Parkwood Day School

In line with SMSD, Parkwood Heights at IHUMC will also be closed Monday, January 26th.

In line with SMSD, Parkwood Heights at IHUMC will open at 9:30 am on Tuesday, December 2nd.

🚨 WEATHER ALERT: Due to inclement weather, Tuesday, December 2, 2025 will be a Plan C day. Shawnee Mission Public Schools will follow a Two-Hour Delayed start. All school start times and morning bus pick-up times will be delayed by two hours.

Additional information about SMSD’s weather procedures can be found at https://www.smsd.org/families/weather.

Celebrating our first harvest! Spinach, mixed greens, radishes, and green onions from our school gardens prepped by Chef Brendan for lunch today!

Thank you to Kansas City Community Gardens for helping us build, plan, and plant our gardens!

Parkwood will also follow a delayed start, opening at 9:00 am.

Come join the fun and the beautiful musical performances of two incredible Divas! Information is available in the church office or online.

Science is our foundation for healthy choices in early childhood. Please follow pediatric and CDC guidelines for safe immunization practices.

"Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

'Are you feeling all right?' I asked her.

'I feel all sleepy,' she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it....

Incidentally, I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach‘. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG‘, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children." -- Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl, the beloved author of classic children's books such as "Matilda" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," lost his daughter to measles in 1962. He wrote this letter as a plea to parents to have their children vaccinated, which was later published as a pamphlet by the Sandwell Health Authority, in 1988.

In 2025 America, an unvaccinated child died this week due to measles. This child's death came as Texas is currently experiencing its largest measles outbreak in over thirty years. Nearly 150 cases have been reported with twenty children being hospitalized; nearly all of those sickened have been unvaccinated children.

This new outbreak comes as Trump has selected a long-time vaccine denialist and peddler of vaccine conspiracy theories, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to be head of the Department of Health and Human Services. When asked about the outbreak this week, rather than making a declaration that parents should vaccinate their children as one would expect from a public health leader, Kennedy dismissed the outbreak's seriousness, stating, among other inaccuracies, that the children had been hospitalized "mainly for quarantine." This baseless claim was refuted by the chief medical officer of Covenant Health Lubbock Service Area, Dr. Lara Johnson, who observed: "We don’t hospitalize patients for quarantine purposes... Patients have been needing supplemental oxygen and respiratory support to help them get over viral pneumonia linked to the measles."

With Kennedy already canceling an annual scientific meeting that is used to plan for next year's influenza vaccines and stopping a successful flu vaccine public awareness campaign in the midst of severe flu season, along with his on-going vaccine skepticism, the rising threat of the emerging bird flu, and thousands of critical staff being recklessly fired from federal health agencies by Elon Musk, the nation is quickly becoming highly vulnerable to major disease outbreaks. Sadly, it's likely that children, like Roald Dahl's daughter and the one who died in Texas this week, who are going to be the ones who suffer the most.

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To read Roald Dahl's letter in full, visit https://fs.blog/roald-dahl-letter-daughter/

To introduce today's kids to what used to be another common childhood disease prior to vaccinations, polio, we highly recommend the books "Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio" (https://www.amightygirl.com/small-steps) and "Blue" (https://www.amightygirl.com/blue), both for ages 9 and up

For a powerful biography for adult readers about Judith Heumann, the famous disability rights leader who became paralyzed by polio as a toddler, we highly recommend at https://www.amightygirl.com/being-heumann -- her memoir is also available in a Young Readers Edition for ages 10 to 15 at https://www.amightygirl.com/rolling-warrior

To introduce children to pioneering women of public health who believed in science, we highly recommend "Dr. Jo: How Sara Josephine Baker Saved the Lives of America's Children" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/dr-jo) and “The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath” for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-doctor-with-an-eye-for-eyes)

For more children's books about pioneering women of science, visit our blog post, "60 Children's Books to Inspire Science-Loving Mighty Girls," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=13914

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To see more stories from A Mighty Girl, you can sign-up for A Mighty Girl's free weekly email newsletter at https://www.amightygirl.com/forms/newsletter -- and follow us on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/amightygirl.com

Parkwood programs will also be closed Tuesday, January 7th.

Parkwood will also be closed Monday, January 6th.

🚨Due to inclement weather, Monday, January 6, 2025 will be a Plan A day. This means students will not report to school. Additional information about SMSD’s weather procedures can be found at https://www.smsd.org/families/weather. Stay warm and safe!
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🚨Debido a las inclemencias del tiempo, Lunes, 6 de enero, será un día del Plan A. Estudiantes no se presentaran a las escuela. El plan se puede ver aquí. Encuentre más información: https://www.smsd.org/families/weather. ¡Manténgase seguro y fuera del frio!

We Did it! We are in our new home at Indian Heights UMC. Administration, Teachers and Staff did an amazing job setting up classrooms for students and families! So proud to work with such dedicated early childhood professionals! 💚

Psalm 126:2-3 NLT ~ We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the Lord has done for them.” Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us! What joy!
Our last group photo at LUMC and pictures of workdays.