Cooper Elementary School

Good afternoon! Next week is a busy week at Cooper due to the following events: -Parent Teacher Conferences: October 24 from 3-5 and October 27 from 3-7. -Fall Carnival: October 28 -Strong Choices Week Please see the attached images for Fall Carnival and Strong Choices Week details. In addition, this week’s Bronco Breakdown featured a fashion show to break down the Strong Choices Week spirit days. It is available via the link below. Have a great weekend, Cooper families! We look forward to seeing you next week at conferences and the carnival! -Josh https://tinyurl.com/CESstrongchoices

Good afternoon, Cooper families! It was great to welcome students back to our school. Kindergarten students kicked off this morning by visiting a pumpkin patch, and the rest of our students celebrated Future Careers Day. Our halls and classrooms were full of future nurses, doctors, firefighters, policemen, teachers, and various professions. Our office was full of staff dressed as future retirees. Kindergarten backpacks left our school filled with pumpkins. It was a great day. As students look to the future for careers and pathways, we would like to look back at our first quarter and identify areas we need to improve. At the beginning of the year, I sent out a quick 3 & Out Survey to pull feedback from the first week of the school year. Now, I want to pull your feedback for the first quarter. This information is valuable to our team. The survey is the same as the 3 & Out in August and will only take a minute or two to complete. Moreover, it is anonymous. The link to the survey is in your email. Thank you in advance for completing this survey. Have a great evening, Broncos!-Josh

Hello Cooper Fam! I hope you and your family enjoyed Fall Break! Next week starts Strong Choices Week! Strong Choices Week is an alternative to Red Ribbon Week that is geared more towards making positive choices for your body rather than just focusing on what not to put in your body. It's an elementary friendly approach with the same goal in mind. Each day is a dress up day that we would love to have your child/children participate in. The flyer is attached along with the Strong Choice Week Fashion Show clip from this week's Bronco Breakdown. We are looking forward to a great week! Elandrea Dumes, M.Ed. Professional School Counselor

Good afternoon, Cooper families! It was a great week at Cooper, and a handful of us had a great experience learning about intervention at the RTI at Work conference in Rogers. I want to give a shout out to Stephenie Dean, Abby Brown, Shannon Tweedy, Jennifer Toms, and Brittany Williams. I enjoyed learning alongside them at the conference this week, and more importantly, I enjoyed their response to the conference: Each brought fantastic ideas and actions to the table that will help us improve our school. We are fortunate to have great staff leaders at Cooper. Our team is lucky to have teacher leaders like Stephanie, Abby, Shannon, Jennifer, and Brittany. Also, today I am celebrating my birthday. I would typically not share something like this with our full school community, but I want to thank our staff, our kids, and our parents for all of the birthday wishes. I have a desk full of incredible homemade cards, a day's ear full of happy birthdays (and that I’m old), and a team that rocked Vest vests all day. I quickly knew Cooper was a family when I started here at the end of July. I’m so thankful to have this job with this team and these kids. Thank you, parents, for all the wishes from the morning car line, the calls, and the emails. I appreciate you all! Have a great fall break!--Josh

Good afternoon, Cooper families! This week’s Counselor Connection in the Bronco Breakdown highlights a couple of October focus areas from our counseling team. These areas include bullying prevention and this month’s core essential value, grit. Throughout October, we will be discussing bullying prevention and helping students better identify and report bullying incidents. Moreover, Mrs. Dumes and Mrs. Sutton will be exploring “grit” and the importance of perseverance as a valuable skill at school and outside of our school’s walls. Click the link below to view this week’s Counselor Connection. Have a great evening!--Josh https://tinyurl.com/10CEScounselor

Rocktober Round Up was fantastic. It was great to see students and teachers wearing their rockstar gear and celebrating each other and our school. Our staff and students work hard each and every day, so it is so nice to see everyone have fun at Round up and to be recognized for hard work and exemplary behavior. This month, 2nd grade won the Golden Lunch Tray award and Coach Lewis was named Staff Member of the Month (which is well-deserved). A big shoutout goes out to all of our Big 3 Award recipients and to our classes that were recognized by our Activities Team. Here's a staff Rocktober pic and the link below is yours truly playing the “The Star-Spangled Banner.”  Have a great weekend, Cooper Broncos! --Josh https://tinyurl.com/CESstarsb 

