Important Upcoming Dates

• April 14-15 Grade 5 Assembly and Celebration of Learning. (Formal Uniform Days)  Grade 5 families are invited to attend. The Grade 5 teachers have already communicated the plan and start time. A reminder will be sent home again on Monday.  
• April 18 - All CBE Schools are closed - in observance of Good Friday 
• April 21 - PD Day - Students don’t attend school this day 
• April 22 - Earth Day  
• April 23 - Field trip Kindergarten- Zoo (All Kindergarten classes attend this day!) 
• April 24 - No Kindergarten students in attendance today 
• April 25 - School Spirit Day (wear your Chris the Cub shirt/ sweater) 
• April 29 - Healthy Hunger - Last day to order April 24 
• April 30 - French Festival. (thank you to all of the parents who have offered to volunteer. If you have time to Volunteer, please contact Ms Shilpa in the office) 
• May 5 - 6 Field Trip - Grade 4 - Shepherd Landfill 
• May 7 - Hats on for Mental Health 
• May 8 - Grade 5 - Calgary Zoo Field Trip 
• May 8 - School Council Meeting 
• May 12-13 Grade 4 Assembly and Celebration of Learning (Formal Uniform Days) 
• May 14/15 - Grade 3 Zoo Fieldtrip 
• May 15 - New Student orientation  (Details coming soon) 
• May 21 - Grade 5s to Sir Wilf – Orientation AM/ Parent Orientation Evening 
• May 29 - School Council Meeting 

CAS Families 

We are trying something new. You will see below that some of the sections of our weekly message are translated into different languages. We are using a translation function to provide this. We apologize in advance for anything that is confusing or incorrect. We are hopeful this will meet the needs of our families. If you have any feedback, we are eager to hear this feedback to make this message work better for you. 

Please read to the very end of this message. The message is long. Thank you

Volunteers

A heartfelt thank you to all the wonderful volunteers who have given their time and effort to support our school. Your dedication makes a huge difference, and we truly appreciate all that you do! 

As we prepare for our upcoming French Festival, we are looking for more volunteers to help make this event a success. One more fun opportunity to spend time with your kid in school activities. If you’re available to assist with activities and decorations, we’d love to have you join us! 

Required Time - Between 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM (a little or a lot, every hour of volunteering makes difference) 

Please let us know if you’re interested in helping by contacting Office 403-777-8120. 

Merci beaucoup for your continued support! 

Student Fees

All parents – please check your MyCBE account for all of your children. If there are outstanding fieldtrip fees, transportation fees or lunch supervision fees, kindly pay these fees.   Fees never get removed from your account. When fees are not paid, they remain on your account to be paid the following year.  It does cause the school tremendous work though, when your fees are not paid in time as we have to cover these costs until such time as the fees are paid.   

No student will be denied an opportunity to participate on a fieldtrip. If you are unable to afford to pay for a fieldtrip, please connect with Ms Shilpa in the office and she can assist you. However, Ms Shilpa is unable to provide solutions or assistance after the event or after the fee due date.  

Celebration and Staffing Update 

"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." - Winnie the Pooh.  

It is inevitable that we will have chapters in our lives that will be hard to part with, hard to end. Pooh reminds us that even though an end is near, that does not take away from the happy memories it leaves us with.  

I would like to celebrate with our community, Mrs Davison has been selected by the CBE to be an Acting Assistant Principal at Grant MacEwan School until the end of this school year. Mrs Davison’s last day at Chris Akkerman School will be Thursday of this week.  I know you all join me in wishing her the very best on her next step in school leadership. Her immense talent and positive impact on students, staff and families will be greatly missed. The community at Grant MacEwan is very lucky to have her join them! 

School Bell Times 

The bell times at Chris Akkerman will NOT be changing in the coming year.  I have heard   there is some frustration with bells and their accuracy at CAS.   Sometimes when we understand the situation, we are able to understand better what happens. Our bell system is almost 70 years old. The system is original to the year the school was built. Yes, it is an antique. With that, comes many issues. Patience and understanding is required.  The clock does not keep time like it used to. Also, withs power outage, school breaks, or time changes, we have to have “George” come out to our school and re-set the bells and manage the very antiquated system. “George” who is a real person, is the only person in the CBE who can manage this task and knows what to do.  We never dismiss students early. However, from time to time, the precision of our bells can be off. We do the very best we can with the system we have got. Please, we appreciate when you are understanding that this system can be off by a minute or two every month or so. We do make up for this when we notice and we do ensure students are receiving their appropriate minutes of instruction each day.  Thank you for reminding us that this is good information to share. Sometimes, when we know more we understand better. We appreciate your understanding and flexibility.  

We have not had two bells in the AM at schools in the CBE for many years now. The second bell serves no purpose. The bell that rings at 7:50 signifies the beginning of the school day. We will continue to do our sweep of the grounds after the entry doors have closed. We will continue to welcome students to the building through the front doors after the bell and after the exterior classroom doors have closed. Kindly ensure, if you are late, that you direct your child to the front doors of the school.

Traffic 

Morning and end of the day pick up. 

Drivers, please respect the traffic signs and the expected rules of the road around the school. Please respect the speed limits. Please use crosswalks. Please do not drop your children off in the staff parking lots. These rules are in place to ensure student safety. When we model how to use a cross walk, students are watching and learning. When we drive slowly through a school zone we are ensuring the safety of children. When we follow the NO parking/ No Stopping signs, we are being respectful of the 10 very large school buses  bringing 50+ students to school every day.   Unfortunately, our school staff are not allowed to assist with traffic, parking, drop off.  It is expected that parents will follow the rules of the road and keep student safety as their first priority.