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MARCH
2015
Upcoming Events
March 9th-13th
Spring Break
March 18th
Jump Rope for Heart
March 23rd-26th
SAT testing 1st & 2nd
FSA testing 3rd & 4th
April 1st
SAC & PTA meeting
3:00 p.m.
April 3rd
No School
Principal—Sarah Jacobsen Capps
Dear Parents and Guardians,
Exciting News!!!! Dunbar Magnet has been
awarded the Magnet School of Distinction
award from Magnet Schools of America!
The award will be presented during the
national magnet conference in April in
Raleigh, North Carolina. Well done, Dunbar students, teachers and parents!
Congratulations to our 4th and 5th graders
for making it through the state assessment
(FSA) for Writing this week! They were well
prepared and showed the STAMINA needed to complete this challenging test. We
are very proud of them. Way to show the
H in HEART– Have Pride in My Work!
Next up is the Reading and Math FSA for
3rd and 4th, as well as the SAT-10 for 1st
and 2nd, all beginning on Monday, March
23rd. Please pay close attention to information from our Assistant Principal, Mr.
Felder, for how you can ensure your child is
ready and focused for these important
assessments. State statute requires our 3rd
graders pass in Reading in order to be promoted to the 4th grade.
We owe GRATITUDE once again to the
generosity of the members of Idlewild Baptist Church. They provided both labor and
materials for school beautification projects
on Saturday, February 28th. They worked
through the cold, pouring rain and completed more than was on the agenda for
the day. Impressive! Thanks to Idlewild’s
Day of Service, we now have benches by
the PE Court, a Dunbar has HEART garden
area for students to use when reading or
working outside, and several new landscaped areas that support our Science
curriculum.
Thank you for supporting our PTA Friday Club
Day. Our PTA raised $600 on Friday, February 20th, and we have already purchased
reading and math materials for classrooms
with some of these funds. Both students
and teachers had a great time in clubs! The
Cooking Club used items from our vegetable garden for their recipes. We will hold
one more club day in May. Be on the lookout for the date. Let us know if you have an
idea for a club or would like to teach a club.
Tardies to school continue to be a concern.
When a student is late to class, not only does
it impact the day for the late student, it impacts other students in the classroom. Students should be in class, with breakfast complete, by the 7:50 a.m. bell. Instruction begins at 7:50 a.m.
As always, your comments and feedback
on how to improve the school are welcome.
It takes all of us working together for student
success!
sarah.jacobsen@sdhc.k12.fl.us
Sarah Jacobsen Capps
1730 W. Union St. Tampa, FL 33607
Sarah Jacobsen-Capps
Principal
Phone: 813-276-5677
Fax: 813-272-2254
School Website:
http:.//dunbar.mysdhc.org
Eric Felder
Assistant Principal
County School Board
Chair— Susan L. Valdes
Vice Chair—Doretha W. Edgecomb
Members—April Griffin, Sally A.
Harris, Carol W. Kurdell, Melissa
Snively, Cindy Stuart
Superintendent of Schools
MaryEllen Elia
www.sdhc.k12.fl.us
Dianna Uva
Lead Teacher
Dwayne Davis
Guidance Counselor
On
twitter.com/DunbarHasHEART
Attendance Line: 813-276-5677
Magnet Office: 813-272-4811
Magnet Website:
http://apps1.sdhc.k12.fl.us/magnet/
School Vision Statement:
School Mission Statement:
To develop a community of high
performing learners by promoting the
academic, social and emotional
growth of all our students.
To provide our students with meaningful,
hands-on opportunities to explore medical
sciences within a supportive and challenging environment while integrating math,
Assistant Principal—Eric Felder
Another month has passed, and as always, our students have been hard at work increasing their academic, social, and emotional performance through
daily instruction, special projects and high motivation for success from their teachers.
Spring Break is on its way… March 9th – March
13th. We encourage you to make this an exciting,
safe and restful week for your child. He/she really
deserves it after all their hard work. Also upon our
return they are going to have a couple of very challenging weeks with Stanford Achievement Test
(SAT) and Florida Standards Assessment (FSA).
