News and events

January 19, 2025

Our Character Strong trait for January is PERSEVERANCE. Check out what each grade level is working on:

• Kindergarten

• First Grade

• Second Grade

• Third Grade

• Fourth Grade

• Fifth Grade

Hello Hoover Families,

It is another short week with NO SCHOOL for students on Monday, January 20th for Martin Luther King, Jr Day.

As we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we take a moment to reflect on the incredible contributions Dr. King made toward building a more just and compassionate society. His unwavering commitment to equality, kindness, and nonviolence continues to inspire us all to work toward a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

Tomorrow is not only a time to honor his legacy, but also an opportunity for each of us to think about how we can contribute to positive change in our communities. Whether through acts of kindness, standing up for fairness, or simply listening with an open heart, we can all play a part in creating a better future.

Let us celebrate Dr. King's vision, remembering that every small act of goodwill has the power to create ripples of positive change.

The temperature starts off FRIGID this week, but does warm up a little. But not warm enough to not have students bring all of their winter gear. So please continue to send everything! We will continue to have recess outside unless the air temp is 0 degrees or -10 degrees with windchill. Thank you for your help in keeping all of our students warm and safe! We appreciate your help with keeping our students warm for arrival, recess, and dismissal time.

This week's events:

• Monday, January 20 - No School/Holiday/District Closed

• Monday, January 20-Friday, January 24 - Para Recognition Week

• Wednesday, January 23 - Kindergarten Hearing/Vision Screening

Best,

Mrs. Strusz

P.S. In case you missed the last Hoover Family Updates. Click here to view.

P.S.S. Check out last week's Hoover Howl News video announcement. Click here to view.

• Thursday, January 30 - Gr 5 DARE

• Thursday, January 30 - Reading Family Night

• Friday, January 31 - Gr 3 STEMH SMMN Engineering Onsite Field Experience

• Friday, January 31 - American Indian Ed Groups

Please join us on Thursday, January 30th from 5:30-7:00, for our Hoover Family Reading Night. Bring the whole family for a night of reading fun and a light dinner. All students need to be accompanied by an adult. Invites were sent home last week with students. Please return the bottom portion of the flyer by January 24th so we can make sure we have enough materials and food. Reach out to your student's teacher with any questions.

Hoover is excited to partner up with the Dental Sealants Program this year to bring dental care ONSITE at Hoover for students in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. Students brought home permission forms - please reach out to your student's teacher if you need another one. The Dental Sealants Program will be at Hoover, Wednesday, February 19 - Friday, February 21.

Hoover Elementary will host a community blood drive with the American Red Cross on Wednesday, February 26th from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. at Hoover Elementary.

For more information or to make an appointment to donate, call 763-506-2890 or sign up online at bit.ly/HooverGiveBlood.

Hoover Elementary is committed to strengthening our community and helping meet hospital and patient needs through blood donations. This blood drive is our way of giving staff, colleagues and families an opportunity to help save lives.

Blood is a perishable product that can only come from volunteer blood donors. With someone in the U.S. needing blood every two seconds, blood products must be constantly replenished, according to the Red Cross.

We urge community members to donate blood and help ensure that patients in local hospitals have a supply of blood ready and waiting before an emergency occurs. There's no better feeling than knowing that your blood donation may give someone a second chance at life.

According to the Red Cross, donors with all blood types are needed, especially those with types O negative, A negative and B negative.

Students kept their bodies moving and strengthened their core, as well as, challenged themselves in Phy. Ed classes - trying out the many courses that were set out. Click here for more pictures.

Students were introduced to their music credit options. They learned about the different instruments and sections that are in the band, choir, and orchestra. They also got to learn about the new class options they can register for next year in middle school; including the Music Theory class and the Digital Arts class.

In the Yellowstone Uncovered Module of TwigScience, students have been learning about what do plants and animals need to grow and heal. Along with how matter moves through an ecosystem. Students built their own ecosystems. This past week they were able to add earthworms (decomposers) to the ecosystems to observe how the they interact with ecosystems.

Hoover staff had fun with an "underground" spirit week this past week - one where the students did not know about! It was fun watching the students and their faces as they tried to piece things together. This was a great event that sparked curiosity, honed in on observation skills and encouraged students to look for patterns amongst the staff, and ask inquisitive questions to find out what was going on!

