Date: March 5th 2021

Upcoming Dates: March 8-10: National School Breakfast Week March 11 & 12 : Student Holidays NO SCHOOL March 14: Daylight Savings Time Begins March 17: St. Patrick's Day March 19: Early Release / Parent-Teacher Conferences March 20: First Day of Spring March 21: BCSS Community Art Show March 22: School Board Meeting March 25: Wolf-A-Thon run day Looking Ahead: April 5-9: Spring Break Buford Academy is excited to announce that Mrs. Elena Vo will be our new principal. Click the link below to read more about Mrs. Vo and all she is bringing to our Buford Academy family. She will begin April 1st. Mrs. Vo Bio ‌

Wolf-A-Thon 2021 March 25th, 2021  Click the button below for our online giving site for the Wolf-A-Thon donations:

Online Giving Site for Wolf-A-Thon

Buford Academy Art Show: The Buford Academy first ever Virtual Art Show will open on Monday March 1st and run through Friday March 12th. Every student at Buford Academy will have a featured piece of artwork that can be viewed online by anyone with the gallery link. The link will go live on Monday March 1st. All parents, friends, and family near and far are invited and encouraged to attend to check out all of the amazing art work our Buford Academy students are creating in art class!  Please use the following link to access the art show:  https://artomeplus.com/bufordacademy30518

Dress Code Check In: Parents, please watch this video from our school counselors about Buford Academy dress code. At this mid way point in the year it is a good refresher on what items are dress code and what is not.

Dress Code Video

News from the Nurse Parents and Guardians, Thank you so much for your understanding and continued patience during this year of learning. We are running out of extra clothes in our dress code closet. Please send a change of dress code clothes in your child's bookbag each day. You never know when a playground muddy mess, a lunchroom mess or a bathroom accident might happen. It is best to be prepared with a backup outfit. The students are doing a great job wearing their masks and making sure they are using hand hygiene. Please remember to send in a spare mask with your students each day just in case. Also, if anyone in your house has been tested for COVID-19 or has an appointment to be tested, please keep your student(s) at home and contact the clinic so we can make corrections to their attendance and arrangements for them to complete school work at home. Whitney Burns, RN

Media Center News: We have hit the ground running for the month of March in the media center. March 1st - 5th we celebrated Read Across America Week. Mrs. Nix created an activity or bookmarks for the students to pick up each day they came to the media center to check-out more books. A few of the students received a surprise of a new book if they happened to find a special bookmark that was handed out on Tuesday and Thursday. Several classrooms had guest readers via Google Meet. We also had classrooms that were paired up with a student from Buford Middle School to read to the class through Google Meet. Mrs. Poole, Mrs. Kiep, and Mr. Chafin joined in the fun as being guest readers for a few classrooms as well. Mark your calendars for March 22nd-March 31st. We will be having an in-school Scholastic book fair. Be sure to visit our book fair website for more information on e-wallets or maybe you would like to purchase directly from the website and have books sent to your home. Follow the link below to see what we will have available! Classrooms will come one at a time while the book fair is here in the media center to allow students the opportunity to go shopping! We are all looking forward to the book fair! The online book fair opens March 13th and the in-person book fair opens March 22nd. Scholastic Book Fair -- Click HERE

ESOL Speaks Out: ESOL students at Buford Academy are finishing up the state mandated ACCESS test. ACCESS for ELLs scores have many potential uses, from determining student placement to guiding the creation of new curriculum.  Results of the test will be returned in May. Parents of ESOL students will receive a Parent Report that outlines their child’s strengths and weaknesses in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Many thanks to all the students and teachers for their patience during testing! For the month of March, students will be working on comparing and contrasting characters in fiction and nonfiction text, central message/lesson learned from a story, and will continue to work on reading with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. Students need to be able to read on-level text with expression and understanding. Please make sure your child is working hard to meet his/her AR goal. Having your child retell the story events to you is a great way to work on speaking in complete sentences. Please feel free to reach out to your ESOL teachers if you ever have any questions or concerns. We would love to hear from you! Communication is key to student success! Thanks for all you do parents!

Buford Academy Cafeteria News:

Join us March 8th, 9th, and 10th for national school breakfast week in the Buford Academy Cafeteria! The Buford Academy cafeteria is proud to serve Georgia grown root vegetables in the month of March!

Counseling Corner: This month students are learning about Emotion Regulation in their classroom counseling lessons. An important foundational skill to possess is the ability to manage and express your emotions constructively. A child's capacity to emotionally self-regulate affects their family and peer relationships, academic performance and long-term mental health (Parenting for the Brain). Students need to recognize when they are having uncomfortable feelings so they can use calming strategies. Learning to identify physical body cues can help students know when it is time to manage uncomfortable feelings with calming strategies. By using a PAUSE signal, students interrupt the escalation of emotion. This, combined with naming the feeling, can engage the thinking part of the brain. This helps them be able to use the calming strategies and stay in control (Second Step). In our lesson this month students will learn to: Recognize physical body cues that signal uncomfortable feelings  Use calming strategies to manage uncomfortable feelings  Talk to a trusted adult if uncomfortable feelings continue

Parent Connection Video Parents: Watch this short video from Buford Academy about the math strategies your child is learning for addition and subtraction. This is the first video in our series. This video focuses on the number line strategy. This is the first of a 3 video series on math strategies.

Number Line Strategy Video

Georgia Milestones Testing Dates: Buford Academy will administer the Georgia Milestones End of Grade assessments to students in grade 3 on the following dates:   May 10--ELA May 11--ELA May 13--Mathematics May 14--Mathematics Additional information will be provided as plans are finalized.

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