This coming week, our Shepherd Families are invited to attend our Back-To-School Night on Thursday, September 12, 2024 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. We will have two sessions.

Session I

• 5:00 PM - 5:15 PM Brief Overview in the Multipurpose Room

• 5:20 PM - 5:50 PM Classroom Presentations

• 5:50 PM - 6:00 PM Transition and Prepare for Session 2

Session II

• 6:00 PM - 6:15 PM Brief Overview in the Multipurpose Room

• 6:20 PM - 6:50 PM Classroom Presentations

• 6:50 PM - 7:00 PM Transition out of the building

Entry for Back-To-School Night will be the Jonquil Entrance Only. We do not want to interfere with dismissal for SESSA. Everyone will exit using the Main Door. Please remember that if you pick up your student from SESSA, you will have to re-enter using the Jonquil entrance. Reba's Food Truck will be present again this year. They will be parked on 14th Street.

The first PTO Meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 18 at 5:30 PM, both in person and virtually. We will tackle a range of subjects from budget to upcoming events to committees. We hope you can join us! More details will be available soon!

Please join Shepherd’s PTO and the Health & Wellness committee along with students, parents and staff for the National Walk & Roll to School Day event on Wednesday, October 9th.

Either walk, bike or scooter from home along your customary route or meet us at one of three meet-up locations to join a “walking school bus.” 

The meet-up locations are:

• Marvin Caplan Park at the corner of Alaska Avenue and Holly Street NW– Group will leave promptly at 8:10am.
• Triangle park at the corner of Luzon Avenue and Van Buren Street NW– Group will leave promptly at 8:00am.
• Lowell Field at the corner of Kalmia and 17th Streets NW – Group will leave promptly at 8:10am.

We will need several parent volunteers with the walking buses.  Please email pto@shepherd-elementary.org if you can help.    

Thank you and we hope to see you on the walk to school! 

Please mark your calendars!  Fall Fest, the PTO's annual fall FUNdraising effort, is returning to Shepherd and will take place on Sunday, October 20th from 12 pm - 4 pm.  

For those families that haven't been to Fall Fest before, 14th St. between Jonquil and Kalmia will be closed for the festivities.  There will be bounce houses, a DJ, carnival games, arts & crafts, cotton candy, popcorn, snow cones, and more! 

As the Shepherd community has grown over the past few years, so have the needs for before and aftercare. This school year the number of students interested in SESSA have exceeded past enrollment. We have worked closely with Shepherd ES and DCPS, and this week we welcomed an additional classroom for the first graders. We anticipate opening additional classrooms, first for the 4th/5th grade cohort, and soon afterwards, for the PK3 cohort. Unfortunately, we are only able to offer PM care.  Once more families change their beforecare plans, we will reevaluate and extend offers to join beforecare in addition to aftercare. Our hope is that we will be able to eliminate our aftercare waitlist in the upcoming weeks.

Our "No School Day" schedule is now posted on our website. "No School Days" are a full day of coverage provided by Star Achievers for DCPS professional development and parent teacher conferences. We are not open for holiday/vacation breaks. Our program starts at 9am and ends at 6pm, with a 3pm pick up option as well. No school days are open to any current Shepherd Elementary student, current SESSA families will have to enroll for NSD's if needed. They are not included in your monthly tuition. If you have any questions on how NSD's operate feel free to ask eric.viera@sesstarachievers.com. Link is attached here for sign ups.

Thank you all for your input on our SESSA enrichment questionnaire. Enrichments will be available soon. We have identified the most popular programs and are working with the school to get a set schedule that works around any Shepherd Elementary teams, clubs, performances, meetings, and events. Enrichment options will be released by September 20th with registration opening a few days afterward to give all families time to plan, and will begin in early October. We would also like to mention that SESSA clubs are open to the entire school; however, current SESSA families take priority for enrichment classes. If a class does not fill up, we will gladly invite non-SESSA families to join our extracurricular activities. 

Lastly, as we all know, spots for aftercare are at a high this year. If you are dual-enrolled in both SESSA's and DPR's afterschool programs, please confirm which of the programs your child will be attending and unenroll in the program you will not be using to make a spot available for hopefully another Shepherd family to use. If you need help with unenrolling from SESSA please email: eric.viera@sesstarachievers.com.

Principal Russell is set to return from maternity leave on September 30th! We have all missed her and look forward to welcoming her back to our school. In the meantime, we want to extend a heartfelt shout-out to Assistant Principal Coles. Thank you, AP Coles, for your hard work and leadership!

We've partnered with ShopRaise to earn rebates for everyday purchases. Please help us support and promote our program by doing these 3 simple things:

1. Click this link to get the ShopRaise app
2. Use tools in the mobile app to share it with family and friends
3. Shop online to support and help us reach our fundraising goals! 

Shepherd Elementary Groups.io

As a reminder, the Shepherd PTO has a Groups.io that can be used to communicate with the community. To actively join our Shepherd Elementary School Parents groups.io, please click here and select the blue button that says "Apply for Membership in this Group." If you have any questions, please email info@shepherd-elementary.org.

Shepherd Elementary Calendar

You can also add the Shepherd Elementary Google calendar to your personal Google account. Log into your Google account and navigate to the Shepherd Elementary Calendar website. In the lower right-hand corner of the calendar, there's an icon that says "+ Google Calendar." If you click this icon, it will redirect you to your personal Google calendar and prompt you to "add" the Shepherd Elementary calendar. More detailed instructions can be found here.