School year in full swing at Southgate Elementary

Published 9:41 am Friday, September 30, 2011

By Edwina Harder

Southgate Elementary Principal

As principal of Southgate Elementary, I would like to take this opportunity to let you know about the great things going on in our school. Southgate is located in the southwest corner of Austin. We serve students primarily in the southwest area of town, but our attendance boundaries do cross over into southeast and northeast Austin as well.

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Southgate has approximately 540 students attending school during the 2011-2012 year. We have five sections of first grade, five sections of second grade, and four sections each of third, fourth, and fifth grade. We proudly house three classrooms of specialized elementary programming for students with special needs. Our school has a number of specialists who work with children: four reading and math specialists, a gifted/talented specialist, two English learner specialists, several special education teachers, and a school social worker and a school psychologist. Finally, we have a number of support staff who assist students in the cafeteria, kitchen, playground, office, library, computer labs, and in the classroom. This staff allows us to offer programming to meet students’ needs.

Our hard-working staff is always looking at ways to keep students involved. We have a variety of student activities for children to choose from:

•Peace Patrol — Fourth and fifth grade students volunteer to go through training on how to peacefully solve issues between students. This group patrols the hallway, cafeteria, and playground to help students.

•Safety Patrol — Fourth and fifth grade students volunteer to serve as safety patrols before and after school. They serve on the corners around the building, helping to safely cross walkers/bike riders to and from school.

•Southgate Singers — Fifth grade students choose to be a part of this group that practices during their recess time once a week. These students perform at concerts and they share the holiday spirit by caroling at various nursing homes during the winter holidays.

•Robotics Team — Fifth grade students apply to be a part of this group that participates in a competition during the winter months.

•Student Council — Third, fourth, and fifth grade students are selected by their peers to represent them on this group. They meet monthly to choose various projects the school will support.

•After School Academy — Students in grades 1-5 have a variety of offerings that they can choose from (i.e. sewing club, lego league, school play, academic club). These programs will run from November-March.

Students at Southgate learn about “above the line/below the line” behavior, and are instructed in the six traits of Character Counts (trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship). We work hard to help students see that they are responsible for their choices. Our classrooms work on anti-bullying lessons as well.

We have a number of special events that we celebrate together at Southgate. Our school has monthly assemblies to celebrate the achievements of students. We also have “spirit Fridays” where we encourage students to dress in Gator gear or Austin Packer gear to support our school/district. Our school has a walk-a-thon each September to fundraise for our school year. This year our event will be held on Sept. 27. In October we have an all-school Halloween parade. We have a Veteran’s Day breakfast in November, our holiday concerts in December, our read-a-thon in January/February, our Tree Trust Day in May, and our all-school dance in June.

This year we have a number of parent/family events planned, including a Bingo night, a movie night, and even a student talent show night. We have a very active Parent Teacher Council (PTC) that meets once a month. Their mission is to support students and provide for “extras” that are outside of the regular district budget. They plan a yearly carnival in March and a farewell event for our fifth graders in May/June.

We are very proud of the work we do at Southgate. Children receive a strong education here. Please feel free to visit our school if you would like more information. Thank you for your support of our school and district.