• Monday - Sports Day
• Tuesday - Dress Fancy Day (AKA - Dress Like Mrs. Strusz Day 🤣)
• Wednesday - Monochrome Day
• Thursday - Anything But a "Cup" Day

Please send an extra pair of pants and underwear for your child in case there is an accident (bathroom, breakfast/lunch spill, etc.). The health office loves donations of gently used sweatpants and leggings sizes 5-10. We also appreciate new packs of underwear for boys and girls sizes 5-10.

The health office has free at home Covid tests. Email Darlene.Anderson@ahschools.us and we can send them home with your child.

Wondering if your child is well enough to come to school? Click here for more information.

If your child goes to the doctor or dentist, please request a doctor's note and send it with your child for attendance purposes.

I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend! Here are some quick updates in the VSC department:

Mrs. Erickson, our school nurse, is looking for 2 volunteers to come in from 11 to 2:30 on Jan 23rd to escort Kindergarten students to and from their hearing/vision screenings. Volunteers for this are a huge help to the staff to make sure students are quiet in the halls.

Our Kindergarten staff are looking for a few volunteers to come in on January 28th at 10:00am to interview and record answers to one question with each of the Kindergarteners. If we get enough volunteers this should be a quick task and it's always fun hearing what they have been learning.

We are prepping for lots of field experiences coming up, please make sure to get your paperwork into me at least 2 weeks before the date of the field experience or you may not be able to attend with your child. To attend field experiences, you must be 18 or older and have a volunteer application and background check completed.

Have a child that wants to volunteer? We would love to have middle schoolers return to Hoover to help during events as well as high schoolers. They can help at events like the Carnival, movie nights, Bingo Nights, etc. Anyone 17 or under wanting to volunteer just needs to fill out a volunteer application.

Sign ups for the above and all other current volunteer opportunities can be found HERE.

Just a reminder that any volunteer 18 years or older must complete the volunteer application and background check each school year. Those 17 and younger only need to complete the volunteer application each school year.

Please reach out Tina Fletcher, Volunteer Service Coordinator, at Tina.Fletcher@ahschools.us or 763.506.2830 with any questions.

Hello Hoover Staff and Families! We wanted to share an update about things we have planned for the year.

Read-A-Thon - February

We’ll host a Read-a-thon in February, and this event will rotate every other year with the Kids Heart Challenge. We’ll do our best to inspire the students as much as the Kids Heart Challenge did. One of our annual commitments is to donate $1000 to the Media Center for book purchases.

Spring Carnival - May

We will host the Spring Carnival in May. This event requires many volunteers, and you know we’ll ask you for help too. Feel free to share any feedback or suggestions through Mr. White.

HundredX - May

Our HundredX Fundraiser will return this school year. This one is awesome as it doesn’t require families and supporters to purchase anything. They simply complete questionnaires regarding their recent shopping trips or business interactions.

Fundraiser Nights

We’ll try to have either a restaurant night or a family entertainment night once a month. This is a great opportunity to bond with Hoover families and earn some funds for our initiatives.

PTO Meeting

Our PTO meeting time changed to 6:45 PM – 7:30 PM. We hope the time reduction will entice participation. The PTO Board will now meet beforehand to hash out plans that may overwhelm new attendees. Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of the month unless there is a conflict or need to change.

Classroom Amazon Lists

If you have an existing list or need one created, please send us an email. We will share them on our social media platforms throughout the year. The links will be housed on our Google site here.

We also have a page on our site that will list school & PTO items. Feel free to reference this page for your weekly updates to families.

Please reach out if you have any questions or feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for your support; we appreciate you!

Cheers!

Hoover PTO

Hoover PTO Facebook page

PTO's website

Hoover Elementary Facebook page

This month's Parent Press focuses on the importance of teaching coping skills and responding to stress behaviors. These behaviors may include hitting, crying, and non compliance. When caregivers help teach and model healthy coping skills, children have more success when dealing with big feelings and making friends.

Another option is to go to https://www.boxtops4education.com/ to learn more about downloading the app to scan receipts for box tops for Hoover Elementary.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District allows qualifying flyers from nonprofit groups to be distributed at school and sent home with students. These flyers have gone through the district approval process. A virtual gallery of flyers is also available. These events, classes and activities are not sponsored or endorsed by Anoka-Hennepin Schools.

This does NOT change our regular flyer policies or procedures! To have a flyer posted, the organization still needs to go through the process, be approved, and deliver paper flyers to schools in our district.