Wolf Pack Press, January 13th

St. Anthony Park's 15th Annual Read-a-Thon, January 10-20

We had a great launch to this year's Read-a-Thon this Monday! In case your child missed it, or you'd like to watch, here is the Read-a-Thon kick-off video from Monday. Our goal is 195,000 minutes and word on the street is that students are reading up a storm at home and school. If you need a back up version of materials, please check out our website at ww.sapsamn.org/read-a-thon

Pledges are rolling in already! If you would like to encourage friends and family from near and far to sponsor your student, we will be accepting cash and checks. But the easiest way to support your student is online! Donate here: https://www.givemn.org/story/Read2022

We hope you will help support your student by snuggling up for a read-a-loud, borrowing books from the library or simply encouraging

them when they are reading and helping them logging their minutes. Our collective goal is to get lost in books that activate our hearts and minds so we can foster a love for reading this winter and have some while doing it together.

And when we hit our goal? Dr. Duke will transform into a Super Reader all day!

Follow Us On Social Media! Click the icon to follow!

Please follow SAPSA on social media! Yes, you are seeing it right -- we have two Instagram handles. Our main handle is www.instagram.com/saintanthonyparkelementary and we have another handle for Lost & Found www.instagram.com/lostandfoundsap

Our Slack channel is a great tool for communicating about school matters with other parents. You do need to download the app, but there is a desktop version available, if that is your preference. The invite is good for the next 30 days: https://join.slack.com/t/sapfamilies/shared_invite/zt-11qrk815t-sJVpJag_gPr8moWZR~r38w

Speaking of Lost & Found . . . Are These Yours?

Please reach out to secretary@sapsamn.org or DM instagram.com/lostandfoundsap to be reunited with your stuff. Many more items on the Instagram page!

Thank You For Your Generous Blanket Donations!

Thank you to all the families who donated to our Blanket Drive to benefit Project Reach. We are proud of the work our students did to contribute to this important cause and to their families for supporting the project.

Thank you also to parents, Cara Melvin and Lara Bollweg, for organizing our first service project of the year. We look forward to a few more opportunities to give back to our community this spring!

Get Vaccinated, Skip Quarantine

Fully vaccinated persons do not have to quarantine! You will still be notified if your vaccinated child was a close contact, but they will not have to stay home. Please have your child vaccinated against COVID-19!! Saint Paul Public Schools is offering free vaccine clinics on January 13, 20, 22, and February 2 at various district sites. You register, and find a list of other vaccine locations, at this website: https://www.spps.org/covidvaccine.

Ramsey County also has great vaccine resources: https://www.ramseycounty.us/covid-19-info/covid-19-vaccine

Need To Be Tested For Covid?

https://www.ramseycounty.us/covid-19-info/covid-19-testing

The Roy Wilkins Auditorium at 175 W Kellogg Blvd has expanded testing and offers testing by appointments or walk-in.

• Saliva or rapid test.

• Rapid test open to ages 2+.

• OPEN: January 17.

• CLOSED: January 28, 30, 31.

• Monday - Thursday: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

• Sunday: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

• Schedule an appointment or walk in.

Meetings

• Our SAPSA meeting was canceled for January.

• Advisory Council will meet this coming Tuesday, January 18th via Zoom at 5PM to discuss school choice events: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86940726977?pwd=K1IxRG9wOHhZOSttRlVMM0lQYmRzUT09

What's For Lunch?

What's For Breakfast?

Upcoming Dates

January 3-11, Blanket Drive/Project Reach (Leave donations at box near front entrance)

January 10-20th Read-a-Thon 2022

January 17th MLK Jr Day (No School)

January 18th, Advisory Council Meeting at 5PM via Zoom

January 22nd School Choice Fair (Saturday, 9:30AM start at St. Paul River Center)

January 27th School Spirit Day (Beach Day) and Read-a-Thon Assembly

January 28th Professional Development Day (No School)

February 8th SAPSA & AC Meetings

February 21st– Presidents’ Day (No School)

February 25th School Spirit Day (Hat Day)

February 26th St. Anthony Park Winter Festival (Tentative)

March 4th Conference Prep Day (No School)

March 8th SAPSA & AC Meetings

March 23-24 Conferences 3-6PM

March 25th Conferences AM & PM (No School)

April 1st School Spirit Day (Pajama Day)

April 4-8th Spring Break (No school)

April 12th SAPSA & AC Meetings

April 15th Digital Learning Day

May 11-13th Plant Sale

May 13th Spring Carnival (outside)

May 20th Ninja Anywhere

May 30th Memorial Day (No School)

TBD Fifth grade celebration

June 10th Last Day of School

Wolf Pack Press, January 6, 2022

Welcome to 2022! We hope your year will be filled with great learning opportunities, plenty of exciting adventures, good health and friendships old and new.

We'd like to start this week's Wolf Pack Press with a note of appreciation for our Nurse's Office staff who are working above and beyond the call to service this year. The below text was written by SAP parent and Library TA, Lauren Renner; the sentiment is from us all.

