A huge, heartfelt thank you to our amazing families for all of the food donated this week. We filled three tables full of food for our St. Vincent DePaul Society to feed the hungry in our local community.
Next week, we have school on Monday and Tuesday only. Since it is a short week, we will not send an Ignatian newsletter next week. We wish you and your family a blessed Thanksgiving holiday. May you all be safe, healthy, and blessed to be with those near and dear to your heart. We would like to invite you to read about an update to our playground project and to consider donating to the project for Giving Tuesday on Tuesday, November 30th. Many companies will match gifts made to nonprofit corporations on Giving Tuesday. Since Giving Tuesday is the last school day in November, we will have a class color theme dress day. On Tuesday, November 30th, students may wear school appropriate clothing in their class color. Please help us by guiding your student in what ‘school appropriate’ means when selecting what to wear for their class color day. Your student may wear jeans or pants without visible rips, tears, and holes. Your student may wear leggings if their tops are a long tunic style or dresses with a length long enough to reach mid-thigh. Dresses or skirts need to reach mid-thigh as well. Thank you for your assistance. The class colors are as follows: pre-K= yellow Kindergarten= lime green 1st grade = tye dye 2nd grade= purple 3rd grade= pink 4th grade= turquoise 5th grade= orange 6th grade= green 7th grade= red 8th grade= blue Please continue to use the home health screening questions before coming to school each day. As the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are quickly approaching, we have travel recommendations to share with you. As a school, we strongly recommend our families follow the CDC guidelines on safe traveling. If you will be traveling with family members that are not fully vaccinated, we strongly recommend that you quarantine the unvaccinated student(s) for a full seven days upon return and take a rapid COVID test 3-5 days after returning. As a school community, we really must work together on the CDC travel guidance, especially over the holiday season. Thank you for partnering with us to keep the community safe from future COVID cases by following the CDC travel guidelines. Please remember proper masking and maintaining social distancing are the best ways to keep our community safe both in and out of school. We are beyond thrilled to hear how excited our younger students are as many of them have already had their first vaccination shot. If you are looking for possible walk-in clinics for your child, we have compiled a resource list for you. Our students continue to learn and grow. Our pre-K students are exploring the growth cycle of plants and comparing weights of items in science. Our kindergarten and first grade students are exploring the properties of matter through making slime. The second graders are counting money and filling their cup of blessings. The third grade students are making snowmen out of wood rounds from a tree cut down on campus in 2019. The snowmen will be sold at the Feaste of the Nativity with proceeds benefiting our playground renovation. Our fourth graders are studying character traits through classic novels such as Island of the Blue Dolphins and Hatchet. The fifth graders are learning to simplify fractions. The sixth grade students are studying cell theory and microscopes. Our seventh graders are presenting the geography of their chosen country and will make an historical timeline. The eighth graders are studying the classic novel, The Outsiders, as they study literary elements in action. As we continue the search for a permanent middle school math teacher, we seek interim assistance for math for the remainder of this school year. Maybe you know a retired math teacher who may be able to lend a hand for math support a couple of days a week? If so, please direct them to our school office. May we take time to thank our Lord for all of the many blessings in our lives. As we hear in the first book of Colossians three verse fifteen, “And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful.” Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal Next week, we will have a food drive for St. Vincent DePaul. Please send non-perishable food to school with your student Monday-Wednesday, November 15th-17th. On November 17th, we will celebrate as a school, in a safe, socially distanced, and cohorted way, the food brought in by all of our students. In addition to the typical pastas and canned goods, please consider including cooking oil, boxed milk, sugar, flour, spices, and coffee/tea. We are blessed to have a supportive, diligent community during this challenging time. Please continue to use the home health screening questions before coming to school each day. As the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are quickly approaching, we have travel recommendations to share with you. As a school, we recommend our families follow the CDC guidelines on safe traveling. If you will