Greenwood elementary has just at 500 students enrolled for the 2023-24 school year. Building relationships with all our families is extremely important to us. We began building relationships with our families with a Block Party as our first parent engagement night. 208 students, which included 157 families, were in attendance and it was a huge success! Our second quarter parent involvement will be Camp Learn S’more. We will provide a variety of camping themed literacy stations for the students as well as different ideas for parents to help their children become better readers. We will also have booths set up from various community members as well. The date for Camp Learn S’more is November 16 from 5:30-7:00 pm.
Out of our 500 students, we serve 336 in our Boys & Girls Program after school. Boys & Girls Club is focused on providing a variety of educational enrichment activities. The first hour of Boys & Club is designated as “Power Hour” or homework help time. This time also provides an opportunity for members to receive extra tutoring. The second hour provides our members with educational, interactive, and engaging activities. This includes STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) with Robotics and Cherokee Heritage Club starting soon. Each member who stays receives a hot meal after school.
Our Student Council, sponsored by Emily Myers, is ramping up to begin service projects for our school community. We held officer elections this last week. Running on a platform of “How to improve Greenwood”, Zeke Martin won the presidential seat. The following students and the offices they will hold are as follows: President – Zeke Martin, Vice President – Sam Bardell, Secretary – Kenzie Allen and Treasurer – Luke Pritchett. The 5th Grade Class Representatives are Stella Freise, Makenlie May, Ty Havens, and Kevin Orgas. The 4th Grade Class Representatives are Brianna Hernandez, Claire Presley, Keegan Murray, and Jordan Toolen.
This year we have two new specials teachers: Josh Allen, music teacher and Kyler Arnall, PE teacher.
In PE, we have been working on participating together and understanding the importance of safety and good attitudes. These things are extremely important, especially when you have a large group of kids together in the gym. We are learning new games that students can play at recess, learning new skills to help them in their everyday life, and some are learning sports so they can have the opportunity to play in leagues or school sports in the near future. The cross-country team recently participated in their first meet of the year at the Tahlequah Middle School and did amazing! We brought back several medals for top 10 placings and every one of the students crossed the finish line after the one-mile race. They cheered on their teammates and even the other schools to encourage them to keep going.
Mr. Allen wants our students to love music. He uses instruments of all kinds, and technology along with the students' individual voices to make sure they enjoy it and grow in their knowledge of music. On October 24th @ 6 PM in our Greenwood Cafeteria, we are excited to showcase our 5th grade music students. Their program is entitled "Thrills and Chills" and will help set the mood for a wonderful Halloween holiday. On Thursday, November 9th @ 6 PM our 3rd grade music students will be honoring our Veteran's in their program "We Honor You!" We hope that you are all seeing a growing love of music in your Greenwood students, and we hope to see you soon as we celebrate the music progress of each grade throughout the year.
We are excited to see how each of our students progress this year!
Written By: Ronda Reed, Greenwood Principal