This past week, our school celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week since we were unable to do so during May.  I want to take a moment to thank our teachers as they work each day to help grow your child academically and socially.  It goes beyond just our teachers too, our aides, café workers, bus drivers, School Resource Officer, front office staff & guidance staff are constantly working together to ensure that we are living our mission.  If you get a moment this week, please take a moment and send a teacher a message (even if it was a teacher from your school days) to say thank you!  These little moments go a long way.

COVID-19

As we continue to work to keep our students in school during a Global Pandemic, it is important to understand that we are having to modify some of the traditional ways that we are handling students who are ill.  Please know, that if a child comes down and presents with symptoms that are a part of the COVID-19 guidelines from the Hamilton County Department of Health then we are likely sending the child home.  Parents have been great about this, and we thank you!  In addition to this, it is important to talk with our children to be open and share with our school nurse the potential reasons why a child is feeling ill.   This allows us to work with families to describe specific symptoms when working with parents and guardians.

In addition, it is natural as the school year progresses to fall into old habits.  Overall, students have done a great job wearing masks.  However, as the school year progresses, we are having to remind students more and more to ensure that they need to cover their nose and mouth.  This simply act keeps the likelihood of our school staying open by a huge percentage.  Please take a moment to talk with your child and remind that to wear the mask properly.  We appreciate your help with this.

Academic Growth

This week is the start of our MAP assessment.  This will help us have a data point to see where our kids have grown and where they need specific supports in Reading and Math.  This is important as we look to determine what academic losses may have occurred during the quarantine.

Our Face to Face students will take this during the early part of the week, and our virtual students will take it later in the week.  This will look a bit different with us having virtual students, but we look forward to the challenge.

Beyond assessment, we are very proud to see the different things happening in classrooms each day.  Students continue to impress and keep the focus on academics.  We appreciate their hard work!

Virtual Students and Families

We are now starting to settle into a pretty good groove with our virtual students.  Our families and students have done a great job setting up schedules, working hard, and learning to ask for help.  Great job!

For our virtual students, make sure you check TEAMS each day and see if your teachers have any announcements for you.  This will help with communication for many different items.  For example, students can pick up books from the JS or Art supplies for different projects, this information is communicated through TEAMS.

Finally, for our 6^th and 7^th Grade students, this week you will notice that we will be dropping “Study Skills” from your schedule.  This will help free up your time to focus on your Core Academic classes and Art class.  As we learn the program, and have our coaching sessions with students, it is our belief that we can better support our students by our coaching sessions, than we can with the study skills curriculum in the Accelerate program.  In addition, while reviewing this course, it is written for an 8^th – 12^th grade level.

Social Growth

Clubs are starting this week.  Robotics club starts this week.  Students interested need to pick up an application in the office and turn it into Mrs. James (this has been on our school announcements for about 2 weeks), and Reading/Book club starts later this week.  We will post specific dates and times on our social media accounts, but students are welcome to join.

In addition, we are close to the end of our fall sports seasons.  Thank you to parents, students, coaches, etc… who have worked so hard.  Finish strong!!!

Thank You

Thank you to our families for their continued support as we go through the school year.  This is our final work of the mid-term.  Students are in a groove, and overall doing much better in regard to work completion, questioning, and on tests.  Keep the routines going and continue to encourage your students to read!