be traveling with family members that are not fully vaccinated, we recommend that you quarantine the unvaccinated student for a full seven days upon return and take a rapid COVID test 3-5 days after returning. We have been informed that the rapid home test from Ellume has been recalled. Please remember proper masking and maintaining social distancing are the best ways to keep our community safe both in and out of school. We are beyond thrilled to hear how excited our younger students are as many of them have already had their first vaccination shot. If you are looking for possible walk-in clinics for your child, we have compiled a resource list for you. Please send your child to school with a uniform sweatshirt in addition to a raincoat. Our boiler is currently working at a limited capacity while we await parts to fix the issue. Since we open the windows for ventilation as much as possible, the classrooms can sometimes be a bit chilly when the heat is not on full capacity. Students are allowed to wear their sweatshirts and coats in the classrooms while the heat is not running at full capacity. Our students continue to learn and grow. Our pre-K students continue to develop their skills through sculpting, painting, drawing, and coloring, including turkey feathers. Our kindergarten students are learning their addition facts through pictures and manipulatives such as small erasers. Our first grade students are busy learning to count by fives with tally marks and developing their place value concept for ones and tens. The second graders are learning about storms and identifying the main idea and details along with decoding consonant blends. The third grade students continue to write and revise their own stories and study about the saints.Our fourth graders are diving into long division in math and continuing novel studies in reading. The fifth graders are studying saltwater and freshwater in our world and the challenges surrounding water on our planet. The sixth grade students are in a novel study of the Newberry Award winning novel, The Giver. Our seventh graders chose a saint role model to study and actively look for ways to perform loving deeds of kindness throughout the week. The eighth graders are studying the Earth’s gravitational acceleration and the effects of free fall. As we continue the search for a permanent middle school math teacher, we seek interim assistance for math for the remainder of this school year. Maybe you know a retired math teacher who may be able to lend a hand for math support a couple of days a week? If so, please direct them to our school office. May we take time to thank our Lord for all of the many blessings in our lives. As we hear in the first book of Chronicles, chapter 16, verse 34, “Give thanks to the Lord, who is good, whose love endures forever.” Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal How did November arrive so quickly? As we celebrate our beloved saints and remember our dearly departed this month, may we take time to count our blessings. Our fourth grade class recorded a wonderful All Saints Day prayer service for our school. I know we are all thankful to have the students back to school, in person, learning and growing week by week. We are grateful for our deeply caring and talented staff. We appreciate how our families partner with us in their child’s learning journey.
Our students are learning and growing each week. Our pre-K students are busy exploring and learning about the beauty of God’s creation in the falling leaves, forest animals, and varieties of squash. They continue to build their skills through imaginative play, painting and sculpting. The kindergarten students have been studying the saints and learning about Veterans’ Day. The beautiful voices of our first graders singing, “God Bless America,” fill our halls most mornings as they learn about our country and the amazing people that protect our freedoms. In second grade, the students are busy making an “array city” with repeated addition sentences and exploring math through the website Boddle. Our third graders are practicing their writing skills by typing stories through a Scholastic story starter website. The fourth grade students are writing about their favorite foods and studying why the leaves change color. In fifth grade, the students are studying character development through historical fiction readings. In sixth grade, the students are studying the novel, “The Giver,” and comparing the rules for the society in this novel with their own lives in school and in the United States. Our seventh grade students are learning about financial literacy and comparing the economies of countries from around the world to the United States. The eighth graders are studying force and motion by building car kits to experiment with weight, distance, and tracking as they launch their car creations from a ramp in the hallway. We are blessed to have a supportive, diligent community during this challenging time. Please remember proper masking and maintaining social distancing are the best ways to keep our community safe both in and out of school. Please keep in mind each time a student tests positive for COVID-19, we must seek guidance from our Local Public Health Authority of Multnomah County (LPHA). When we speak to our LPHA, they walk us through the contact tracing process and provide us with guidance on how to proceed based on the circumstances of each individual case. