Dakota school district and daycare closed Fri. Dec. 21

HS Final Exams

High School Finals for Friday dec. 21st will be periods 3,5, and 8.  Period 3 final will begin at 9:30.  January 7th will be a review day and finals for periods 1 and 7 will be on January 8th. 

REMINDER THAT TOMORROW IS A SCHEDULED EARLY RELEASE DAY OF 1:30

SCHOOL CLOSED DEC 20TH

DUE TO EXTREME WEATHER CONDITIONS THE DAKOTA SCHOOL AND DAYCARE WILL BE CLOSED TODAY DEC. 20

The district would like to express our sympathy for the victims and their families and empathy for the citizens and our school counterparts in Newtown, Connecticut. 

The Dakota School District stresses the safety and welfare of our students and it is the top priority in our school district, and—while there is no plan that can totally prevent a random act of senseless violence like this—our district has a school safety plan in place that has been reviewed by faculty, administration and local law enforcement authorities and is practiced by faculty and staff.  There are always lessons learned from each incident and as those emerge, the district will review and implement those lessons learned as appropriate.  If our students have questions or are having problems in light of this tragic event, the district Social Worker will be available. 

Dakota Speedway

Mr. Visel's Junior High Elective class created their own Matchbox Speedsters.  The students needed to draw, draft, and make their own drag racers.  The students then held the annual Dakota Drag Race in the hallway.  Great lesson and thanks for using the creativity of the students. 

Dakota High School Art Club is participating in the Holiday Window Painting Contest at Bocker Auto Group in Freeport on South St. Please support them by stopping in at Bocker and voting for their window “Don’t Stop Believing”.  It has been a wonderful fundraising opportunity for Art Club for four years now and the students really enjoy painting the large showroom windows.  Art Club members did a great job this year creating an Andy Warhol Pop Art inspired window of the main characters from the movie Miracle on 34^th St.

Voting is open until December 22^nd.

Holiday Concerts

On Monday, Dec. 10 the Kindergarten, First and Second Graders put on a wonderful performance to start off the holiday season.  The title of the concert was The Mice Before Christmas. 

On Tuesday, Dec. 11 the Fifth and Sixth grade students added to the holiday season by preforming an instrumental and vocal concert.  The students have been working very hard for the performance. 

Both of the performances were directed by Jennifer Fox and Annette Hackbarth. 

100 Dakota Elementary students brought their families to the Family Reading Night on November 29^th.  The theme was “Owls, Books, and Bears. Oh my!” Families followed the yellow brick road to the gym, where Wizard of Oz characters invited all to Follow the Yellow Brick Road with them to the land of great books.  Mrs. Samuelson and Mrs. Curry did a fun skit to the book, Crazy Hair by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean.  Then families went off on their forest adventure to the Bear Den where, greeted by Bicksler Bear, they read bear books together; to the Owlery, where Mrs. Russell and friends helped them make owl bookmarks; to the Bat Cave where they saw Stellaluna on the smartboard; to Storybook Forest where students did a book walk and everyone got a new book (thanks to PTO).  The Wizard of Oz characters (high school choir students) led everyone back to the gym where a munchkin (Hannah Harshbarger) representing the Fairy Tale Bunch and the Nursery Rhyme League welcomed them to Readingland.  The tin man (Colin Ebbers), the scarecrow (Bailey Hoffman),and the lion (Jameel Buss) sang ‘If I Only Had a Book”. Dorothy (Maddie Aalund) shared “Somewhere In the Library…”, and then they all sent everyone off on the yellow brick road once more to the wonderful world of great books.  Everyone left with a treat bag and a family picture. The event was planned and presented by the Dakota Elementary Reading Team and funded by the Dakota PTO.