August 2, 2019

Dear Parents and Community Members,

Welcome Back to School! I am excited to begin my first year as your Cascade elementary principal. Over the past few years, Cascade has become my home, and I look forward to working with you in a new capacity.

This is my fifth year in the Cascade School District and my nineteenth year in education. My husband and I are originally from Texas, but we fell in love with the people of Montana and decided to move our family here. We have lived in Montana for thirteen years and are very thankful we chose to raise our children here.

As many of you know, we have had a few changes to our school day. We are now conducting a four-day school week, Monday-Thursday. Our first day of school will be Monday, August 19th. We will begin our school day at 8:00 a.m. as usual but will release EK-3 at 3:45 p.m. and grades 4-12 at 3:51 p.m. There are two Fridays scheduled for students to attend. The first Friday is our Homecoming on October 4, 2019. The other is the last Friday before Christmas break, December 20, 2019. Please feel free to contact me, or any other administrator, if you have any questions regarding our new school schedule.

I would like to take this time to welcome Mrs. Kelly Rumney to the elementary staff. Mrs. Rumney has been Cascade’s Junior High math and science teacher for the past five years and will be our 4/5/6 math teacher this year. I am excited to have her on staff and just as equally excited to see the marvelous things our entire elementary team will bring to our students.

Although we are going through some changes this year, there are many things staying the same. For reading and math, we will continue to utilize and enhance our “Walk to” intervention programs to meet the needs of all students. Our teachers will continue teaching from our Eureka Math series to meet Montana’s learning standards and are amazed at the depth of understanding our students have gained since implementing this program. It is a goal at Cascade Elementary that every student makes a full year’s growth this school year, and I am excited to work with our talented and committed staff to accomplish this goal.

Our Back to School Night is Thursday, August 15, between 5:30-7:00. We will have a BBQ provided by Xcell! in the cafeteria during this time. Please join us so we can get to know one another better, and you can visit your child’s classroom and meet with his/her teacher. I look forward to working with each and every Cascade family, so please feel free to come by and visit anytime….my door is always open.

Thank you for all of your support,