Cooper is an Arkansas School of Innovation and one area that is innovative at our school is our PE 4 Life program. PE 4 Life creates the opportunity for students to have PE every single day. Our kids learn biking, archery, soccer, climbing, and so much more. In addition, our PE team works with classroom teachers to connect their activities to relevant classroom topics and units of study. Coach Lewis, Coach Lunsford, and Coach Glover do an incredible job with our PE program. Moreover, PE 4 Life is an important part of our intervention program. It allows us to have systematic intervention every single day to help kids at all grade levels and at all academic levels. Each grade level has a PE/Intervention block for 60 minutes. Half of the grade level goes to PE while the other half is in small group intervention with our teachers and interventionists. After 30 minutes, these groups switch, creating daily targeted intervention and PE. Intervention helps us close student gaps in learning and extend and enrich learning for all students. It doesn’t matter if a student is currently high achieving or struggling--both are getting the support they need to grow and improve their learning. During Monday’s Bronco Breakdown, PE 4 Life was our innovation spotlight. A link to the piece is below. Have a great day!--Josh https://tinyurl.com/cooperpe4life Josh Vest, Ed.S. Principal, Cooper Elementary

Each Friday, we recognize students who have leveled up in Lexia, a program we use to improve literacy skills. Lexia provides students with literacy support that is individualized for each student. It helps support student strengths and growth areas. It’s an important part of our literacy program due to its ability to differentiate instruction for all 650 of our students. Our Lexia recognition on Fridays is called “Lexia Superstars,” and we announce the names of all students who leveled up that week. Since the start of “Lexia Superstars” a couple of weeks ago, we have seen an 88% increase in students leveling up in Lexia. That is pretty impressive and showcases the work of our students to improve their reading skills. Please encourage your student(s) to become Lexia Superstars throughout the year. We will continue this practice each Friday to celebrate their learning and growth. The goal of most schools is typically to be a high achieving school. We want to be a high growth school and to improve learning and achievement of all students.--Josh

This Friday, October 7, is our October Round Up. This month’s theme is Rocktober, and students are welcome to wear their rockstar and band gear. Last month, we had an incredible turnout, and because of that turnout, we have to limit parent attendance this month to stay within fire code regulations. I wish we could invite all of you, but we have to limit parent attendance to the following: Parents of emcees, parents of performers, and parents of Big 3 award recipients. We will live stream the Rocktober Round Up via Google Meet Friday morning to create a way for all of our Cooper families to be included. That link will go out by 7:40 Friday. If you join the link, please turn your camera off when you enter the Google Meet. There will be quite a few people on the same meet, and cameras consume a large amount of bandwidth. We are excited about Round Up and celebrating our students with our students.--Josh https://tinyurl.com/cesrocktober

Coach Lewis would like for you to come join us for our third annual Cooper RUN3rd 5K and fun run. The last time we had a 5K and a duathlon, it was a blast. This time, Coach Lewis and her team are keeping it simple by having a chip timed 5K and an untimed fun run. All participants will receive a t-shirt and a finishing medal while supplies last! Click the link below to register. Thank you all for supporting our running club! https://app.regwiz.io/register/coop/949

This week, Mrs. Dumes closed out our September counseling focus by reiterating the month’s key concepts for students. This included revising trust, safe places, and breathing techniques. She also introduced the pretzel technique to help students calm down and build coping skills when upset or anxious. Click the link below to view the Counselor Connection from this week’s Bronco Breakdown. https://tinyurl.com/926CEScouns

The Cooper PTO has two fundraisers at the moment that will have big impacts on our students and staff. Here is how these fundraisers work:  Kindness Calendar: The Kindness Calendar wraps up tomorrow, so there is still time to participate and support Cooper. So far, PTO has reached nearly 70% of its goal. Mrs. Mayhew is in the lead on the class donations leaderboard, but Mrs. Willis is catching up! Click the link below to learn more about the Kindness Calendar. To donate, simply visit the aforementioned link and select “Donate.” All donations go directly to Cooper kids.  Kindness Calendar Link: https://app.memberhub.gives/kindnesscalendar/Campaign/Details Panda Express: If you place an online order tomorrow at Panda Express, Cooper receives 28% of the total. I repeat: 28% percent. All you have to do is place an order online for pickup or delivery for Friday, September 30th and enter our code 909983. This fundraiser is available at all Panda Express locations nationwide. Go to https://www.pandaexpress.com/order to start your Panda Express order. Remember: This is only for orders placed for tomorrow, September 30.  I want to thank the PTO for their creative fundraising efforts. Donations go straight to our students and staff. In the past, fundraisers have supported school events such as fall carnival and STREAM nights as well as instructional supports such as literacy tools, our outdoor classroom, Weekly Readers, the annual Bentonville Reads book orders, classroom materials for math and science, and so much more. Thank you, Cooper PTO!--Josh

