LCES Panther Cub Communication #13

by zalmeida · October 24, 2025

October 27th – October 30th 2025

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LCES Families,

Thank you families for your flexibility and understanding as we navigated the 2 hour delay on Tuesday due to the community wide power outage. Overall, the day went well. Please save our office cell phone number in your contact list, as this phone number is more often available compared to our landline number: 719-293-0931. This number is also available to send and receive text messages.

Brr, it’s getting cold out there! If your child is in need of winter clothes, please reach out to the front office. Please begin to start sending warm clothes with your child each day as recess will be outside as long as it’s warmer than 10 degrees real temp or 0 degrees wind chill.

Next week we will be celebrating Halloween! See the letter and flier below for more detailed information. Students are welcome to come to school dressed in their costume on Thursday, as long as it’s school appropriate, meaning no weapons, masks, or face paint. Then, we look forward to welcoming you to our Family Fun Night Trick or Treat festival on Thursday from 6:00-7:00pm. It’s sure to be a great week ahead!

We hope your family has a great fall weekend!

Brandi Lovely, PK-2 Principal

blovely@lakecountyschools.net

LCES Important Dates (PK – 2nd)

October 30: K-2 Panther Day during Specials, K-2 Community Meeting led by 1st grade: Respect, K-2 Dollar Day- Halloween Rubber Ducky (flier below),Trick or Treat Festival Family Fun Night 6:00-7:00pm @ LCES (flier below)

November 13: K-2 Panther Day During Specials: Thanksgiving Fun!

November 20: LCES Thanksgiving Lunch (times & flier to come soon)

November 24-28: No School, Thanksgiving Break

Helpful Link: Lake County School District Calendar

K-2 Specifics

IXL: Information on IXL was sent home at conferences and we love tracking to see who is working on IXL at home. We encourage you to use IXL as an additional learning resource for literacy and math. If you have any questions about accessing the website or logging on, please reach out to Mrs. Lovely at blovely@lakecountyschools.net. Thank you families for continuing to work with your child at home to support learning and academic growth!

HOWLs Challenge: Our quarter 2 HOWLs challenge has already begun and we are excited to have lunch with the principals for those winners in December! Remind your students to continue showing our HOWLs each and every day: collaboration, respect, responsibility, craftsmanship, compassion, perseverance, curiosity, creativity.

October Reading Challenge: Next week is the last week for our October reading challenge and the opportunity for your child to bring in their completed reading log for a special prize from Mrs. Mulcey’s treasure of prizes. Thank you to everyone who has participated this month and we love encouraging happy readers!

Attendance:

Congratulations to our Oct 13th-23rd pizza attendance challenge winner! We hope your family enjoys some delicious pizza and thank you for having zero absences for the last 2 weeks of school! Remember to use the attendance tracking calendar at home with your student to help your student keep on track for all of the fun challenges and prizes we have regarding attendance this year. See details about our next pizza attendance challenge and the semester 1 attendance challenge in the fliers section below!

October Attendance Challenge: We have started our next monthly attendance challenge! The class with the best attendance percentage for the whole month will receive an extra recess with Ms. Rapke. Please try to send your student to school every day, unless they are too sick. We appreciate your help in reaching our 94% attendance goal!

K-2 Project Dream

Updated Contact Information:

LCES Project Dream has updated contact information due to a leave of absence for our Site Supervisor, Raquel. If you are need to contact Project Dream at LCES, please use the following methods:

For day-of changes to your afterschool plan, please contact Zee Almeida before 2:30 pm: 719-486-6890 zalmeida@lakecountyschools.net. This is the best way to communicate changes.
To reach a Project Dream staff member during programs in the case of an emergency (3:15pm to 6:00pm Monday -Thursday, 7:45am to 3:30pm Friday) please call the LCES Project Dream cell phone: 719-293-5363. Please leave a text message if we do not answer.
If you are unable to reach anyone in a true emergency, please call Mike Adler at 719-427-7003
For changes in registration (add days, reduce days), please email Raquel Contreras at rcontreras@lakecountyschools.net

No Programs Friday 10/24/25

Project Dream has a staff training planned for Friday October 24th. There will be no Friday programs.

The Center Specifics

Hi Families!

Next week brings our annual Trick or Treat Family Fun Night. This is a candy free event that brings an opportunity for inside trick or treating throughout our school. This will be held on Thursday October 30 from 6-7. Reference the flier below or your child’s yellow folder for more information.

Next Thursday we are also encouraging children to wear their costumes to school for the day. Staff will be joining in on the costume fun too! Please remember that The Center does not allow outside food, even for special activities such as Halloween. See your child’s yellow folder for full information regarding next Thursday.

We ask that families always use The Center’s main entrance to enter or exit the building. Our side doors are for use by staff only. Please do not use these exits, but go out our main doors. We appreciate your attention to this, it is the best way to keep our building safe and secure.

It is getting chilly but we still love our outside playtime and we want children to be comfortable despite the colder temps. Send your child with a jacket and hat and mittens or gloves every day. It is best to label all your child’s items with their first and last name. Teachers appreciate this as they support many children with getting ready for outside play at once and we can ensure misplaced items are returned to you! If your family would benefit from a provided coat, reach out to your classroom teachers. We have sponsors that donate children winter items to our program and it is best when we can distribute them to families for use.

Thank you families for helping us navigate our first 2 hour delay this year! It went smoothly and we appreciate our families’ attention to the schedule changes.

The weekend is here, hope it is a good one! See you Monday!

Tanya Lenhard, Director

719-486-6928 (work); 719-293-1055 (cell)

tdlenhard@lakecountyschools.net

From the Assistant Director

Hello Families,

Another great week here at The Center.

Please remember when dropping off your child/picking them up that you are signing them in and out on the sign in sheets. If you are using the door bell to gain access, please remember to push the button until you hear it click. That is the only way we can hear the bell from the office to know someone is here waiting.

November tuition fees were posted to your child’s account yesterday. Payments are due by November 1st. If you are having issues with Powerhub to make your payment online, please let me know.

Please remember to label all items for your child with first and last name.

If your child rides the bus please make sure to call 719-486-6890 or 719-427-7075, for any bus changes.

Have a great weekend!

If you have any questions, please free to contact me:

Marissa Martinez

Assistant Preschool Director719-486-6927 mamartinez@lakecountyschools.net

Family Engagement Corner

Continuing with our theme “Kids in the Kitchen,” I have included a list of basic Kitchen Supplies that would be helpful to have on hand.

I have also included a Vocabulary List (which can be made into Flashcards) that would be helpful (and fun) for your Preschooler to learn. Learning the name of the item as well as its function in the kitchen is a great way for them to gain confidence and be prepared for some KITCHEN FUN!

There are copies available of these charts as well as the Kitchen Safety List in The Center Parent Corner just inside of the front doors (to the left). Feel free to pick-up this information to display and use at home.

Rhonda H. DeVoe

The Center Preschool Family and Community Engagement Manager rdevoe@lakecountyschools.net Office Phone (719) 486-6925 and Cell Phone (719) 293-1403