These days a call from the nurse’s office at school is the last thing anyone wants. Do you know the smiling and caring faces behind these calls? Our health office is staffed by Rosaleigh Minder and Kelly Nelson. They are working tirelessly at the moment to keep our school community and surrounding community safe and healthy. We want to extend sincere thanks to Rosaleigh and Kelly in the St. Anthony Park Elementary Health Office. Together they have spent countless hours contract tracing, contacting families and teachers, acknowledging disappointment, answering questions, and comforting kids. What is truly amazing, they are doing this on top of an already busy daily schedule of nosebleeds, lost teeth, and upset stomachs! They show up every day to our building ready to serve our kids, staff, and families with care and compassion. We are grateful they are part of our Wolf Pack. Thank you, Rosaleigh and Kelly for all you do. We appreciate you.

Do you have a note of appreciation you would like to share with the school community? Please send to president@sapsamn.org and we will include in the Wolf Pack Press!

Our Blanket Drive to benefit Project Reach is off to a great start! Over 30 families ordered blanket-making kits before winter break. In addition to the hand-made blankets students are making, we are accepting new twin sized blankets through January 11th (next Tuesday). You can send donations into the building in the morning or stop by with your donation when the building is open to drop it off in the box by the front office. Thank you for your generosity!

How cute are these pandas? A big thanks to Lara Bollweg and Cara Melvin for pulling the fleece tie-blanket kits together, distributing them and showing off some super cute examples of the donations our students are making. We are grateful for their work and delighted to see our students' creations.

Be A Reading Hero, SAP's 15th Annual Read-a-Thon!

We are very excited that our fifteenth annual Read-A-Thon will start next Monday, January 10th! This year's theme is "Be a Reading Hero!"

If this is your first Read-A-Thon, you may have some questions. A Read-A-Thon is an activity and friendly competition to encourage students to read and to raise money for the school. Your student will not be graded on anything related to the Read-A-Thon. It is just for fun!

A packet with all the details you need will be sent home with your child on Monday. We know that this month is going to be extra weird and challenging when it comes to Covid, so we've also posted all the materials online just in case you need them: www.sapsamn.org/read-a-thon.

Our school goal is to read 195,000 minutes this year. To achieve that goal, each student would need to read 40 minutes each day over the 10 days of the Read-A-Thon. Reading independently, being read to, or listening to audio books - it all counts towards our overall school goal!

Our fundraising goal is to raise $8,100 to support our school. If we reach our school goal of reading 195,000 minutes, Dr. Duke will transform into a superhero for the day! Reading minutes also makes kids eligible for raffle prizes. And whole classrooms will be eligible to win a pizza prize (one per grade) if they are reading heroes! We'd love to hear all about what the kids are reading over the ten days and let them send words of encouragement to each other! They can share their thoughts on this Padlet: https://padlet.com/president144/69t6fzgp6qfzjado

Wolfies, there is a situation brewing in the Lost & Found at school. With parents unable to really get in there and snoop around for gear, our Lost & Found has become super unwieldly. We are lighting up the Lostandfoundsap Instagram handle and will be posting photos of lost items. Please follow so you can help us reunite items with their owners and please nag your children to take a look in Lost & Found for items they may not even realize they lost. Please follow: www.instagram.com/Lostandfoundsap

Health & Wellness, Vaccines & Tests

It's shaping up to be a challenging month in regards to Covid, and we once more have to dig deep to take care of our kids and our community. We are so encouraged by the numbers of students in our school who have been vaccinated (at our last SAPSA meeting, we learned that over 60% of our students had received at least one shot!) We know this diligence goes a long way towards preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and health complications; it also helps protect our teachers and staff from the same. Thank you.

If you are now considering vaccinating your student or need to plan a second shot, these two links are very helpful: https://www.ramseycounty.us/covid-19-info/covid-19-vaccine#1 and https://mn.gov/covid19/vaccine/vaxforkids/index.jsp#find_vaccine_locations. You can also schedule a vaccine or booster for yourself. Teens are now also eligible for boosters.

Additionally, Saint Paul Public Schools is offering free vaccine clinics on January 6, 12, 13, 20, 22, and February 2 at various district sites. You register, and find a list of other vaccine locations, at this website: https://www.spps.org/covidvaccine

One key note we hope you noticed in Dr. Duke's Principal's Update: Fully vaccinated persons do not have to quarantine! You will still be notified if your vaccinated child was a close contact, but they will not have to stay home. That is 1-2 weeks of learning that they won't miss, which can make a huge difference in a child's social and academic growth.

What's For Lunch?

What's For Breakfast?

