October 10, 2020
Dear Lower School Families,
Thank you for joining us this week for our annual Back-to-School Nights. While not able to replicate the same environment when doing them on Zoom, we do hope you were able to get your questions answered and learn more about how the year is going from your children’s teachers.
School Pass is up and running, and we are using it for both the health screening check in the morning and the carline in the afternoon. We recognize we have some improvements to make with the afternoon pickup and are working to correct some technology glitches. We appreciate your patience as we work through these issues. To help us make the carline move quicker, please make sure you have entered all of the different car license plates that will be picking up your children. Without this information entered, your children remain in their homerooms as the system is not recognizing the cars in the carline and matching them with your children to come outside, thus blocking the carline. If you need assistance, please contact our Tech Team. Important note: when entering your license plate info, please do not leave any spaces between letters and numbers.
Our Lower School Swim Program begins October 21st. Please follow this link to a letter and linked videos about new safety protocols that are in place for the program this year. Our swimming instructors this year are Craig Yakscoe, Ron Leach and Robin Miller.
We have noticed that some of our students are wearing smartwatches to school. For us, a smartwatch is defined as a watch that is capable of connecting to wifi or cell service, able to receive and/or send messages, and/or take photos. In the Lower School, smartwatches are considered similar to how we approach cell phone use -- they must be in your children’s backpacks and not used anywhere inside or outside the building during school hours. Students who need to reach their parents or guardians during the school day must come to the Lower School Office and use the phone in the office.
This year the Lower School will be celebrating Halloween differently than in previous years. Unfortunately, we will not be able to invite parents onto campus for the parade nor into the classrooms to help with the homeroom parties. However, students will celebrate in a new and fun way while remaining in their pod groups. On Friday, October 30th, students may come to school in a costume, school spiritwear or fall-inspired clothing of their choice. It is important to note that they will be in their costumes all day, so they should wear something comfortable underneath. We are unable to allow children to change clothing in school due to a lack of space with our COVID measures. The parties will continue in the homeroom classrooms, and homeroom teachers will reach out to our PACA Room Parents to share how best they can support the activities. Specific plans for the day will be shared by homeroom teachers. Please note, we will not have a Forest Friday on October 30th. The costume guidelines are listed below: