Principal’s Message - August 19, 2025
Hello families,
We hope that you are having a wonderful summer with your children. We are excited to begin the 2025-2026 school year in a few weeks. A few things to note…
First Day:
School begins for students on Wednesday, September 3, 2025 at 8:30am. Please note that the board has scheduled a PD day the Tuesday after Labour Day. Staff will be engaged in Health and Safety, Mental Health and literacy training that day. We will be sharing information about first day procedures in a message the week before school starts.
Registration Day:
Have new families moved into the neighbourhood over the summer? Please encourage them to register online at https://www.ugdsb.ca/schools/admission-registration/ The office is open for registrations beginning on Tuesday, August 27th at 8:30am. This helps us to make sure that we have them assigned to a class so that they can have a great start to school.
Have you Moved?
If you have moved and will be attending a different school for September, please let us know so that we can transfer your child’s information to their new school. It is important that you register at the new school so that your child also has a great start to their school year.
Welcome to our New Vice Principal:
We are happy to welcome our new VP Vincent Allen to Spencer Ave. He comes to us with admin experience, a strong special education background, and a love all things STEM. He had an opportunity to visit in June and was happy to meet a number of our students. Please note that the board has changed its model of VP support for schools. Mr. Allen will only be at Spencer on Mondays, Tuesdays and alternate Wednesdays. There will be no VP in the office on Thursdays or Fridays (and alternate Wednesdays), except in rare circumstances.
Plans of Care:
A reminder to parents who have children with life-threatening conditions to make sure that you have updated your child’s plan of care with the office. If there are no changes please complete the declaration form that was sent home in June. If there have been changes to your child’s plan of care or if your child has had a recent diagnosis please reach out to the school to set up an appointment with the principal or vice-principal to go over changes. It is important that these are updated and that needed medications are on site so that we know what to do if your child has a medical emergency at school.
Information from Transportation (for students who ride the bus to school):
Newsletter https://stwdsts.ca/newsletter/
First Rider Program https://stwdsts.ca/first-rider-program/
Parent Portal Subscription https://stwdsts.ca/parentportal/
Eligible for the Bus? https://www.findmyschool.ca/TransportationEligibility
Please note that parents will not be able to access their Parent Portal Student Info for NEXT YEAR busing, until August 19, 2025.
Please also note that once school starts in September, it can take 5-10 business days to arrange busing. If you have any questions regarding bussing please reach out to transportation’s call centre at 519-824-4119. They will do their very best to assign students as quickly and safely as possible. Please be aware there will be changes to busing for the Fall and so families are asked to check their busing information in August and frequently after that as minor changes to scheduled bus stop times can occur throughout the course of a school year. They also ask that students are waiting 5-10 minutes prior to their pickup times as drivers will not wait for students who aren’t at their stop on time.
Look for my next communication toward the end of next week. Enjoy these last few days of summer break!
Mrs. D-J