Upcoming Dates

January 3-11, Blanket Drive/Project Reach (Leave donations at box near front entrance)

January 10-20th Read-a-Thon 2022! Help your student read 40 minutes a day

January 11th Advisory Council, POSTPONED (Reschedule date to come)

January 11th SAPSA, POSTPONED (Reschedule date to come)

January 17th MLK Jr Day (No School)

January 22nd School Choice Fair (Saturday, 9:30AM start at St. Paul River Center)

January 27th School Spirit Day (Beach Day) and Read-a-Thon Assembly

January 28th Professional Development Day (No School)

February 8th SAPSA & AC Meetings

February 21st– Presidents’ Day (No School)

February 25th School Spirit Day (Hat Day)

February 26th St. Anthony Park Winter Festival

March 4th Conference Prep Day (No School)

March 8th SAPSA & AC Meetings

March 23-24 Conferences 3-6PM

March 25th Conferences AM & PM (No School)

April 1st School Spirit Day (Pajama Day)

April 4-8th Spring Break (No school)

April 12th SAPSA & AC Meetings

April 15th Digital Learning Day

May 11-13th Plant Sale

May 13th Spring Carnival (outside)

May 20th Ninja Anywhere

May 30th Memorial Day (No School)

TBD Fifth grade celebration

June 10th Last Day of School

Wolf Pack Press, December 17, 2021

As we embrace the month of December, we reflect on what a year it has been. 2021 has been challenging for so many of us in so many different ways. It has demanded resourcefulness, endurance, surrender and gratitude from us all in various ways. We want to express our appreciation to this community for its patience, support, extra effort, and continued care of one another.

As we approach a new year, we send out warm wishes to each and every one of you for health, happiness, and hope. We hope you are able to safely gather with family and friends and find renewed joy and happiness in the new year to come.

We look forward to continuing to work together in the new year and coming together as a community to give our kids a great 2022!

Thank you all,

SAPSA

Read-a-Thon begins in January!

Read-a-Thon is Back for 2022!

We are so excited to be having our annual Read-a-Thon again. It is such a great event to get all of our children excited about reading!

This years theme is: Be A Reading Hero.

Leading up to January 10th, your child will bring home a a Read-a-Thon packet. The packet includes an outline of the Read-a-Thon timeline of events, guidelines, how to get family and friends to sponsor you, and a log sheet where you can catalog all of the hours your child reads. There will be fun prizes and the chance for your child's class to win a Pizza Party! At the end of the Read-a-Thon Dr. Duke will give the students a "SUPER SPECIAL" surprise if the whole school meets it's reading goal!

We can't wait for the kids to participate in this fun event. We know each of our kids at SAP is a READING HERO!

SAPSA will be collecting twin-sized blankets to support Project Reach (Realizing the Educational Achievement of Children experiencing Homelessness), St. Paul Public School's program supporting sheltered and unhoused students. There are two key ways to participate: 1. Create a fleece tie blanket over winter break! This is a great, hands-on project for elementary-aged children. Pre-purchased kits have now been distributed, but you may purchase fabric yourself, of course! Simply follow these instructions.

2. Donate a new twin-sized blanket.

All blankets should be returned to SAP January 3-11th in boxes in the main entrance.

A special thanks to parent volunteers, Lara Bollweg & Cara Melvin, for all their hard work launching this drive!

Vaccine Availability

At this week's SAPSA & Advisory Council meetings, Dr. Duke shared some data (just numbers, no identifying details): over 300 of our 480 students have received at least one shot of the Covid vaccine! Way to go, Wolf Pack! One great upside is that students who are fully vaccinated (fully vaccinated = two weeks after both doses) will not have to quarantine if they have a close contact. And getting your kids vaccinated is a good opportunity to get yourself vaccinated or boosted!

• Mall of America: https://my.primary.health/r/vaxmn

• Tuesday, December 21st at Battle Creek Elementary, 3-6PM. There are still slots open! Make an appointment.

What's For Lunch in January 2022?

What's For Breakfast in January 2022?

Upcoming Dates

December 20-31st Winter Break (No School) January 10-20th Read-a-Thon 2022 January 11th Advisory Council, 5PM January 11th SAPSA, 6:30-7:45PM St. Anthony Park Library on Como & Carter (auditorium) January 17th MLK Jr Day (No School) January 22nd School Choice Fair (Saturday, 9:30AM start at St. Paul River Center) January 27th School Spirit Day (Beach Day) and Read-a-Thon Assembly January 28th Professional Development Day (No School) February 8th SAPSA & AC Meetings February 21st– Presidents’ Day (No School) February 25th School Spirit Day (Hat Day) February 26th St. Anthony Park Winter Festival March 4th Conference Prep Day (No School) March 8th SAPSA & AC Meetings

March 23-24 Conferences 3-6PM March 25th Conferences AM & PM (No School) April 1st School Spirit Day (Pajama Day) April 4-8th Spring Break (No school) April 12th SAPSA & AC Meetings April 15th Digital Learning Day May 11-13th Plant Sale May 13th Spring Carnival (outside) May 20th Ninja Anywhere May 30th Memorial Day (No School) TBD Fifth grade celebration June 10th Last Day of School