Good afternoon! It is hard to believe, but October is just around the corner. In October, there are several important dates. Here are some important dates in October: Fall Break: October 17-19 End of the First Quarter: October 19 Parent Teacher Conferences: October 24 from 3-5 and October 27 from 3-7. Fall Carnival: October 28 For a full calendar of all district dates, click the link below. The linked PDF is also available at https://www.bentonvillek12.org/ in the top right corner. One of the menu options is “Calendar.” I hope you all have had a great Tuesday. Have a great evening! --Josh https://tinyurl.com/CooperDates

This morning’s Bronco Breakdown featured a quick review of our morning procedures here at Cooper. Our gate inside is closed from 7:00-7:20 so we can ensure our students are supervised and centrally located.  Our students have three options between 7:00 and 7:20:  1. Cafeteria- Breakfast 2. Gym- Music & Walking  3. Library- Reading Students are allowed to choose any of the above options in the morning, and they stay in their selected option until 7:20. The cafeteria is used primarily for eating breakfast, but there are places for students to gather and visit prior to the 7:20 bell. In the gym, students listen to music and walk the perimeter. In the library, students read.  At 7:20, our students make their way to their classrooms where they are greeted at the door by their teacher. I just want to keep you all informed about how your student starts his or her day once they walk through our doors. Click the link below to view the morning procedures video. Have a great evening!--Josh https://tinyurl.com/CESmorning 

In this week’s Counselor Connection, Mrs. Dumes revisited classroom safe places and trust, our core essential value for the month of September. She also shared a breathing technique, the balloon exercise. A link to this week’s Counselor Connection is below.  I want to take a moment to thank our counselor, Mrs. Dumes, for her work this year. This is her first year at Cooper Elementary, and she is hitting it out of the park. Mrs. Dumes has already built strong relationships with our students and staff, and she is continually finding ways to make our counseling program more accessible and dynamic. She has quickly become a critical member of our team. Plus, she is a joy to work with each and every day.  If you have not had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Dumes, I recommend taking a moment to find her in the morning or afternoon car line. She is awesome, and we are a better school because of her work.--Josh https://tinyurl.com/ces919counselor

Yesterday our school’s leadership team met. One of the items on our agenda was to review a new logo design. Cooper has several logos dating back to our opening in 2007. It was time for us to unite behind one logo. I’m excited to share our new logo with you. Here is our logo moving forward. We are excited about this design and will start incorporating it at Cooper Elementary. --Josh

Did you know that Cooper Elementary is an Arkansas School of Innovation (SOI)? Cooper has had SOI status since 2016. The state defines SOI schools as, "SOI-designated schools are engaged in practices that are intended to improve academic performance and learning for all students. Arkansas school administrators who aspire to lead a School of Innovation are encouraged to design new and creative alternatives to the existing instructional and administrative practices in their schools." If you spend a little time in our school, you’ll see why we are a SOI: We have a creative team from PE to the classroom and from intervention to our special services. However, it is sometimes forgotten that we are a SOI. The SOI status will be a bigger part of our school moving forward. It’s part of our identity. We want to showcase the work of our students and staff, and we want to intentionally seek practices and systems to foster and grow innovation at Cooper. Today’s Bronco Breakdown featured a segment about innovation at Cooper. Click the link below to watch the Innovation Spotlight segment. Have a great evening! --Josh https://tinyurl.com/CooperSOI

Good afternoon! It was another great day at Cooper Elementary. In 2nd grade, students were not students--they were doctors. They were not working in the classroom--they were transported to the Cooper Memorial Hospital for sentence surgery. Our 2nd grade team hit it out of the park with this project, creating an engaging way for students to learn about sentence parts such as subject, predicate, nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and more. It was great to see kids getting off of the bus this morning in lab coats and stethoscopes. It was even better to see them work together to learn about sentences. Teachers were in full costume and even provided gloves, shoe covers, masks, and hair nets for the kids. I want to give a big shoutout to all of our young doctors and their excellent doctor sentence surgeons, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Clark, Mrs. High, Mrs. Walden, Mrs. Williams, and Mrs. Yearber. Sentence surgery was a great way to end a great week. Now, go have a great weekend, Cooper families! —Josh

The next time you see a member of the Bella Vista Police Department, please thank them for their service and support of our students. Their team goes above and beyond to help serve and support our Cooper kids. For example, last week they created an interactive experience for 4th grade students to share the importance of community service. This week, they were here biking with our PE students and helping teach students bike safety. They are continually present at our school, extending a helping hand and teaching kids the importance of community. They are role models for all of us, and we are thankful for their service at Cooper and within our community.

This is just a quick reminder that tomorrow is fall picture day. We look forward to seeing our students take their first official school picture of the year. Have a great evening! -Josh