Please join in with all of us in welcoming Miss Manda Pond to our Moses Stars staff. Manda Pond joined our Moses family just recently during the month of February as a new instructional aide. We are very lucky to get work with her at Dorothy Moses Elementary. 

Our yearly Moses Cash Raffle is back. It will officially begin on March 3rd and run until March 22nd. We will have a Moses raffle kickoff on March 3rd in which all students and staff will learn about the safe and important school raffle process. All Moses students and staff members will then be receiving and taking home a Moses Cash raffle manilla envelope. Inside the envelope will be an important raffle explanatory family letter, a booklet of ten cash raffle tickets, and a prize level sheet showing additional possible student prizes that can be earned by voluntary participation in selling the raffle ticket booklets. Each cash raffle ticket costs $10.00 for a chance to win one of several wonderful cash prize winnings. If you would like to request more raffle ticket booklets, return the envelope with the number of booklets you would like to request on the label found on the outside of the envelope to the office. All unsold remaining tickets and booklets must be returned to the Moses office by the deadline of March 22nd, even if you choose not to participate.  Participation in the raffle selling is completely voluntary. The big cash raffle drawings will be held on March 24th. Winners will be notified. Money collected and raised goes directly back to Dorthy Moses School and the Moses P.T.O. to pay for future Moses spending costs such as providing daily fresh fruit and veggie snacks and other building remodeling update expenses. Thank you for your wonderful assistance and generous support during our exciting cash raffle experience at Dorothy Moses Elementary!

During the week of March 6th-March 10th, celebrate Fruit & Veggie Week with us by dressing up in your various colors at Dorothy Moses Elementary. Wear the color or colors listed down below to match up with one of our possible daily fresh fruit or veggie snacks that may be discussed, served, and eaten each day during Fresh Fruit & Veggie Week.

On Monday, March 6th - Wear the colors of Brown, Tan, & White

On Tuesday, March 7th - Wear the colors of Orange & Yellow

On Wednesday, March 8th - Wear the color Red

On Thursday, March 9th - Wear the colors of Black, Blue, & Purple

On Friday, March 10th - Wear the color Green

Camp Edventure is a free six-week elementary summer school program that focuses on reading and math. Classes will be in session each day from 8:00am-12:00pm starting June 5th through July 18th (no school on July 4th and 5th) at each Bismarck Public School elementary school. Children entering grades 1-5 in the fall of 2023, whose parents live in the Bismarck Public School District, and who are committed to attending the entire six-week session are eligible to attend Camp Edventure. The goal is that children who enroll in Camp Edventure will maintain or improve their academic skills in reading and math.

Parents and guardians can now register their BPS student for Camp Ed online using PowerSchool or fill out a paper form and turn it in to their child's current school. Online registration opens at noon on Monday, January 30th and continues through Monday, March 20th. All registrations received by Monday, March 20th will be guaranteed a spot. Late registrations will be placed on a waiting list and parents will be notified if space becomes available.

To REGISTER ONLINE, simply Login in to PowerSchool at http://bismarck.ps.state.nd.us. If you don't have a login, contract your building secretary to get started.

1. Once you've signed in, click on the "Forms on the left side.

2. Select the "Camp Edventure Registration Form," fill it out with your student's information, and submit.

An email/text confirming your child's registration will be sent beginning March 6th for those registered prior to March 3rd. For registrations received between March 3rd and 20th, you will receive a confirmation email/text within a week of submitting your registration. If you have any questions, contact your school's office at 701-323-4180.

Registration Deadline: The deadline for registering is Monday, March 20, 2023. Please register online or fill out one registration form per child that will be attending and return it to your child's school office. Make sure that each registration form is signed by a parent or legal guardian.

Transportation: Busing service is not provided for Camp Edventure. Parents will need to provide transportation.

School Hours: Class begins at 8:00 am and ends at 12:00 noon each day from June 5th-July 18th. Due to limited funding, there is no supervision for children either before or after 12:00. All children need to either get picked up at noon or be signed up for the Moses Summer CREA Program through our Moses CREA Coordinator, Brandon Fisher. The Moses CREA phone number is 391-4644 for additional CREA summer program questions.

It is important for planning purposes that every effort is made to register your child by the March 20th deadline. If you need to withdraw your child at a later date, please notify your child's school so that a child on the waiting list can be placed.

We have a tremendous amount of clothing items along with lunch boxes left behind in our Lost & Found already, even though we are only a month into our school year!  Please remind your child to check the Lost & Found area located inside the Moses gym daily at the end of the day. Periodically, items will be donated when our bin is overflowing, so parents, please also feel welcome to take a look the next time you are at Moses.

A few additional extra reminders for all our students that are inside any and all school areas. Whether you are in your classroom, gym, hallway, library, lunchroom, music, or office, please remember to be respectful and follow all school safety rules that have been discussed. All hats need to be removed or taken off during school hours. All hoodies need to be worn with the hood down in school during school hours. All student cell phones and student watches need to be off or placed inside backpacks in school during school hours. 

Electronic devices (cellphones) and watches (ex. Gizmos, Apple Watches, etc.) are not allowed to be on, or worn during the school day. Upon arrival on school grounds, students should secure their devices/watches in their backpacks where they should be off during the entire school day. Students may turn on/put on their devices at 3:05 when the school day is over.