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we deal with the outcome of each case. Please send your child to school with a uniform sweatshirt in addition to a raincoat. Our boiler is currently working at a limited capacity while we await parts to fix the issue. Since we open the windows for ventilation as much as possible, the classrooms can sometimes be a bit chilly when the heat is not on full capacity. Students are allowed to wear their sweatshirts and coats in the classrooms while the heat is not running at full capacity. Our school safety committee will study our arrival and dismissal procedures in the coming weeks to determine if further adjustments are needed to keep our students and families safe to and from school. We must continue to reduce the amount of people crossing 43rd Avenue during our arrival and dismissal times. The drive up car line is the safest drop-off and pick-up option for our students. If you wish to use the car line with no waiting time, drive through at 8:20 for drop off and 3:20 PM for pick up. May we take time to thank our Lord for the many wonderful people in our lives, especially those who have protected our freedom. As we hear in the first book of Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal We enjoyed meeting with our students and families this week in conferences. Our students are
clearly growing by leaps and bounds this year! We appreciate how our families partner with us in their child’s learning journey. On Monday, we had a socially distanced, masked, outdoor Halloween Festival. Special thanks to Kristin Jost for heading up this fun event for our students! Thank you to Zora and Gavin Sharkey, John and Char Sharkey, Francine Morgan, Dan Dulley, Joey Dulley, Tom Trapold at Trapold Farms, the Lloyd family, and the Collins family for donations to the event. Our teachers will add photos of the event to a photo folder on Google that families may peruse. Our Halloween costume parade took place outside today, and we will create another photo folder to share with families about that event too. We wish all of our students a safe and healthy Halloween. We are blessed to have a supportive, diligent community during this challenging time. As we recently experienced, should a student test positive for COVID-19, the school community will be notified. In addition, we will perform contact tracing protocols and inform the class where close contacts may be identified in an additional information letter. Please remember proper masking and maintaining social distancing are the best ways to keep our community safe both in and out of school. Thank you for all of the ways you support our school community by following COVID safety protocols in and out school. We are continuing to work through our dismissal and arrival procedures and adjustments. Thank you for parking on the church side of 43rd Avenue to decrease the number of students and families crossing the street. We must continue to reduce how many people cross 43rd Avenue during our arrival and dismissal times. The drive up arrival and dismissal lines move quickly and smoothly with no more than a three to five minute wait at any point. If you wish to use the car line with virtually no waiting time, drive through at 8:20 for drop off and 3:20 PM for pick up. The drive up car line is the safest drop-off and pick-up option for our students. Our October “Visit with the Principal” included both a morning date and an evening time this week. Moving forward in November, I will host a morning and evening “Visit with the Principal” on the same day. The “Visit with the Principal” time is designed to be a social, community building time between the parents and the principal to share thoughts and ideas, and ask questions, as we work together to support all within our school community. We are still actively searching for a middle school math teacher. If you know someone who might be interested, please send them our way. In the meantime, we are grateful for all of the hard work our substitute teacher, Megan Olson, is doing to keep our math program including advanced math sections running smoothly. We are looking at some innovative ways to support our middle school advanced math option for students as we move through the year. Thank you for all of the ways you help your students at home! “The grass withers, the flowers wilt, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8 Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal We have successfully wrapped up another week of school. The students are busy learning and growing with each passing day. We look forward to meeting with you via Zoom for our fall conferences next Wednesday and Thursday. Students in grades three through eight attend their fall conference.