The SAT and FSA testing windows are from
March 23rd – March 27th, 2015. Please make sure
your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grader is present every day,
arrives to school on time and makes an effort to do
their best. I would like to thank our 4th and 5th grade
students for putting forth 100% effort during FSA
Writes! They have taken the first round of FSA testing and I am confident that their future performance
on the upcoming reading and math portion of the test
will be successful as well. If you are interested in
learning more about the new FSA test, please visit
http://www.fsassessments.org/ this site provides general information about the test in addition to other
DOE resources. The teachers and staff members are
confident that our students are well-prepared and
will do a fantastic job when the time arrives. Thanks
for all you do!
Donations Needed
Dunbar is in need of clothes for our
clothes closet. If you are able to donate
any clothing, please send it to school with
your child. We are especially in need of
pants in the following sizes: 4, 5, 6, 10, 12,
14, and 18. We are also in need of shirts
in the following sizes: 4, 8, 12, 14, 16, 18,
and 20. Thank you for your help!
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Read everyday for
at least 30 minutes.
mySPOT
Student-Parent Online Toolkit.
mySPOT is ready to guide parents to district resources including Edsby, MyPaymentPlus, Choice
and Magnet programs, district calendars and more.
Register today! https://myspot.sdhc.k12.fl.us/login/
We want the best for your children as well as you!
Dunbar Elementary Magnet School’s
Guidelines for Success
DUNBAR HAS HEART
Have Pride in My Work
Encourage Each Other
Attitude is Everything
Responsible for My Actions
Treat Everyone Nicely
H O M E O F T H E D O L P HI N
Lead Teacher Corner—Dianna Uva
We hope you will be able to
join us for a “STEMtastic”
evening at MOSI on Friday,
March 27th from 4:30 PM to
7:30 PM. This is a great opportunity to have your children involved in hands-on
STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics) activities and to learn
about the scientific principles
behind the activities. STEM
schools throughout the district will have display booths;
information will be shared
about the many opportunities
throughout the district that
focus on STEM education.
More information will be sent
home closer to the event.
Please remember to fill out
ment letters the end of Feb-
your application for a magnet
ruary. If you submitted an
school for the 2015-2016
application for your child
school year. If you missed
who will be entering elemen-
the first application round,
tary school next year, you
the second application round
should receive a placement
for middle school students
letter by the end of this
will open on March 24 and
month. Remember that se-
close on April 16. Results will
lection for elementary or
be mailed mid-May. The sec-
middle magnet schools is
ond application round for ele-
done randomly via computer.
mentary students will open
April 28th and close May
14th. Results will be mailed
mid-June. If you submitted
an application for your child
who will be entering sixth
grade next year, you should
have received their place-
Business Partnership Recognition
Dunbar is excited about our continuing Business Partnerships with
Florida Hospital Tampa, USF Health, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. All of these businesses help support our magnet theme of medical and science exploration throughout the school year by providing guest speakers to present
lessons to our students.
If you are interested in becoming a Business Partner with Dunbar, or
know of a business that would be interested, please contact Dianna Uva
Parent Involvement Information
Please stop by and take a look at Dunbar’s Parent Involvement Notebook, located in the front office. The
Parent Involvement Notebook has information about
helping your child with different subject areas, information about Title I, and information about parenting.
Information is available in both English and Spanish.
Community Resources
Dunbar has a community
resource notebook located in the
front office. If you would like
any information about community resources that are available to
you and/or any information
about parent involvement,
please stop by and take a look at
our notebook. Information is
available about ways you can
help your child, information
about Title I programs, and other
resources that are available in the community.
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Guidance Counselor—Dwayne Davis
Testing season is upon us!
Be on the lookout for information
about the upcoming district and statewide
tests that will be coming up!!
What have we been doing?
At the end of February we had our
Black History Month Assembly. During the
assembly we had a Poetry Slam for the intermediate classes (3rd -5th Grade). They wrote
some very beautiful and detailed poems on
Black History Month.
As a counselor, I work with small
groups of students on life skills that support
classroom success. These groups typically
meet one time a week for 6 to 8 weeks. Students may become a member of a group by
self-referral or through a teacher or parent
referral. These groups are available to all
students. Ask your child’s school guidance
counselor if you have any questions.
