Back to School Newsletter

All the information you need to start the school year.

https://app.smore.com/n/w1un8-como-park-elementary?ref=email

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Como Park Elementary

Welcome to the 2026/2027 School Year

Dear Como Park Elementary families:

Welcome to the 2026-27 school year! All of us at Como Park Elementary look forward to seeing students in grades 1-5 on Tuesday, September 8, and Pre-K and kindergarten students on Thursday, September 10.

At Saint Paul Public Schools, our mission is to inspire students to think critically, pursue their dreams and change the world. This means providing challenging and engaging instruction in welcoming classroom environments that represent and respect the diverse backgrounds of our students. This way, every student can feel seen, empowered and ready to find joy in learning.

Daily attendance is an important part of student success. If your student is ill, check SPPS’s illness guidelines at spps.org/studentwellness. Please notify us at 651-293-8820 as early as possible if your child will be absent. You can now report student absences in advance through the Absence Request tool in Infinite Campus Parent. Review this step-by-step guide and video for instructions. Communication between home and school is vital to a positive school experience. More information about consistent attendance can be found at spps.org/attendance.

The first day of school is exciting for students, families and staff alike. It can also be overwhelming. Here are a few things to know so you can help your students be ready for the first day.

Complete Back-to-School Forms

Parents and guardians in primary households can now complete the 2026 Back-to-School Forms. Log into Infinite Campus Parent to update your phone number and email address, verify your home address, and complete required forms. Please complete this process by August 14, 2026, to ensure your student receives school bus transportation (if eligible) on the first day of school. Visit spps.org/families for assistance with your Infinite Campus Parent username, password and language support.

Open House

Please join us at our open house to welcome students and families to a new year on Thursday September 3 from 4:00-6:00.

School Hours

School begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 2:00 p.m. Students will not be able to enter the building before 7:15 am.

Transportation

Families will receive an email with transportation information at the end of August. The email will include where and when to get on and off the bus. The bus drop-off time is approximate and could be impacted by a variety of factors. Please arrive at the bus stop five minutes before the bus is scheduled to pick up your child. The Versatrans My Stop app provides live bus route tracking and approximate daily pickup times.

If you believe your student is taking the bus but did not receive an email, please call Transportation at 651-696-9600 as soon as possible.

School Dropoff and Pickup

Use the parking lot on Grotto to drop your child off near the sidewalk in order for them to enter the main doors.

Picking up your child in the afternoon
- Students and families will all have a numbered card. Students will have their number on their backpack. Families can display the card in their car.
- In order to get your student, you must have the number card present.
- If you should forget or lose it, we will require you to go to the office and show ID
- Students will be released to parents as they line up in the parking lot at 2:00 dismissal.

Walking to School

Elementary school students (PreK-5) who live less than a half-mile from school may have the option of walking to and from school with the school patrol. School patrols are led by older students and assisted by school staff and will be on duty before and after school. Please contact the school if your child will be walking to school.

Meal Information

In-person students may receive one breakfast and one lunch for free each school day under the Minnesota Free School Meals program. As students arrive at school, they can grab their breakfast and eat in class. Hot and cold breakfast options are available.

To qualify as a free school meal, students must take a complete meal, including a fruit or vegetable. If a student does not take a complete meal, their meal account will be charged for the items individually.

Student Second Breakfast: $3.50
Student Second Lunch: $5.75
Milk Only: $0.50
For a complete list of prices, visit spps.org/ns.

Application for Educational Benefits

While all in-person students will receive free breakfast and lunch under Minnesota’s Free School Meals program, it remains critical that all families complete an Application for Educational Benefits each school year. These applications determine how much funding your child’s school receives for educational programs and supports. Additionally, eligible families can qualify for other benefits, including SUN Bucks (formerly known as Summer EBT Benefits) and 50% off Amazon Prime membership. The application can be completed online at schoolcafe.com/spps. Paper applications are available at school.

Immunizations

Please check in with your healthcare provider to ensure your child’s immunizations are current before school starts in the fall. Visit spps.org/studentwellness or call our school nurse for more information.

Child Care Before and After School

Discovery Club is a fun and nurturing childcare program for students in grades PreK-5 that supports learning and development before* and after school, on non-school days and during the summer. Early registration is encouraged as space is limited. For a list of fees, locations, and to register or join the waitlist, visit spps.org/discoveryclub or call 651-632-3793. *Before school care is unavailable for schools with a 7:30 a.m. start time.

Extracurriculars

EDL for students in grades 3-5 and Lego League in grades 4-5 will be available in the fall. Programs will be held on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 2:00-3:45.

Student Rights & Responsibilities

SPPS strives to create welcoming schools where each and every student is seen, known and valued. There are rights students are guaranteed when they are at school as well as responsibilities that accompany those rights. Families are strongly encouraged to review the Rights & Responsibilities Handbook.

Cell Phone Policy

In general, cell phones and other personal electronic devices are not allowed during school hours.

Students with Disabilities

SPPS has a responsibility to identify and evaluate any student who may have a disability and need services and/or accommodations to access their education. If you believe your child may have a disability that is eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or Section 504, please contact your child's teacher, school counselor or school nurse.

