let us know if we can help you.
With attendance minutes lead to hours which leads to days which leads to success for your student. When calculating attendance we pay attention to minutes because learning is an all day activity at Garfield. And we want to be sure our students are given the maximum opportunity to learn. According to the study Achievement and Absenteeism by Nate Jensen and Gregory King, “chronically absent 1st grade students in 2015-2016 started the following year at an achievement level 32 percentile points below those 1st grade students who had no absences in the prior year. This gap increased to 41 percentile points by the end of the year.” Every minute counts!
We’re excited about a new friend at Garfield! Steve Martin is the new Reading and Math Intervention Teacher. Steve has taught all over the world before finding his way to Garfield. Steve’s background includes extensive work as an English as a Second Language teacher. We’re sure Steve is going to be a good friend at Garfield.
We are very excited to celebrate Taylor Lindeman’s nomination for the 2024 Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year Award! Taylor is in her 5th year teaching 5th grade at Garfield. She shared this about her classroom philosophy, “ I'm deeply committed to fostering a safe, positive, and fun learning environment for all my students. As an educator, my goal is not only to impact knowledge but also to empower my students to reach their full potential both academically and personally!”
Tuesday, Feb 20 is a NO SCHOOL day, so be sure to stop by Oscar Howe Elementary for the second Community Health & Wellness fair, put on by the Community Learning Centers! There are lots of activities for kids, tons of community vendors, and amazing prizes for all!
Garfield is excited to introduce Troy Miller as our new Behavior Facilitator. Troy comes with a whole bunch of experience including Children’s Home, LSS, and most recently Axtell School. Now he’s excited to be helping our Garfield kids. When not working with kids, he is a dedicated Kansas Jayhawks fan and an avid golfer. Some would say too avid since he jokingly said he “plans to play this summer til his arms fall off.” Troy is going to be a good Garfield friend.
We are excited to announce Amanda Montgomery was nominated for the 2024 SPED Staff of the Year Award! Amanda talks about her career and thoughts about where it has found her. “I found Communication Sciences and Disorders in my college coursebook my freshman year, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I did not know what it was, but the classes sounded interesting. Turns out, I absolutely loved it and threw myself into becoming a Speech Language Pathologist. Now, I am an SLP because I love it, yes, but also because I have a passion for good, effective communication in all facets of life. Great communication can aid all types of relationships, from romantic to friendship, from managerial to coworker, from self-advocacy to basic communication of wants and ideas.
Why I am completing my 10th year at Garfield is much more intentional. I have a passion for advocacy and equality, and I absolutely love working with the Garfield community trying to right the wrong of societal prejudice. My students at Garfield have taught me about their religious and cultural backgrounds, what it means to be resilient, and how to love in the face of hardship. I am beyond honored to be nominated as SPED staff of the year. I love my Garfield kids and their families with my whole being, and I hope they know that!”
