Sunday Snapshot: September 7, 2025

The safety of students, staff, and visitors is a top priority for Garvy School. To support this commitment Garvy and CPS conduct emergency preparedness drills on an annual basis, in line with the Illinois School Safety Drill Act. The goal of these safety drills is to improve our ability to respond in the event of an emergency in an effective and efficient manner.

The Illinois School Safety Drill Act requires a Hard Lockdown Drill be conducted annually. This year that drill is scheduled to take place on September 16th in partnership with the Chicago Police Department.  If you would rather your child not participate, please complete the following opt-out form and an alternative video will be shown. 

Lockdown Drill Parent Letter

Strong attendance is the first step toward success.  Regular attendance is crucial throughout a student’s academic journey. Chronic absenteeism means a student is missing too much school—about 10% or more of the school year—which can seriously affect their learning and success. 10% of the school year equates to around 18 days, or one day every two weeks.

There are 177 days in this school year. It is our goal to lower the number of students who are labeled chronically absent. Therefore, each student should aim to miss less than 17 days this school year. That equates to about 1-2 days per month. 

• For elementary students, missing 10%, or about 2 days each month over the course of a school year, can make it harder to learn to read.
• By 6th grade, absenteeism is one of three signs that a student may drop out of high school.
• By 9th grade, attendance is a better predictor of graduation rates than 8th grade test scores.
• Missing 10%, or 2 days a month, over the course of the school year, can affect a student’s academic success.

Let‘s work as a team to remove any obstacles that are keeping your child from school. 

The Quarter 1 AtTENdance challenge starts tomorrow from Monday, September 8 to the 19th. For these 10 school days, we want all students to be in attendance. The homerooms with 95% or better attendance will be invited to a special celebration.

LSC Updates - [email protected]

LSC members play an essential role in decisions that impact our school community, including approving the school-based academic plan, approving the alignment of budgetary resources, engaging in the annual evaluation of contract principals’ professional practices, and selecting or renewing contract principals.

We are currently looking to fill (2) Parent Representative positions and (1) Community Representative on our Local School Council (LSC). We are looking for volunteers who are supportive of Garvy’s vision and will bring positive energy to help Garvy continue to grow. Please note that the LSC meets once a month at 5pm. If you are interested, please read the instructions below.

Step 1: Understand the criteria to make sure you are eligible before you apply.

• Parent Representative: Must be a parent or legal guardian of a child currently enrolled at Garvy. Also, you cannot be an employee of CPS.
• Community Representative: Must be 17 years of age or older, reside in the Garvy attendance or voting area, cannot be the parent or legal guardian of a child currently enrolled at Garvy, nor an employee of CPS.

Step 2: Please complete the forms attached and bring them to the school by Wednesday, September 10th. We are not allowed to accept any applications after this time. Also, we cannot accept electronic copies. You can find the necessary forms below. 

Step 3: Included in the application is a personal statement that you will fill out explaining the qualities you possess to help Garvy’s LSC. You will have the opportunity to read this statement and share anything else you want with the LSC at the September 17th meeting at 5:00 pm. Please be aware that making a statement at the meeting is optional.

Step 4: The LSC will go into closed session to review the applications. When they return to the public forum, they will state if they would like to fill the open position and vote on the applicants to join the LSC. They also have the opportunity to reopen the application window if they choose.

If you have any questions about the application process, please contact the LSC Chair, Krissy Estrada [email protected] or LSC member, Stephanie Bester [email protected].

• Candidate Nomination Form [ English | Spanish ]
• Criminal Conviction Disclosure Form [ English | Spanish ]
• Telephone Number Disclosure Form [ English | Spanish ]
• Candidate Statement Form (Optional) [ English | Spanish ]

You will need two forms of identification to complete the nomination packet. Examples of acceptable forms of identification include: