Wednesday, November 26, is a half-day and students and staff will enjoy many activities taking place for Celebrate Reading Day! American Education Week activity continues as students and teachers dress up as their favorite book characters for Book-A-Like. Anyone who dresses up as a story character will get to join the Character Parade in the gym!  Students have been informed that this is not a time to where their Halloween costume, but rather, a chance to be a character from a favorite book they have read. Other Wednesday activities include our mid-term Character Counts Assembly, Read-Alouds, and students’ selection of their first Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) book!

            Parents, please remember that dismissal times on Wednesday are 10:15 for Kindergarten and 11:15 for Grades 1 through 5.  We hope to see all students participate in these fun events Wednesday!

Literacy Night was a big success as 110 NES students shared their reading skills and shopped at the Book Fair with their families!

Norwood is participating in the Phone Book Recycling Campaign sponsored by the City of Knoxville, Knox County, and Advanced Polymer Recycling.  Please bring your old phone books to the school and place outside your child’s homeroom class so they can be counted for the school.  The school with the most books collected will win $400 and prizes for the most books collected per capita will also be awarded!   Students can also enter a poster contest to promote phone book recycling for an individual prize of $50.  The deadline is for entering the poster contest is November 30.

A Korean Percussion Ensemble from the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse performed at Norwood for the entire school on Friday, October 10, 2008 in the gym!  Students were wowed by the complexity, precision, and volume of these very talented college students!

The entire Knoxville community has been shocked and shaken by the recent student deaths at two local high schools.  Please be assured that every year the staff at Norwood scrutinizes our responsibility to ensure that all of our students are as safe as they can possibly be from harm.  Every year we stress the importance of following procedures in order to protect our students’ safety.  We look forward to working with you to insure your child’s safety and ask that you adhere to the following policies:

1.   Any temporary changes to how your child goes home needs to be made in writing.  We cannot honor any requests over the phone; these changes can be faxed.   Be specific as to the duration of this change, sign, and date the note.

2.   All parents dropping their child off before school must do it in the back of the school at the gym.  The sidewalk in front of the school is not a safe place to drop off your child in the morning and is a traffic violation.

3.   Parents are not to escort their child to their rooms in the morning.  If parents need to help carry things to the room, they must sign in at the office first.

4.   All parents picking up their child after school in a car must get in the car line and pick their child up in the back of the school at the gym.

5.   We will not allow any early dismissals after 2:15 (12:45 for Kindergartners).