Renaissance STAR testing is a nationwide standardized testing program used throughout the Archdiocese of Portland to monitor student learning progress. Students are tested at least three times per year. STAR testing results will be sent home with your student on Monday. Please remember the testing results offer only one small glimpse into your student’s learning progress. Your student’s teacher will review your student’s progress so far this year during your conference time next week. We are continuing to work through our dismissal procedures and adjustments. Thank you for parking on the church side of 43rd Avenue to decrease the number of students and families crossing the street. We must continue to reduce how many people cross 43rd Avenue during our arrival and dismissal times. The drive up dismissal line is moving quickly and smoothly taking no longer than ten minutes from start to finish. If you wish to use the car line with virtually no waiting time, drive through at 3:20 PM. The drive up dismissal line is the safest pick-up option for our students. We are noticing more parents are ‘dropping off’ their students in the morning well before 8:15 AM, however there are no staff outside to supervise students before 8:15 AM. Please keep your child in your car until 8:15 AM when you see staff out on duty. Please use the drop-off car line for the morning. Please remember before school care is now available through Vermont Hills Family Life Center and takes place in Dillon Hall starting at 7:30 AM. We are planning an outdoor Halloween Festival for our students on Monday, October 25th. Game and craft stations will be set up outside and led by our 8th graders. Classes will move through the stations at their designated time of day. Special thanks to Kristin Jost for heading up this fun event for our students! Thank you to Zora and Gavin Sharkey, John and Char Sharkey, Francine Morgan, Dan Dulley, Joey Dulley, Tom Trapold at Trapold Farms, the Lloyd family, and the Collins family for donations to this special event. Please make sure your student has a raincoat on Monday as this festival will take place outside rain or shine. We will have our traditional Halloween parade on Friday, October 29th as an outdoor event socially distanced by class. We will host this event at the time of day when the weather looks the most favorable. Unfortunately, we are not able to invite parents to this event this year as we do not have the capacity to check guests for their proof of vaccination. We will take loads of pictures and share them with you! We are blessed to have a supportive, diligent community during this challenging time. As Halloween approaches, please take a moment to consider safe ways to enjoy this fun-filled tradition. Proper masking and maintaining social distancing are the best ways to keep our community safe both in and out of school. We have follow up information to share for our lead testing results. We followed the guidelines given to us from the Early Learning Division of the State of Oregon, and we replaced the two sink faucets that did not meet the state scale of 15.0 ppm. We have received the new test results, and the two sinks tested at .66 ppm and 3.95 ppm. We are pleased to announce that all of the tested sinks and drinking fountains in the school are now below the state limit. Thank you for all of the ways you help your students at home! “Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17 Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal We have successfully wrapped up another week of school. The students are busy learning and growing with each passing day.
Our dismissal procedures are working smoothly for the most part. The drive up dismissal line is moving quickly and smoothly taking no longer than ten minutes from start to finish. Cars are easily entering and exiting the parking lot to retrieve their students utilizing the car line. The drive up dismissal line is the safest option, especially for our younger students. Students walking or biking home from school are walking or biking in groups. Students biking home are remembering to walk their bikes to the campus fence before riding home. One area I have been observing is our walk-up dismissal. Parents walking up to retrieve their students from either campus fence are keeping their students safe by walking them to and from their vehicles parked on 43rd Avenue. Some cars are parking in the spaces between the parish offices and Dillon Hall. We need parents to refrain from parking in those spaces as they are reserved for parish office visitors and to safely accommodate the volume of students walking to 43rd Avenue through that parking lot in front of Dillon Hall. Many parents, especially those with middle school students, are parking along both sides of 43rd Avenue and expecting their students to find them in their parked car. Therein lies some safety concerns. Students are often crossing 43rd Avenue to get to their cars parked across the street without looking for oncoming traffic. Some older students are expected to manage younger students while walking along 43rd Avenue looking for their parked car. Sometimes students are waiting for their rides to arrive several minutes after dismissal has ended. These concerns have arisen as an unexpected consequence of allowing for walk-up pick up of students. We need to make some adjustments to our walk-up dismissal procedures to keep our students safe.
