Riverside Monday Memo

MONDAY MEMO

8th grader Izzy and 7th graders Jay and Molly helped deliver frozen meals and 1000 paper cranes to Suzanne after school last week. She looked well, was overjoyed to see students, and showed off her art studio to us!

Greetings!

This is the final week of the longest stretch of the school year. We are proud of all those students and teachers feeling the need for a vacation, and working hard to stay focused on their best efforts this week.

Happy Monday!

Nelia

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NOTES

RADA CATALOGUE FUNDRAISER

This is the last week for online orders for the fundraiser with Rada knives and kitchen equipment. Items from this catalogue make great upgrades to your own kitchen inventory or wonderful gifts for others during the holiday season. Share the link (https://radafundraising.com?rfsn=6152657.008dc66) with friends and family, and products can be shipped directly. If you have any questions, you can email Annie Patoine.

SELF STUDY SURVEY

With only about 2/3 of families responding so far, we've extended the deadline to respond to our self-study survey for re-accreditation. This will only take a few minutes and will offer us insight from parents on all aspects of Riverside's program, administration, and governance. The results will inform the report we eventually write on our strengths, challenges, and goals as a school. If you a have not yet, please do complete this short survey.

MISSING CHROMEBOOKS

The middle school team is missing a few Chromebooks and chargers that were leant out to students during extended absences. If your child has borrowed one to bring home, please think carefully about whether or not it and its charger were returned, and search your home as needed.

SURVEILLANCE TESTING STILL AVAILABLE

Our routine surveillance testing has been very reassuring to parents and students recently. Both as COVID cases increase in our area, and as exposures happen on campus and quarantine protocols require it, it's been very helpful to have students already accessing tests at school. We would encourage those who have not yet given consent but would like to have their child(ren) tested weekly, to consider doing so. Please don't hesitate to reach out with questions or concerns if you have any.

The consent form is here, and please email Nelia if you do complete the form, so that we can be prepared to add your child(ren) to the list.

ABSENCES AND LEARNING FROM HOME

To help streamline the process around reporting absences, gathering materials, joining class remotely (for middle schoolers), and receiving additional support for at-home students, we’ve revised our procedures and ask that you read these carefully so that you can follow them from the parent perspective and know how best to guide your children:

Reporting Absences

If you email your child’s teacher about an absence, please also include Krystal, as she keeps attendance. It's helpful for us to know why the student is out and how long you anticipate the absence lasting (family experience, symptoms of illness and a COVID test, COVID exposure, etc). Remember, any symptomatic student should be getting tested, unless their provider says otherwise.
If a student isn’t feeling well, they should be resting and recuperating. Our intention is for remote supports to be used by students who would otherwise be here if it weren’t for our COVID protocols, which includes children waiting on a sibling’s results, with lingering minor symptoms, etc. These supports are for students who would be at school, except that we are asking families to be extra safe.
After you’ve called or emailed us that your child will be absent, teachers will reach out to you and your child about what is happening in class and will gather materials. This means middle school students should be checking their Riverside email accounts for communications. Teachers often can’t correspond during the school day, so they may reach out in the evening. In most cases, there will be materials available the next morning. Elementary materials may take longer.
If it looks like your child will be out for several days because of COVID precautions, you will also hear from Emily Dunn about how she can support your child’s learning from home.
Middle schoolers wanting to join classes remotely will usually receive an email (on their Riverside email account) from a classmate with a link during the first academic period of the day. If they think they should have gotten a link but haven’t, they can call Krystal (626-8552) and she’ll call the classroom to help resolve that.

COMMUNITY SERVICE DAY

This Friday, November 19 will be our annual Community Service Day. Each pod group will be working together on a variety of projects to help meet community needs. We would welcome the help of extra adults with these projects (especially at the middle school level), please email Nelia if you have time on Friday morning to lend a hand.

PreK will be decorating boxes that will be filled with Thanksgiving grocery items from H.O.P.E. for families in need.
K-2nd graders will be decorating cardboard trays and crafting napkin rings and centerpieces that will hold warm Thanksgiving meals delivered to people in homes by Amy Bona.
3-5th graders will be collecting trash and recycling on nearby roadsides and creating holiday cards for residents at the Pines.
6-8th graders will be choosing from: baking pies or chopping squash for warm meals that are being delivered to people in homes; decorating grocery bags that will be filled with Thanksgiving grocery items by the Lyndon Food Shelf; making Christmas Cards for gift boxes distributed by H.O.P.E.; baking pumpkin bread for the grocery bags shared by Lyndon Food Shelf; crafting fleece blankets for the Dartmouth and UVM pediatric ICUs; building shelves and organizing our PE shed here at school.

Students will be dismissed early at 12:30 pm. The Extended Day Programs will run until 5:00 pm. If you plan to use them on Friday, please email McKenna or Sean to let them know, and please specify approximately what time you plan to pick up. That information will help staff plan better for the extra long afternoon.

SKATING

This Friday, November 19 there will be no ice skating, see details about the special festival day above.

FOOD SHELF DONATIONS

We are collecting donations of non-perishable groceries for the Lyndon Food Shelf in a bin on the porch outside of Krystal's office. Please have your child(ren) help you select some items from home or from the grocery store if you'd like to contribute.

LATIN CLUB

Riverside’s Latin club competed in a certamen (academic competition) at Yale University (via Zoom) this past weekend. The team (Riley Washington, Sam Keith, Jeremiah Watson, Camrym Reimert, Lydia Reimert) worked for weeks to prepare for this event and came in on a Saturday to compete and represent the school at this national event. The team’s hard work paid off, and they finished second overall in their division, defeating two teams from Walton HS (Marietta, GA), and the Nysmith School for the Gifted (Herndon, VA) before being eliminated by St Andrew’s School (Austin, TX). Please congratulate them on their long hours of study if you see them around campus!

SOCCER JERSEYS

Please double check that there are no soccer jerseys in your home, your car, your students' backpacks, and wash and return any you find as soon as possible.

TEST-TO-STAY

We have enrolled in the state’s “test to stay” program, which will enable us to reduce absences in the event of a positive case on campus. How this works is that once we’ve identified a positive case on campus, and completed our contact tracing, students in the affected class may return to school by taking an antigen test each morning during their quarantine period. Families must complete the consent form (different from the consent for surveillance testing) first. It’s not a bad idea to go ahead and do this now just in case.

“Test to stay” does not supplant the need for exposed students to quarantine, which is either for 14 days (with no PCR test) or ending early after a negative PCR test administered on days 2 and 7, rather it enables students who are in quarantine due to an on-campus exposure to continue to learn at school while they complete their isolation.

We are only able to use this program in the event of a positive case on our campus and can’t use “test to stay” to bring in students who were exposed or potentially exposed off-campus. Email Roy with questions about the reasoning for that.

We hope that after winter break, when the staff has had a chance to get their boosters and every family that wants to has had the chance to get their children vaccinated, we’ll be able to revisit some of our protocols. For now, if you have any question about whether you should send your child to school, please email Roy (any hour day or night) or call the school (after 7:15 weekdays).

CROSS COUNTRY SEASON PASSES FOR RIVERSIDE

Northwoods Stewardship Center, who manages the winter season cross country ski trails on Dashney Road, is offering discount family season passes for Riverside families, for $75 (instead of $125). If you think your family would like one, please email ski@northwoods.org and reference the code RIVERSIDEFAM.

ADVENTURE CLUB

Adventure Club for K-8th graders will meet today from 3:45-5:00.

MAHJONG CLUB FOR PARENTS AND MIDDLE SCHOOLERS

MahJong Club for older students and parents will meet this Tuesday at 5:00 pm. We are still welcome to having new participants join!

CHESS CLUB

Chess Club will meet this Wednesday. K-2nd graders will be in Allee's room and 3-5th graders will be in Hanna's room from 3:00-3:45. 6-8th graders will meet in Hanna's room from 3:45-4:45.