Dear St. Francis of Assisi Parents and Guardians,
Rather than waiting for the newsletter tomorrow, I wanted to share some important information so that families are able to plan and have the support needed throughout the week.
NEW Alert System
We are excited to inform you that our school has purchased a new emergency notification and rapid alert system to help improve and facilitate communication with our families. Parent Alert will allow us to send out communications via Text, Email, and Voice Messages for all types of events. These alerts can be used for many reasons but also it will provide us a fast efficient way to communicate with our families in case of an emergency. To ensure you are able to receive our alerts please text the keyword "START" to 22-383 from your mobile device. Any text alerts from our school will begin with "SFA:" and calls will show from "714-695-3700". You will receive a test notification tomorrow, Wednesday, September 30, when the newsletter is sent. If you do not receive a text message tomorrow evening, please check FACTS and update your cell phones in the system.
Note: Per Telephone Consumer Protection Act we have to provide all recipients the option to Opt Out of receiving our alerts. Anytime we send out a text alert you will see "Stop to End". If you reply "Stop" you will no longer receive our text alerts regardless if we select you as a recipient.
Tech Support
We have tech support available 5 days a week through [email protected]. Our IT staff are monitoring this support ticket system and respond swiftly to resolve issues as soon as possible. Please do not email the teacher with IT issues as they will be unable to address them with you nor will they be able to resolve the majority of issues without reaching out to IT for help as well. Students and parents have been emailing teachers while they are teaching for tech support help rather than [email protected]. I have asked the teachers to not respond to email when they are teaching your children.
School Masses/Blessing of the Animals
As with all things this year, we had to reimagine how we would celebrate Mass as a whole school while operating in a hybrid format. Fr. Fred and I decided that having students walk down to Mass at this time was not a prudent decision. Santa Clara de Asis parishioners are not screened before attending Mass and are asked to wear masks. We are taking such strict precautions on campus and we will not expose our students to adults either on and/or off-campus. We will offer Mass two times a month on the school field for the students that are on campus. One Mass for the blue cohort and one for the green cohort. All Masses will be live streamed via Facebook for our virtual friends at home. Since parents are not allowed on campus at this time, we invite our parents to join in the livestream and pray with our school community. Our first liturgy will be this Friday, October 2, in honor of our feast day for St. Francis of Assisi at 10 am.
Blessing of the Animals is an annual event at SFA held at the beginning of October on the Feast Day of our patron saint, Francis of Assisi. This unique celebration is near and dear to our hearts. For this reason, it is difficult to announce that, due to social distancing requirements and health regulations, we will not be hosting a traditional Blessing of the Animals in 2020. However, Fr. Fred will record a special blessing that will be sent to all families so that you can bless your animals at home. This can be a special moment for the family to pray and ask for St. Francis to bless their animal(s).
Virtual Students Materials Exchange Day - 2nd School Supplies Drop-off
This Friday, October 2nd will be our second materials exchange day. This is an opportunity to exchange physical work and consumable materials. We ask that you drive through the school parking lot to turn in any paper and pencil work that has been completed and requested by your teachers and pick up new assignments between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm. A crate for each class will be set out along the curb on tables in front of the school and will be labelled. Each student will have a hanging file folder with their name on it in their class crate. Please park and walk to the appropriate crate. Take out the new assignments teachers have loaded into the file and put any finished work that teachers have asked for (with your child's name printed on it) back in the folder.
This is a 2nd opportunity for families to drop off their school supplies. Each class will also have a clearly marked tub under their crate so that you can place school supplies on the table and we will transport them to the classrooms. Be sure to write your child's name and room number on the supplies.
School Wellness Screening App
Some parents/grandparents have still not downloaded the Covid Screening app, which is required for student drop-off in the morning, Please have the green screen ready when we are taking the student temperatures in the morning. We signed an agreement with a programmer to create this app specifically for our school, where only the administrators on the account, St. Francis Administration, have access to the daily information submitted. We did this to protect the privacy of all of our families. Please have this downloaded and completed in the morning.
Your Commitment to our Community
Heightened attention is requested when it comes to the health of your children. Please be an active participant in mitigating exposure to illnesses by keeping your children home when they are sick. This includes colds, runny noses, coughs, etc. If their sibling is healthy and does not have any symptoms, they may come to school as long as there is not a fever for any children at home! Together, we can keep our school open and our children and staff well!
Excessive Heat
Due to the excessive heat today and tomorrow, we are keeping your students indoors for their lunch and afternoon break. They will enjoy the filtered air and stay cool! Also, since the warm weather will still be here on Friday, we are allowing students to wear spirit wear tops and their uniform bottoms for Mass (green cohort).
Thank you for your continued support and active involvement in the success of our school in the 2020-2021 school year!
Be safe and be hopeful,
Jeannette Lambert
Principal