We will see how these minor adjustments improve dismissal safety and may possibly make further adjustments as needed. Thank you for your assistance in improving the safety of our dismissal procedures. We are grateful to Vermont Hills Family Life Center for providing before school and after school care for our families beginning on Monday, October 18th. Before school care will begin at 7:30 AM and after school care will extend to 6:00 PM. Both before and after care will take place in Dillon Hall, so you will need to drop off or retrieve your child from there. If your family is in need of this service, please register through Vermont Hills Family Life Center. Families may apply for financial assistance for before school and after school care through Vermont Hills Family Life Center as well. Vermont Hills has previously provided excellent care for St. Ignatius students and is looking forward to the opportunity to work with our current students and families. We are blessed to have a supportive, diligent community during this challenging time. We have had no breakthrough COVID cases at school. We have had one student test positive for COVID, however there is no impact on our school community because our families are so diligent. This student was exposed to COVID from someone outside of our school community on a weekend and learned about the exposure over the same weekend allowing their student to be at home in quarantine when that student eventually tested positive for COVID several days later. The student remained at home for the full course of the necessary quarantine to keep our school community safe. We appreciate the patience and understanding our families have demonstrated as we work together to keep our students safe. As the mornings become colder and the rains return, please send your child to school with a coat every day. We often eat snacks and play outside, even in light rain, so please help your child to be warm by sending them with a coat and sweatshirt. We are planning an outdoor Halloween Festival for our students on Monday, October 25th. Game and craft stations will be set up outside and led by our 8th graders. Classes will move through the stations at a designated time of day. Special thanks to Kristin Jost for heading up this fun event for our students! We will have our traditional Halloween parade on Friday, October 29th as an outdoor event socially distanced by class. Both of these events will take place outdoors rain or shine. As we head further into October, please consider making a donation to our school, especially if your company will match your donation. Some companies are offering double or triple matching funds this year. If you work for Standard Insurance, they are matching at least double the donations given through the end of 2021. We are looking forward to another week full of learning, stretching, and growing! “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal We have successfully wrapped up another week of school. Our sixth graders prepared an
outstanding outdoor prayer service for us about our foundress, Blessed Mother Marie Rose, and our school’s mission. We are pleased to announce a partnership with Vermont Hills Family Life Center to provide before school and after school care for our families beginning on Monday, October 18th. Before school care will begin at 7:30 AM and after school care will extend to 6:00 PM. If your family is in need of this service, please register through Vermont Hills Family Life Center. Families may apply for financial assistance for before school and after school care through Vermont Hills Family Life Center as well. Vermont Hills has previously provided excellent care for St. Ignatius students and is looking forward to the opportunity to work with our current students and families. Families may attend a “Meet and Greet” event to meet the Vermont HIlls Family Life Center instructors next Thursday, October 14th from 3:30-4:30 in front of Dillon Hall. Before school and after school care will take place in Dillon Hall in the Xavier room and cafeteria. Students in after school care will spend their time enjoying a healthy snack provided by Vermont HIlls Family Life Center, completing homework assignments, playing indoor and outdoor games, and choosing between a variety of educational activities. We are fortunate to have hired a new preschool teacher as well. We will host a “Meet and Greet” for our preschool families at our playground on Thursday, October 14th from 3:30-4:30 to meet both new preschool teachers for this year. We are still searching for a middle school math teacher. We are fortunate to have Megan Olson available to continue to take on this role as a long term substitute. Please pray for us to find an outstanding middle school math teacher. We are blessed to have a supportive community during this challenging time. Along with securing proper fitting masks for your student, please send them to school with extra masks. We appreciate the patience and understanding our families have demonstrated as we work together to keep our students safe. As the mornings become colder and the rains return, please send your child to school with a coat every day. We often eat snacks and play outside, even in light rain, so please help your child to be warm by sending them with a coat and sweatshirt. Non-uniform sweatshirts may be worn outside but not for working in the classrooms. As we ease back into wearing uniforms and following the uniform guidelines, teachers will begin sending uniform reminder emails to families requesting assistance with uniform compliance. Thank you for taking the time to make corrections with your student as needed. As we head further into October, you may be thinking about gift shopping. Please consider using Amazon Smile to place orders as you can select St. Ignatius School to receive support from dollars spent through Amazon Smile throughout the upcoming holiday season. We are looking forward to another week full of learning, stretching, and growing! "Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal We have successfully wrapped up another week of school. Our seventh graders prepared an amazing video prayer service for us about archangels.
