Dear Parents and Students:

Clear Creek held its annual Geography Bee final on January 10th.  We had student finalists representing the 4^th-8^th grades.  Each of our finalists did a fantastic job and we are very proud of them!  Our school champion is 6^th grade student, Nya Lyman.  Congratulations to all of our student contestants!

February also marks the annual Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) survey.  The Site Council will be sending you the survey in order to update you on the progress of our goals on student academics, achievement, and environment, and get your input for the upcoming school year.  I would ask you to please take the time to fill out this electronic survey as your input is critical to our school.

Over break, the school had a generator installed that will power the Admin. Building in the event of a sudden power outage.  We have also purchased some lanterns for classrooms, and have access to lunches that we will not need to put in the oven.  By doing this, we hope not to have to miss anymore instructional time this winter due to weather related outages once the students are at school.  We had our first opportunity to try out our new systems on January 28^th when the power went out around 11:30 AM.  The generator did its job, we delivered lanterns to the rooms, and our cold lunches were distributed.  The outage lasted only about an hour, but it was a good test for staff, students, and equipment.  This is not a solution for the Fall PSPS days that pose a wildfire threat.  That is something all schools and county offices of education still need to work out, but for our school where winter outages are not uncommon, it will enable our students not to miss more instructional time this year.

Lastly, attendance is critical for your child’s success at school.  Not only is attendance important for your child’s learning and social development, it is important to the school both financially and for our rating on the California School Dashboard.  The California School Dashboard is an accountability system used by the state to display data it collects on schools in the area of academic success and as of 2018, Chronic Absenteeism.  Chronic Absenteeism is defined as missing 10% of school days for any reason.  Excused and unexcused absences are used to calculate this number.

Please try to schedule any dental or medical appointments later in the school day or after school, so that your child misses the least amount of school.  (I know as a parent this can be challenging, so I really do appreciate your efforts.)  Besides your child missing out on their education and social interactions, the school loses money if a student is not in attendance for any reason.  That amount amounted to $48,396.00 in lost revenue for our school last year.  If you are going to be gone for 5 or more days, you can sign your child up for Independent Study.  Independent Study allows your child to keep up with their class, receive attendance credit, and the school receives revenue during their absence.  Please give teachers as much notice as possible to gather your child’s work if this need arises.  Thank you and I sincerely appreciate your cooperation.

Happy New

Superintendent/ Principal Carolyn Cramer