Thank you for understanding and for your assistance!

Did You Know?

• Starting in kindergarten, too many absences can cause children to fall behind in school.
• Missing 10 percent (or two days a month) will make it harder to learn to read.
• Students can still fall behind if they miss just a day or two days every few weeks.
• Being late for school may lead to poor attendance and interrupt student learning.
• Absences can affect the whole classroom if the teacher has to slow down learning to help children catch up.

Attending school regularly helps children feel better about school – and themselves.  Start building this habit early on, even in kindergarten, so they learn right away that going to school on time, every day, is important.  Good attendance will help children do well in high school, college and at work (attendanceworks.org).
Dorothy Moses staff strives to support families in providing the gift of school attendance to each student.  Attendance letters are sent when the number of absences or tardy days is concerning.  Please view these letters as a reminder and make sure to ask questions if you are unclear about the correspondence we send home.
If your child is going to be absent from school, please contact the school office at 323-4180.  If students have medical appointments or notes indicating they should not be in school due to illness, please bring a copy of their appointment information to the school office.  We would like to thank every single Moses family for their efforts in establishing and promoting good school attendance.

Bismarck Public Schools is changing their attendance policy slightly with the kickoff of the new school year for the sake of consistency throughout the district.  What does this mean for your student(s)?  Most absences and late arrivals will be coded the way they always have been, but things are changing slightly with early dismissals. Our policy up to this point has been, any early checkouts after 2 pm have not counted towards your child’s attendance. However, this current school year any checkouts after 2pm will be considered an early dismissal and WILL in fact count towards their overall attendance as a tardy. If your child is still getting picked up or having to leave early in the afternoon for an appointment, please provide the office with a medical note upon your child's return to school so we can medically excuse their absence or tardiness. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

If you have any questions, please call our Moses office at 323-4180.

Medical Appointments

Please provide the office with a note from the medical provider when your child is absent from school due to an appointment, even if only a portion of the day.  We will code that absence as ‘medical’ and it will not count towards their count of total absences.

Tis the time for cold and flu symptoms. However, there are some things you and your family can do to prevent the spread of these germs.

1. Washing your hands is your #1 line of defense. Use warm water with soap and have your child sing the alphabet song once or the happy birthday song twice (approximately 20 seconds).
2. Stay home if you are sick. Rest and drink fluids.
3. Remind children to cover their coughs and wash their hands frequently.
4. Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth.
5. Clean surfaces frequently!
6. Free At-Home-Covid Tests are available for pick up in our Moses office as needed.

When any symptom of a communicable disease appears, please keep your child at home.

BPS Illness Guidelines;

To return to school after illness, your child must:

• Be without vomiting or diarrhea for 16 hours.
• Be without an uncontrolled or persistent cough.
• Have an oral temperature less than 100.4 degrees without the use of medication.
• Feel well enough to take part in the usual entire full school day.

As the temperatures begin to drop and the seasons continue to change, it is important for our children to be dressed for the weather.  Our students do go outside for recess up to -15 degrees!  Please be sure your child wears the appropriate clothing to school each and every day.  If you need assistance with this, please call our Moses office at 323-4180.

On the district transportation website there is a Bus Delays/Changes tab where there is a list of buses that are running behind or if a spare bus is being used. Harlows Bus Department will send out an email and make an automated call if there is a bus delay. Any questions, call  Harlow at 222-0222. If your child will not be riding the school bus home, please call the school  office before 2:45 to inform the office in order for them to  have time to notify classroom teachers and bus monitors about changes in end-of-day plans.

Officer Vetter will be our Dorothy Moses Adopt-A-Cop this school year!  She will join us several times throughout the school year during the lunch hour. She will spend her time socializing with students and staff in the lunchroom. This is one way of inviting our community into the doors of Dorothy Moses. 

Safety in our schools is always important to us!  Please know that BPS has a safety plan that is practiced, reviewed and updated often.  We practice safety procedures with students and staff.  We require ALL visitors, parents and guardians that are visitors during the school day, to sign in at the office as you enter.  We ask that visitors sign out upon leaving as well, as this will help us know who is in the building. 
When a student comes past 8:35 in the morning, they must stop at the office and get a pink slip in order to return to class so they are not counted absent.  When picking up a student early, please stop at the office, sign them out and we will call the student down to meet you in the office.  Thank you for your assistance with the safety of all our children!

In this day and age, technology is all around us, particularly cell phones.  Cell phones are a part of everyday life for a lot of us and are an important form of communication for families.  We understand your child may bring a cell phone to school in order to get in contact with you at the end of the day, which is absolutely acceptable.  Recently, we have asked students to keep their cell phones in their backpacks until the bell rings at 3:05.  If you prefer, their teachers can hold their phones during the day as well.  Cell phones found outside of a student’s backpack between 8:35 – 3:05 will be taken away until after the bell rings.  If you need to contact your child during the day, please call the school office and we will arrange that for you.  Thank you for encouraging your child to adhere to this request for appropriate cell phone use at Dorothy Moses. 

A copy of the Moses Highly Qualified Teacher letter is available to all parents in the school office.  You may stop in any time to view it.

Moses PTO will continue to hold their meetings face to face the second Tuesday of the month from 6-7pm in conference room at Moses. All are welcome! 

A copy of the Title I Schoolwide Plan is available in the school office.  You may stop in at any time to view it.