Dear HSA McKinley Park Families,
It is hard to believe that we are in the third quarter and into the lovely month of February. This is a crucial time for students to begin the second semester strong and focused as well as attending school as much as possible. Every winter, bad weather — snow, slush, freezing temperatures, or even heavy rains — can present challenges to getting children to school. So do the illnesses such as colds, flu, fevers, and earaches that often come with the winter months. Students might also have to stay home due to Covid-19. These absences, even if they are excused, break the routine of daily attendance that contributes to students feeling connected and engaged in learning. Please consider these steps to keep your children healthy and in school this winter.
- Develop backup plans for getting your children to school in snowy weather.
- If your children get sick or you are concerned about Covid or the flu, talk to your child’s medical provider or the school nurse for advice.
- Stomach pain and headaches can be signs of anxiety and may not be reasons for keeping a child home. If you feel that anxiety or stress is playing a role, talk to your child’s teacher, the school nurse or counselor, or your medical provider about how best to support your child.
- Dress your children for the cold weather. If you need help with winter clothing, call the school.
- Encourage healthy habits such as getting enough sleep, washing hands, eating healthy foods, drinking fluids, and getting exercise.
In addition, please make sure to re-enroll your child for next year if you have not done so already. During the month of March we will have our annual enrollment Lottery which will be held after school on March 3rd. If we do not receive your child’s re-enrollment updates on PowerSchool then their seat can be filled during the school lotto system in March so please make sure to complete this task! If you need help please contact the front office.
Parent teacher conferences are also coming up very soon. They will take place on February 16th from 2pm - 7pm. More information will be shared with you for signing up with teachers as we get closer to that week.
Serving You,
Mr. Vedziovski
2245 W. Pershing Rd. Chicago, IL 60609
(O) 773.247.8400 | (F) 773.247.8401
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Holiday Cheer to Kick off
the New Year
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Our Middle School Holiday Concert was canceled before Winter break due to the a weather advisory but that’s not stopping our music teachers to continue sharing Holiday Cheer in our school building! What a great treat coming back from break! Our Middle School Choir performed afterschool for their families and friends on Monday, January 9th. We appreciate our music teachers for making sure their singers get a chance to perform. |
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Celebrating Chinese New Year |
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We celebrated the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit, with our students! We surprised them at lunch with chocolate fortune cookies and our high school Mandarin class also celebrated with the 15 day celebration! Ms. Yu also surprised all of the HSA staff with beautiful treats and traditional red envelopes that are customary to give as gifts for the Chinese New Year. It was a great celebration and we are excited to expand these traditions with our students again next year! |
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Dr. Yilmaz and the Math Department hosted their first annual Derivative Bee contest. The original Derivative Bee is the integration contest pioneered at MIT. Twelve of our Calculus students participated in the contest and we are proud to announce that William Zamudio, Jesus Benitez, and Elijah Gutierrez got gold, silver, and bronze!
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On Saturday, January 14th our 3rd-8th grade test preparation Saturday school began. We wanted to express our appreciation to all the staff involved in contributing to the success of our students. We will continue to provide all of the readily available resources for our students to ensure their academic success. Also to all of the parents who registered their children for our Saturday school test preparation classes that will continue until the end of March. Together we can continue exceeding the academic needs of our students. |
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School Mural found its home |
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HSA McKinley Park kicked off the New Year with our Student Leadership Academy as we launched the permanent home of our School Mural. Our student lead mural project has been a very long journey and we had to make sure when we finally found our mural a home in our school building that we would share it with all of our students!
Victor Montañez, the artistic director of this project joined us in the celebration by providing us once again with great music. We also had this amazing opportunity to officially thank him for his leadership and dedication to our students and helping us bring this mural to life!
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Check out this awesome video we made of our 2nd quarter Honor Roll Students! Way to go Hawks! We are so proud! |
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2nd Quarter
Report Card Pick Up
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We were thrilled with out 1st Quarter report card pick up process that we have now adopted it as a new procedure for report card distribution.
Our 2nd quarter report card pick up went smoothly once again all thanks to our amazing Assistant Principals! This new pick up process is another great opportunity for us to build our school community especially with our school leadership team!
See you all again at Parent Teacher Conferences on February 16th!
More details coming soon!
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This year HSA McKinley hosted the Scripps National Spelling Bee for our 3rd-7th grade students.
For over 50 years, the Bee and Merriam-Webster have worked together to bring interesting, meaningful words to the best spellers across the country. For weeks students studied their spelling words in their ELA classes to compete in their classroom bees. The top five students from each class then progressed to the school-wide bee. We split the school wide spelling bee between grades 3rd-5th and 6th-7th.
On January 18th students from grades 3-5 competed in the 3-5 championship. The winner was 5th grader, Diana Reyes.
On January 23rd grades 6 and 7 competed in the Middle School championship. The winner was 6th grader Xiochitl Rios.
Congratulations to our winners! Next up for them is the regional spelling test that can potentially lead to competing in the national bee.
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National School Choice Week |
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If you did not get a chance to check out our celebration video click on the link below: |
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We Kicked off #SchoolChoiceWeek this year with our students on Monday, January 24th! We decorated the school and surprised our students during lunch with special treats and a live performance from our school band! Special shout out to Ms. Kovatch and our school band for performing at all of our lunch periods, serenading our students with our school song!
Thank you to our families for choosing HSA McKinley Park for
their children!
We appreciate being your TOP CHOICE of school &
We are so HAPPY
you are all
part of our family!
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Meet our New Security Guard |
We are proud to introduce our new Security Guard, Latoya Robinson. Latoya is born and raised on the southside of Chicago and is excited to be part of our HSA McKinley Park Staff. This new addition to our security team is just how we wanted to kick off the new year.
Latoya will be attending Chicago State University this fall to finish up her degree in Criminal Justice. She is a proud mommy of an 11 year old boy and enjoys eating at new restaurants and playing basketball.
Again we are excited to welcome Latoya to our HSA Family!
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Ms. Portugal and her Aerospace Engineering students took a field trip to the American Airlines maintenance facility. They learned about some of the maintenance projects the engineers work on a daily basis at this facility and had a chance to check out different air crafts and engines. It was a great field trip to expose our students to a career in aircraft maintenance.
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Coach Krippinger and the HS Boys Basketball team along with Mr. Khan’s CYSP group had a blast going to a Chicago Bulls game on January 23rd. Our students all received a free Chicago Bulls Hat and had a great time at the game! It was also a nice time because our Chicago Bulls won against Atlanta Hawks! |
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Our sister school, HSA Southwest celebrated kindness week with their students and surprised our students with friendship bracelets. They stopped by on Friday, January 27th and our students loved the surprise! It was a great way for our Hawks to get to know the Huskies!
We apprecaite the kindness and can't wait to celebrate next year with us demonstrating kindness back to them!
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HSA McKinley Park's 6th Grade LEGO robotics team went to the Tesla State Championship where they competed against the other best teams in Illinois on January 27th in Champaign, IL.
Although they did not advance to the Worlds Championship, they did finish the year strong as the first FLL team in our school to advance to the State level. The team had the opportunity to tour the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They also went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository where they helped pack around 15,600 pounds of potatoes before the state competition. It was a great weekend for our team and it was shared also with their families cheering them on! Thank you to our mentors for this amazing season.
We are so proud of our FLL Electric Volts for their hard work and dedication!
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At HSA McKinley Park our top priority is the health and safety of students and staff. Should you have any questions or concerns please email:
Mr. Seat Vedziovski,
School Principal:
Mrs. Marisa Vega,
Community Outreach Coordinator:
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