School Safety

Safety is a top priority at our schools. Como Park Elementary has an Emergency Operations Plan that is created specifically for our school and regularly reviewed. Families receive communication home when an incident directly impacts their students, such as a lockdown. Please review our Standard Response Protocol language, which differentiates safety situations. Exterior doors are always locked and all visitors must sign in.

Families, students and staff can “Send a Tip” at spps.org/safety to confidentially report unsafe behaviors to SPPS Security and Emergency Management. Every tip is taken seriously and investigated right away.

Contact Information

Please check our school website regularly, https://comoel.spps.org/ for information and updates. If you have questions the website doesn’t answer, please call the front office at 651-293-8820.

Attached to this letter, you’ll find the following important documents:

I’m looking forward to welcoming you and your child to a new school year. I’m so proud to be part of this wonderful school community.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Ewald, Principal

Como Park Elementary

Welcome Letter - Hmong

Welcome Letter - Karen

Welcome Letter - Somali

Welcome Letter - Spanish

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SY26_27 Como Park Elementary Welcome Letter-HMong.pdf

SY26_27 Como Park Elementary Welcome Letter-Karen.pdf

SY26_27 Como Park Elementary Welcome Letter-Somali.pdf

SY26_27 Como Park Elementary Welcome Letter-Spanish.pdf

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167.5 KB

ENGLISH

Prefer a language other than English? You can open the newsletter link and click a button on the right (on a computer) or at the bottom (on a mobile device) to have it translated into many different languages. Please know that the translation function may be inaccurate or incomplete. If you have any questions, please call us at 651-293-8820.

KAREN

ကျိာ်ဂုၤဂၤတခါလၢနအဲၣ်ဒိးအီၤ လၢအတမ့ၢ် အဲကလံးကျိာ်န့ၣ်အိၣ်ဧါ. နအိးထီၣ်ကွၢ်လံာ်တၢ်ကစီၣ်ပှာ်ဘျးစဲ ဒီးစံၢ်လီၤဖဲ ပှာ်ဘျးစဲအဖီခိၣ်ဖဲစုထွဲတကပၤ(လၢခီၣ်ဖၠူထၢၣ်ဖီခိၣ်) မ့တမ့ၢ် စံၢ်လီၤဖဲတၢ်ဖီလာ် (လၢနလီတဲစိ ဖီခိၣ်) ဒ်သိး တၢ်ကကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤလၢကျိာ်အဂုၤအဂၤအဂီၢ်သ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. ဝံသးစူၤသ့ၣ်ညါလၢ လံာ်လၢ တၢ်ကွဲးကျိာ်ထံအီၤန့ၣ် ကအိၣ်ဝဲဒီး တၢ်အကမၣ် မ့တမ့ၢ် တၢ်တလၢတပှဲၤသ့ဝဲဒၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤ. နမ့ၢ်အိၣ်ဒီး တၢ်သံကွၢ်တဖၣ်န့ၣ်, ဝံသးစူၤကိးပှၤဖဲ 651-293-8820 န့ၣ်တက့ၢ်.

SOMALI

Ma waxaad doorbideysaa luuqad aan aheyn af-Ingiriis? Waxaad furi kartaa lifaaqa wargeysyada oo guji batoonka midigta (ee kumbiyuutarkaaga) ama xagga hoose (ee taleefankaaga gacanta) si aad wargeyska ugu tarjuntid luuqado badan oo kala duwan. Fadlan ogow in natiijada turjumaaddu ay noqon karto mid aan sax ahayn ama aan dhammaystirnayn. Haddii aad wax su'aalo ah qabtid, fadlan naga soo wac 651-293-8820.

HMONG

Puas xav tau ua lwm hom lus? Nej qhib txoj kab mus rau hauv daim ntawv xov xwm thiab nias lub pob ntawm sab xis hauv lub koos pis tawj, los sis yog lwm hom twj no ces nyob hauv qab, ces yuav muaj txhais ua ntau hom lus. Nco ntsoov tias cov lus txhais no yuav tsis raug txhua lo los sis txhais tiav tiav. Yog nej muaj lus nug, thov hu rau peb ntawm 651-293-8820.

SPANISH

¿Prefiere un idioma que no sea inglés? Puede abrir el enlace del boletín y hacer clic en el botón a la derecha (en una computadora) o en la parte inferior (en un dispositivo móvil) para traducirlo a muchos idiomas diferentes. Tenga en cuenta que la función de traducción puede ser inexacta o incompleta. Si tiene alguna pregunta, llámenos al 651-293-8820.

Como Park Elementary

Como Park Elementary's mission is to develop life-long learners and responsible citizens. Como Park Elementary inspires, challenges, and cares for each student. Como Park Elementary welcomes, respects and values families and communities. Como Park Elementary unites, strengthens, and prepares learners.

Website: https://comoel.spps.org

Location: 780 West Wheelock Parkway, Saint Paul, MN, USA

Phone: 651-293-8820
Twitter: @ComoElementary

Translations of required school-related communications can be made available upon request. Our school can also provide translators. Please contact the office or your student’s teacher if you are in need of these services.

Jennifer Ewald

Jennifer is using Smore to create beautiful newsletters

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