It was a spectacular week of celebrating literacy with all our Snowy Owls! A huge thank you to our librarian, Ms. Gritts, staff, students, and parent volunteers who participated as guest readers last week who helped us commemorate literacy and Read Across America.
Students still have time to participate in the Bookmark Bookmark Design Contest. All classrooms will be voting for their classrooms winners on Tuesday, March 10th. Winners will be announced and displayed in the Library window by Friday, March 14th!
Parent-Teacher Conferences Begin This Week
Our Spring Parent Teacher conferences begin on Thursday, March 13th and end on Thursday, March 20th. All students will have minimum days during parent teacher conferences with dismissal at 12:50 PM for TK/Kindergarten and 1:05 PM for 1st-6th.
This is a wonderful opportunity to discuss your child’s progress thus far in the year. Every family is expected to participate in a conference so please reach out to your classroom teacher if you have yet to schedule a conference time.
Spring Forward
Don’t forget to set your clocks one hour ahead this weekend. It’s that time of year to “Spring Forward.” Daylight Saving Time officially began at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Snowy Owl Expectation Focus
Our goal at Sonia Sotomayor Elementary School is to create and maintain a positive and safe learning environment for all and hold students accountable for being positive forces within our school community. The Snowy Owl Expectations are taught, modeled, and practiced throughout all grade levels and locations around campus. For the next two weeks, we will focus and reinforce the expected behaviors for lunch tables. We appreciate your support in asking your Snowy Owls at home what specific behaviors allow them to be safe, respectful, responsible, and kind at the lunch tables.
Importance of Attendance
Attendance is one of the major factors when predicting future success in school! If children don’t show up for school regularly, they miss out on fundamental reading and math skills and the chance to build a habit of good attendance that will carry them into college and careers. Data from a California study found that children who were chronically absent, missing 2 or more days a month, were far less likely to read proficiently at the end of third grade.
In February 2025, our school’s chronic absenteeism increased to 8.8 percent. We want to ensure the success of all of our Snowy Owls and want to see them at school everyday! When students attend class regularly and on time, opportunities for successful learning increase; consequently, the importance of regular on-time attendance cannot be overemphasized. Please make sure that your child is at school on time everyday from March to June and help us decrease our chronic absenteeism percentage!
Grade Level Spotlights
Third grade students are sharing their classroom learning with their families in an innovative and authentic manner through short student constructed recorded podcasts. Can’t wait to see their future episodes!
In honor of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, third grade students have also been conducting research around monumental figures, developing their literacy, and sharing their information with their classmates and others around campus.
LEAD
Registration for our Q4 LEAD Clubs opens on Friday, March 14th at 6 p.m!
If you would like to expedite your registration, you can use this link: https://leadsotomayor.jumbula.com/ to create your account today and express register when the time comes!
If you have any questions, please feel free to email amanda.wallace@cvesd.org.
Lunch with the Chef
Our Lunch with the Chef is back this week! Our district chef will prepare a fresh, made from scratch breakfast and lunch item to serve to our Snowy Owls during their regular breakfast and lunch period. He will be at Sotomayor on Thursday, March 13th. He will be preparing a breakfast egg bacon and cheese croissant for breakfast and sloppy Joes for lunch for students.
We will still offer the other normal choices that are on our lunch menu. We look forward to this fun and delicious opportunity again for our Snowy Owls!
2024-25 Yearbook Pre-Sale
The time has come! Sonia Sotomayor’s 2024-2025 yearbook is now on sale! Pre-sale will go through 3/21. Order yours early! If you have a 6th grader, you can purchase a dedication blurb as well. Click the link below to order!
YMCA Annual Fundraiser
Our YMCA will be initiating a Penny Battle amongst our classrooms and challenging each class to collect funds and assist the YMCA in reaching their Annual Fundraiser goal! The class with the most funds donated will get to silly string Mrs. Garza and have a Pizza Party courtesy of the YMCA!
Operation Purple Camp
Operation Purple Camp offers a free surf camp to youth of military and veteran families ages 8-16 in San Diego. Surrounded by their peers, campers get the opportunity to explore the outdoors, practice intentional skill-building, and memories and lessons that sustain well beyond the camp experience. Click on the link in the flyer below to apply!
Preschool Expo Coming Soon!
The Early Childhood Education Department invites incoming preschool families to a special Preschool Expo on Tuesday, March 18th, at the district office. Families can attend either a morning session from 10:00-11:30 AM or an evening session from 4:30-6:00 PM.
Sonia Sotomayor Elementary School 