Weekly Update
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Hello, King George Families!
Congratulations on successfully navigating another at-home learning block. Teachers reported excellent attendance and participation throughout the week and a half online and are very grateful to families who made that happen. We know it is incredibly challenging to manage your own work, family and household commitments as well as to support children to be at Meets on time and to juggle competing internet requirements within the house – all while staying somewhat calm and positive. Thank you.
I would like to provide a little more information about the Temporary Remote Website our board is offering to families who need an at-home option for a short time over the next little while. This website may be accessed by anyone wishing access to teacher-created asynchronous activities at each grade level and for each subject. It may be that you are waiting a week for the second vaccination to be fully effective; you may be isolating at home or ill. Whatever the reason, if your child will be away for a short time (a few days or weeks) then you can use the resources posted to the website. Of course, your child will also remain connected to their regular class and teacher here at King George. Teachers will be connecting weekly and will be posting some in-class activities to the Google Classroom. For younger students, much of what they do during the day is oral and hands-on, so there may be fewer activites posted, but for older students, assignments may be posted along with success criteria or rubrics. It may be there is enough material in the Google Classroom for students to do, and along with check-in’s from the teacher, they may be able to keep up with their classmates at school. Some families may find it helpful to access some of the asynchronous activities from the Temporary Remote Website along with whatever is in the Google Classroom. The idea is for your child (JK-8) to keep up academically while also staying connected to King George while they have to be at home. The website address will be available starting on Monday. If you would like your child to access those asynchronous activities, then please reply to this email and let us know how long you anticipate having your child learning from home. We need this information in the office so we can correctly record attendance. Students who are learning from home will be marked present. We will reply to the emails on Monday and will send the link to the website at that time.
Some families have emailed wondering if their children may leave school at one or both nutrition breaks to go home to eat lunch. This is absolutely something families can do if they are able. Please email the office ([email protected]) and let us know what days of the week and which nutrition breaks your child will be going home. They will have to sign out at the office before they leave and then sign in when they return. If you aren’t able to plan ahead because of changing schedules or whatever other reason, then you are welcome to email in the morning and let us know your child has permission to leave that same day. Nutrition breaks are from 10-10:45 am and from 12:25-1:10 pm every day.
It is required that families do the screening tool every morning with their children before they come to school. Please don’t assume you know the tool and choose to go from memory. It changes regularly, so it is necessary to actually do it daily ro ensure you are complying with Public Health requirements even as they evolve and change. We will continue to use that tool at school to determine whether or not children have to go home if they develop symptoms during the day. Each student will be provided with 2 rapid tests on Monday. Those are to be kept at home until your child has symptoms. If they experience any of the COVID symptoms, then they must stay at home. You may use the first rapid test that day. If the result is negative, then you are to wait 24-48 hours to do the second rapid test. These tests are not to be used to confirm your child is COVID-free prior to going to a gathering or other social outing. Please check your child’s kit when it comes home on Monday afternoon. Each one should contain the following items:
- 2 swabs
- 2 cassette/test devices (foil packet)
- 2 extraction tubes
- 2 extraction buffer vials
- 2 nozzles
- 1 letter and instructions for use* (attached)
If your kit is missing something or has an extra item, then please let us know. We had to put them together ourselves and after dealing with over 1000 tests, the possiblity of human error is very real. (I would like to share here that I am very grateful to Mr. Taylor and his family who worked together at home on Friday evening to finish this big task!)
We have also had questions about the possibility of mixing cohorts. Our goal is to keep each class as self-contained as possible – extra-curriculars and classroom buddy programs are on pause and recess zones are back. We are anticipating higher than usual staff absences over the next little while. We have plans to deal with this, but in the worst scenario, we won’t have enough staff to cover each class, and it that situation, we will either disperse groups of students from one class to other classrooms, or we may have to have two classes together in the library or gym. We will not necessarily know this until the morning. We could have everything covered in the evening and then learn that a staff member is unwell at the last minute, which would mean we would have to mix cohorts. We have several steps to work through before this might happen, including reaching out to our superintendent to see if there are central teaching staff available who can be redeployed to our school. It truly is a last resort, but I want to be very transparent – it may happen.
The Ministry masks have not yet arrived, but the board sent enough good quality 3-ply cloth masks to each school for us to supply one to each student. Teachers will be handing them out on Monday. If you have a great supply of 3-ply masks or N95 respirators for your child, then you may suggest that your child not take the mask, leaving it for another family who may not be so well set-up. Please remember that we are no longer accepting gaters, neck tubes or buffs as face coverings at school. Students wearing those will be given one of the 3-ply masks for use at school. These masks are washable and are meant to be reused.
Milk and sub lunches will start this week! Many thanks to Miranda for organizing our milk program and to Casey for getting the subs set-up. For families who don’t wish to pre-order milk, the vending machine will be filled up and ready to use starting Friday.
Phew! I think that’s it. As usual, if you have questions or want clarification, then please email the school at [email protected] oryou can message me directly at [email protected], and we’ll do our best to provide the information you need.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! We can’t wait to see your kids in person on Monday!
With warm regards,
Jane Bibby