Dear Hawthorne Elementary Families,

Welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful and refreshing break. To kick off our return with positive energy and a shared sense of community, we are excited to announce a school-wide Behavior Expectation Refresher Assembly this Monday, April 6th, from 9:15 AM to 10:00 AM.

Building Our Community
We are intentionally gathering our entire school-every student and staff member-in the gym at the same time. This "whole-school" approach sends a powerful message: our expectations belong to all of us, and we are one united community working together to keep Hawthorne a kind and safe place to learn.

What the Students Can Expect
We want this to be an engaging and memorable experience for our kids. Students can expect a "Jeopardy-style" Challenge. To reinforce our school-wide expectations, students will participate in a friendly, high-energy game. Two K–5 teams will compete, with one student representative from each class (selected via our "Happy Heart Jars") taking the floor.

The "Happy Heart" Launch 
We are introducing a special way for students to build positivity! As you may know, students are recognized for demonstrating positive expectations daily by staff handing out red Happy Hearts. Each student will receive a Blue Happy Heart to give to a staff member they notice modeling great behavior. It’s a simple, "feel-good" way for students and staff to celebrate one another.

Celebrating Our Staff
At the end of the week, we will celebrate staff members who received Happy Hearts by sharing their photos as our weekly winners. We will also be using these tokens for special raffles during Teacher Appreciation Week later this spring!

We are so grateful for your partnership in helping us set a strong, positive tone for the remainder of the school year. We can't wait to see all of our students' smiling faces on Monday morning!

Warmly,

The Hawthorne Elementary School Staff

Check out this special feature of Mr. Gabriele's classroom! It has been highlighted on the Culver’s website. His creative, Culver’s-themed classroom caught their attention, and he was even interviewed for a feature on their nationwide site.

Congratulations to Hawthorne students Riley and Velana for being recognized this week at the PTA Reflections Honor Ceremony held at Hubble Middle School. Both students were celebrated for their outstanding creativity and artistic expression. A special congratulations goes to Velana, whose featured artwork (pictured to the right) has advanced to the state level competition. We are proud of Riley and Velana for representing Hawthorne with such talent and imagination!

The Intramural Battle of the Books season will soon be underway. If you are not familiar with IM Battle of the Books, it is a fun and competitive way to spend your time this spring. Students are broken into teams, are assigned reading and come to an assembly style battle in May to answer questions related to their reading, Jeopardy style. Look for permission slips in your child’s take-home folder.