School Office Hours
Monday-Friday 8-4 pm
November 10
Board Meeting, 5:30 pm
November 11
No School- Veteran's Day
November 23-24
No School- Parent/Teacher Conferences
November 25-27
No School- Thanksgiving Break
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Drawing by Sidra Price, 5th grade |
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Each November, families come together for a Lantern walk to celebrate a version of Martinmas as a reminder that each of us has a divine spark and inner light. Martinmas originates from the story of St. Martin who started out as a Roman soldier. He was baptized as an adult and became a monk. It is understood that he was a kind man who led a quiet and simple life. The most famous legend of his life is that he once cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar from dying from the cold. St. Martin is known as a friend of the children and patron of the poor. This festival marks the end of harvest and the beginning of winter.
The essence of this festival is to acknowledge the light that shines forth from each of us. This light needs to be protected, just as the lights inside our lanterns do, so they don't blow out. This festival harkens back to a time when children in Great Britain and Europe carved out turnips and other small squashes, making them into lanterns to carry throughout their villages after dark.
In Preparation for this annual tradition, children make their own lanterns and learn lantern songs. On the actual day, families from the younger grades gather as darkness falls, hear a story, sing and quietly walk along the track, carefully carrying their lanterns in a mood of quiet reverence. Afterwards we come back together and share homemade soup, bread, and cider before going home. This year, we will not be able to gather together in person to participate in this annual tradition, but this festival can be easily replicated at home.
If you have a child in kindergarten through 3rd grade we encourage you to participate in some way in this annual tradition. Here are some resources to help. They can also be found on our website:
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Fall Parent/Teacher Conferences
Parent/Teacher Conferences will be on Monday and Tuesday, November 23-24. There will be no school those days as well as the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. This year we will be meeting either via Zoom or phone. Please indicate on the sign-up sheet which you prefer. If you choose Zoom your child's class teacher will send you a link. For the first time, we are sending out a Master Conference Sign-Up, with all classes on it. Please pick from the available times and do not add new ones. To minimize how many conferences teachers host, we ask that parents only sign up for one slot per child. If a child has more than one household please coordinate and attend the same conference.
Sign up early, it's first come, first serve. The link to the conference sign-up sheet will also be sent home to parents in class emails.
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Press Release from the Governor
This press release came out today. We are unsure how this will affect our school, but will let you know as soon as we get clarity.
Governor Kate Brown Announces Two-Week Pause on Social Activities to Help Stop Rapid Spread of COVID-19
Measures take effect Nov. 11 in Malheur, Marion, Multnomah, Jackson, and Umatilla Counties, with five additional counties close to triggering these measures
Governor Kate Brown today announced new measures pausing social activities to help stop the rapid spread of COVID-19 in counties where community transmission is on the rise. These pause measures will be in effect for two weeks, from Nov. 11 through Nov. 25, for Malheur, Marion, Multnomah, Jackson, and Umatilla Counties. Based on increasing statewide case counts, as well as increased sporadic case rates in these five counties, the new public health measures to reduce spread are an effort to save lives in Oregon.
Five additional counties––Washington, Baker, Union, Clackamas, and Linn––are close to the COVID-19 thresholds that would necessitate adding them to the Two-Week Pause. The Oregon Health Authority will examine their COVID-19 metrics on Monday to determine if those counties qualify.
“It is alarming that recent high case rates are not linked to any specific outbreaks, but rather reflective of sporadic community spread,” said Governor Brown. “We are seeing in real time how this virus can quickly snowball out of control. This Two-Week Pause is a series of measures and recommendations intended to curb human contact — both through reducing the amount of people we interact with, and the frequency of those encounters. We must stop this virus from spreading. We must preserve our hospital capacity. And we must save lives.”
The Two-Week Pause measures include:
- Urging all businesses to mandate work from home to the greatest extent possible.
- Pausing long-term care facility visits that take place indoors to protect staff and residents.
- Reducing maximum restaurant capacity to 50 people (including customers and staff) for indoor dining, with a maximum party size of six. Continuing to encourage outdoor dining and take out.
- Reducing the maximum capacity of other indoor activities to 50 people (includes gyms, fitness organizations/studios, bowling alleys, ice rinks, indoor sports, pools, and museums).
- Limiting social gatherings to your household, or no more than six people if the gathering includes those from outside your household, reducing the frequency of those social gatherings (significantly in a two-week period), and keeping the same six people in your social gathering circle.
Governor Brown added: “I am also calling on Congress to pass another COVID-19 relief package immediately when they return to DC—including another $600 weekly benefit in enhanced Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation—due to the increase of COVID-19 cases and the need for rollbacks both here in Oregon and nationwide.”
The Two-Week Pause is being instituted in counties with a case rate above 200 per 100,000 people over a two-week period, or more than 60 cases over a two-week period for counties with less than 30,000 people. These measures replace the County Watch List process that Governor Brown instituted in July.
Governor Brown's full remarks are available here.
A link to Governor Brown's press conference is available here.
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Pictures for the Yearbook Needed
Weekly reminder! Please take pictures of your child doing the various online school activities at home, like this one of Kindergartner, Lennox Kingzett, making a lantern.
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Volunteer Sign-Up Sheet
Just because we're not on campus, doesn't mean we don't have need for volunteers. Please fill out the Survey below to tell us how you can help. We so appreciate any help parents can offer our school.
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Madrone Trail T-shirts
We still have t-shirts for sale in the office! If you're new to the school, or your child is outgrowing their old one, this is the time to get one. We are putting them on sale, $10 for a kid's shirt and $15 for an adult shirt. You can pay with cash, credit card, or check. Pick one up the next time you are at school.
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Handlettered and watercolored by Ms. Cori |
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MADRONE TRAIL PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL
www.madronetrail.org
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Madrone Trail Public Charter School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or age in its programs and activities. |
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