Unfortunately, our community received terrible news that our aftercare program, Champions, which was slated to begin on Monday, October 4th, has been unexpectedly delayed. We are actively seeking all possible solutions and alternatives to help our families have access to quality aftercare for their students as soon as possible. We hope to have more information to share soon. To assist us in meeting the greatest needs for our families quickly, please click here to fill out a Google form on the care your family needs. We are blessed to have a supportive community during this challenging time. Along with securing proper fitting masks for your student, please send them to school with extra masks. We appreciate the patience and understanding our families have demonstrated as we work together to keep our students safe. With the rainy, cooler weather beginning, please send your child to school with a coat every day. We will often play outside in light rain, so please help your child to be warm by sending them with a coat and school uniform sweatshirt. Non-uniform sweatshirts may be worn outside but not for working in the classrooms. We have talked as a staff and will ‘pilot’ an additional uniform option. For the remainder of this year, parents may purchase one of two uniform royal blue fleece full zipper coat options- one option is in cobalt blue from Land’s End Uniform or another option will be in royal blue from Dennis Uniform. We prefer the school logo at the left hand corner of the fleece coat. However, due to the current delivery delays across many sectors, we will not require the logo this year. If you have St. Ignatius sweatshirts in good condition but too small for your student, please send them in for the uniform exchange closet. As we ease back into wearing uniforms and following the uniform guidelines, teachers will begin sending uniform reminder emails to families requesting assistance with uniform compliance. Thank you for taking the time to make corrections with your student as needed. Our St. Ignatius School Foundation golf tournament is tomorrow, October 2nd. We look forward to seeing many of our families who have registered to participate in or volunteer for this fun event. We are looking forward to another week full of learning, stretching, and growing! “Now may God himself, our Father, and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you.” - 1 Thessalonians 3:11-12. Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal Greetings St. Ignatius Families,
We have successfully wrapped up another week of school. Our seventh and eighth grade students heard from five local Catholic high schools on Tuesday. Our local high schools host Open House events during the month of October. We celebrated Mass and commissioned our 8th grade class as leaders of our school on Wednesday. Thursday we dressed in our Sunday Best for Picture Day. And we wrapped up the week with a ‘class color’ themed free dress day. Unfortunately, we did not have nearly enough interest in ordering from the Fresh n’ Local menu to meet the company’s minimum order of 50 lunches per day. Therefore, we will not be using Fresh n’ Local as a lunch option for this school year. My apologies to those families that did place orders for the month of October. Since we were not able to meet close to the minimum order, all students will need to continue to bring their own cold lunches through the end of the first trimester. We are actively investigating other possible options for the second and third trimesters of this school year. We are blessed to have a supportive community during this challenging time. As we close this third week of school, I am pleased to share we have had no students or staff cases of COVID-19. When families notify us regarding a possible or known exposure their student may have had to COVID-19, we take all of the information the families provide us and speak directly with our LPHA (Local Public Health Authority) to receive guidance on how to proceed and guide those families, so we can keep our school community as safe as possible. Each scenario is unique, and we err on the side of caution by asking families to keep their student out of school until we can confirm the correct course of action for each individual student from our LPHA. Should we have a student or staff member test positive for COVID-19, our LPHA will be notified and guide us through the notification process along with contract tracing. We keep up-to-date contract tracing logs for all grade levels by day and week. We appreciate the patience and understanding our families have demonstrated with all of the protocols we follow working to keep our students safe. One of our strongest mitigation measures is wearing masks inside and outside of school. Masks need to be worn properly to ensure the safety of all of our students. We encourage families to try different types of masks to find the best fitting mask for your student’s face. Proper fitting masks and the types of masks worn will result in the most effective mitigation effort. It’s a good idea to try out a few types of masks to find the best fitting masks for your