An Important Breakfast
Reminder
One great choice you can make at the
start of each day is to eat a healthy
breakfast. You probably have hear d
'"Eat your b r e a k f a s t . It's the most
important meal of the day." Why do
people say that? Well, imagine you're a
car. After a long night of sleeping, your
fuel tank i s empty. Breakfast is the
fuel that gets you going so you can hit
the road. Here are some recipes that
are EASY and FU N !
Magic Milk Bowl: Put a few drops of food
coloring in a bowl-underneath your dry cereal. Pour milk over- magic milk appears!
Apple Sauce Sandwich: Place applesauce between two slices of bread. Spread
both sides with b u t t e r . Fry i n pan u nt il
b r ow n on both sides.
Green Eggs with Ham: Put a few
drops of blue food coloring (the yellow
shade of the eggs mixes to a perfect
green) into the pan while you’re scrambling your eggs-then cook as usual. Kids
love them!
Those are fun weekend breakfast projects! On school days, breakfast is provided FREE for all students at all Hillsborough County Public Schools. Breakfast at Dunbar is served from 7:207:45. This allows students time to finish breakfast and be seated in class by
the 7:50 a.m. tardy bell.
Have you joined your Dunbar PTA?
We need your support.
Please join our PTA family. Membership is $6.00. Together we can achieve
greater goals for our children!
Call 813-276-5677
to receive more information.
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Math Resource Teacher—Ms. Buchanan
Frequently Asked Questions about the
Florida Standards Assessment (FSA)
for Mathematics
What item types will appear on each grade level mathematics assessment?
3rd and 4th grades will take a paper based assessment with
multiple choice, multiple-response, and equation responses. 5th grade will take a computer assessment with the
above item types and technology enhanced items. Equation responses may include equations, expressions, or values depending on the question.
How will students answer equation response items?
3rd and 4th grades will write their equations, expressions, or
values in a rectangle directly in their test booklet. 5th
grade will use the equation response editor tool to enter a
value, equation, or expression. A practice equation-editor
tutorial is available on the FSA Portal.
How will students be scored on open response and
equation/expression/value item types?
A computer and/or a human will score those items. A
computer will first scan all open responses and equation
responses, if they do not receive full credit, a human will
reexamine the response.
Does spelling/neatness count?
Perhaps. Does the spelling or the words interfere with the
explanation or understanding of the response? If the computer/human scorer does not understand the response, it
most likely would not count.
How will students be scored? What will their levels
be?
This year, students will receive two performance indicators: a T score and a percentile rank. The T score is
a score on a scale of 20 – 80 with approximately 50 as
the statewide average.
Students will also receive a percentile rank, which will
show how they performed on each grade level/subject
area test compared to all other students in Florida who
took the same test. After achievement-level cut scores
are established, districts will receive 2014-2015 FSA
retrofitted test results to reflect student performance
on the new score scale.
Mathematicians of the Month
for February:
First Grade: Mariska Laurius & Diego Leon Martinez
Second Grade: Demetric Johnson & Dwayne Mathurin
Fourth Grade: Jose Figueroa
Their teachers nominated these students because they
exhibit characteristics of a true mathematician.
Check out the bulletin board in the hallway by the
front double doors to see more about these scholars!
Media Specialist —Mrs. Long
We started the month of February off with the 100th Day of School and ended with a poetry slam for third through
fifth grade poets in celebration of Black History Month. All of our classes participated in the month-long Black
History Month theme by decorating bulletin boards highlighting famous black politicians, authors, sports figures,
inventors, etc. Many classes also did extensive research reports on black Americans which they shared with their
classmates. We viewed three videos about the lives of Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges and Henry Brown. Unfamiliar with
those names? Look them up on the Elementary Virtual Library, a link from the Library Media Department on the
district’s home page. From the Elementary Virtual Library, click on World Book Online, go to kids or the student
section and find tons of info about all three black Americans, as well as hundreds more.
Another fun and educational website for the entire family to enjoy is pbslearningmedia.org which is designed and
aligned to National Common Core and Florida Standards, including Martha Speaks Reading Buddies program for K
-5th. There is also pbskids.org that is chockfull of videos, educational games, music, activities and a lot more!
Happy Reading!
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H O M E O F T H E D O L P HI N