Dear Altadore Families 

We had a beautiful week at Altadore School. The Welcome Back Picnic was a success! Seeing the students and family visiting on a lovely evening was amazing. Hand to heart to our fantastic parent council for creating a beautiful memory. 

We also had a very wonderful week at school learning, revisiting classroom routines, harvesting from our community garden, and collecting sage and sweetgrass from the Owl’s Nest. The learning has begun and is evident on our bulletin boards. We can’t wait to showcase our learning during conferences at the end of this month. Sign-up for conferences will be available on MyCBE beginning on September 22. 

Wednesday is our first School Council meeting, and all parents are welcome to attend at 6:30 pm. The meeting is an excellent opportunity to learn about what is happening in our community, meet parents new to our school, and reconnect with former friends. 

Below, you'll find a link to our Altadore Gear. We offer t-shirts and hoodies in various colors, and you can even choose the color of the design. We've intentionally designed our Altadore Gear to celebrate diversity and allow everyone to express their unique style!

Sincerely,

Iikiinayookaa Yellow Horn                 Karlee Zelmer

Principal                                               Assistant Principal

mfyellowhorn@cbe.ab.ca                mzelmer@cbe.ab.ca


Photo Day (Sept 10) 

Bring your best smile on Tuesday as we will be having photo day! Students will get both individual and class photos by Lifetouch on this day. We do not have an exact schedule for the day, but usually start with the younger students and work our way through the grades. Retakes will be on October 25 and online ordering information will be shared through the Lifetouch photo proof packages that will come home in the future. Please email our Volunteer Coordinator Christiana Hawkins if you would like to help out on this day.

Alberta Education Assessments

All K-3 students in Alberta will be doing universal screening assessments in literacy and numeracy. These mandatory screening assessments are completed at the start of the school year in Grade 1, 2 and 3 and in January for Kindergarten.

The following types of assessments will be completed by each student in Grades K-3:

  • The Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) Digits test requires naming digits as quickly as possible, thus revealing the automaticity of many of the same cognitive and linguistic skills central to reading. 
  • The Phonological Awareness Screening Test (PAST) purpose is to assess phonemic awareness. Phonological awareness, or the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language is foundational for decoding, blending, and word reading.
  • Letter Name and Sound Test (LeNS), assesses knowledge of the names and sounds of letters, and common multi-letter graphemes. The LeNS is designed to screen learners for foundational phonics skills to develop into independent readers.
  • The Castles and Coltheart Reading Test 3 (CC3) is a word reading test of single word reading (decoding and whole word recognition). It is designed to identify the nature of reading difficulties and provides next steps for instruction and intervention.
  • Provincial Numeracy Screening Assessments look at knowledge of symbolic numbers. Results of the assessment can be used to help teachers identify and address gaps in foundational understanding of numbers. 

These universal screeners do not replace day-to-day teacher observations and classroom assessment and do not have any impact on formal reporting processes such as report cards. Rather, the results of universal screeners help inform planning for next steps such as targeted interventions or instructional planning and are not used to determine grades. Students in Grades 4-6 are completing other teacher assessments to gather this type of information.

Direct Donation Campaign  

The parents at Altadore School decided a few years ago that having a bunch of high commitment events like bake sales, car washes, and gift wrapping, were taking up a ton of time, and providing minimal results, so the direct donation campaign was born! 

Donate directly to Altadore School Council via this super handy link HERE, to make sure all the money and effort goes straight into enriching the programs, supplies, and events that your children will be engaging in this 2024-25 school year, and we promise not to hound you for money every few weeks! 

The funds we raise today will support your child throughout their entire 2024-25 school year, providing things like:

  • Funding towards your child’s field trips
  • Enhancing classroom supplies (no need for you to do back to school supply shopping!)
  • Fun fit residencies such as in the Terry Fox run, Alien Inline/Speed skating, FItset Ninja TREX art exhibition, Kindness Adventure and Mindset Mission Performances
  • Updated and interesting books for the library
  • New equipment for the gym and music room
  • Visits and teachings from our Elder Saa’kokoto
  • National Indigenous Peoples Day celebration
  • Sports Day
  • Fun lunches for the Altadore students who belong to our unity families, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to join in the fun
  • In class art residencies such as stained glass, creative writing, or theater

Our goal is participation! We hope to get 75% of families to contribute in whatever capacity they are able, with a hope of raising $200 per student. We recognize each family is able to donate different amounts, and some families can donate a bit more to help out others, so let's pull together as a community and give whatever you can to support the students this school year! Any contribution makes an impact! 

School Council Meeting (Sept 11)

We would like to invite all parents and caregivers to join us at our first parent council meeting of the year, on September 11, at 6:30 PM in the school! As a parent or caregiver at Altadore Elementary, you are automatically a member of Altadore School Council, and are encouraged to join us at ALL of our council meetings throughout the year. It is a great place to meet other parents, ask questions, and get a first hand look into what is happening around the school! 

We are really trying to make our School Council meetings inviting and accessible to everyone. As a result, we offer babysitting in a nearby classroom for all school aged children (the kids have a blast!), and we will try to offer online meetings as

much as we can for anyone who isn’t able to make it in person. Sometimes we even try to convince you to come by offering chips and pop 😀 

Please consider this your open invitation to join us for all school council meetings this year, and we look forward to seeing you there! 

PS. Don’t forget to check out the meeting minutes from June 12 HERE! 

Newsletter 

Each week our School Council’s Communications volunteer works to collect information from around the school that we think is helpful for parents, and we put it together into this weekly newsletter. You can expect to receive this newsletter most Sundays (or Mondays on a long weekend). 

Believe it or not, this volunteer role is now OPEN!!! We’re currently looking for a Communications volunteer, so if you or someone you know might be interested, please don’t hesitate to reach out and find out more about the role by emailing our School Council Chair, Julia HERE. 

Altadore Casino Fundraiser (Nov 4&5)

Mark your calendars! The Altadore School Casino Fundraiser is happening on November 4 and 5, and we will be needing a LOT of volunteers to cover shifts at a nearby casino to pull it off! This fundraising event brings in nearly a third of our total fundraising dollars for the year, so it is very important to all of our school programs that it is successful! Please keep these dates in mind as you start planning into the Fall, and we look forward to seeing you then! 

Altadore Gear 

Altadore school works with Summarized Design to provide Altadore Gear for purchase in all sizes all year long. This is a fun initiative that many of our families enjoy. Please note that this is not a fundraiser, and Altadore School does not benefit financially from the purchase of Altadore gear.

T-Shirt and hoodie colours are changed periodically, and right now there are several different versions of multicoloured logos! You can order online HERE and your purchase will be delivered to the school in about a week to be sent home with your child.

Notes of Thanks 

Thank you to the following individuals for their recent contributions to our school… 

  • Everyone who showed up to the welcome picnic on Thursday! We had a great turnout, and it's always amazing to see our community come together around the school, students, and staff!
  • School Council for organizing the food trucks!
  • All of the volunteers who helped clean up after the welcome picnic to ensure the playground was clean and ready for the kids to enjoy on Friday!

Questions? 

Looking for school information you can’t find here? Please contact:

Iikiinayookaa Yellow Horn, Principal (mfyellowhorn@cbe.ab.ca)

Karlee Zelmer, Assistant Principal (kmzelmer@cbe.ab.ca)

Julia Hikita, Altadore School Council Chair (altadoreparentcouncil@gmail.com