students. If you have any questions about masks, feel free to reach out to your classroom or homeroom teacher or the school office. We may reach out to you if we see your student needs some mask adjustments. Thank you for working with us on proper fitting masks. Please know we are working hard at school to maintain mitigation measures such as wearing masks, sanitizing, outdoor eating, and social distancing. Each week, we re-view our COVID protocols as a staff to make adjustments as needed. As we roll through the fall and families participate in activities outside of school such as play-dates, birthday parties, and other gatherings, please wear masks at those events too. We appreciate all of the precautions each family is taking at home to keep the whole community safe. Our St. Ignatius School Foundation golf tournament is swiftly approaching. We still need at least one foursome for each grade level. Our 8th grade leaders nearly have a team ready! There’s still time to ‘sponsor a hole’ as well. And if you’re not a golfer, you can volunteer for fair-share hours at the event. You can also register to attend the outdoor banquet after the event. Let’s come together to support our school’s foundation! We are looking forward to another week full of learning, stretching, and growing! “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105 Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal Greetings St. Ignatius Families,
As we come to the close of our second week of school, we are grateful for the amazing students and supportive families. With our STAR testing nearly complete, our staff will begin analyzing the data to drive instructional planning. Our test results show, overall, we have strong students ready to learn and stretch themselves toward brilliant futures. STAR testing results will be shared with families during our fall conferences in October. We celebrated our whole school this week with an outdoor assembly to review our recess and uniform expectations. Several staff members helped us to review our uniform guidelines with a ‘what not to wear’ fashion show. We successfully completed our first fire drill of the year on Thursday afternoon as well. We have a few reminders for families as we head into our third week of school. It is extremely important that we work together as a community to maintain safety measures. The students are doing a great job at keeping their masks on and putting them on right away after eating. We need some assistance from home for two safety protocols. First, please do not drop your child off before we open the school at 8:15 AM. The playground is closed before school, and students should not be on the equipment before the doors open. Students arriving in the carline should remain in their car until our yellow-vested staff appear at 8:15 AM. Students who arrive just before 8:15 AM by foot or bike should stand six feet from each other in the bike rack area. Secondly, as we enter the cold and flu season, if your child is not feeling well, even if you don’t think it’s COVID and even if he/she is vaccinated, please consider getting a rapid COVID test. COVID tests can be purchased for home use at many local pharmacies. Since we know that people can carry the virus without symptoms, please consider regularly screening your family with home tests. In school, we have added social distancing dots back onto our floors. The air purifiers are up and running all day in all classrooms. Our bathrooms are cleaned frequently during the day. High touch surfaces are wiped down several times a day. All of our students are using hand sanitizer coming in and out of the classroom after recesses and many specialist classes. Since we do not have a digital learning option, many of our students that were home all of last year are back in the classroom. As you can imagine, everyone is nervous about the community spread of the virus, especially those families with children that have compromised immune systems or live with family members with compromised immune systems. We appreciate all of the precautions each family is taking at home to keep the whole community safe. With next week as our last full week of September, we have a class color day scheduled for Friday, September 24th! Students can wear school appropriate clothing in their class color next Friday. Here are the class colors by grade: Preschool - yellow Kindergarten - lime green 1st - tye dye 2nd - purple 3rd - pink 4th - turquoise 5th - orange 6th - green 7th - red 8th - blue Next Tuesday, September 21st, our local Catholic high schools will come visit with our 7th & 8th grade students. Next week, on Wednesday, September 22nd, there will be our first monthly “Visit with the Principal'' for parents event. This month’s event will be virtual, via Zoom, from 9:00-9:30 AM. We hope to move this event to in person when it is safe to do so and shift the time to right after school begins. We are looking forward to another week full of learning, stretching, and growing! Peace be with you, Carol Pausz Principal |
Carol Pausz, PrincipalArchives
June 2022
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