- Four Day Week In Person-Friday Continued Learning Starts Next Week (October 5)
- Halloween Celebration (October 29)
- Window for Switching Learning Option (Important Information for Parents)
Four Day Week In Person-Friday Continued Learning
The Board-approved pivot to a four day, in-person schedule Monday through Thursday will start on Monday, October 5. Students will NOT attend school on Fridays in person starting next week. Teachers will be sending a packet home each Thursday tailored to each grade with a school wide focus. This student work is required to do on Friday at home and will be collected on Monday. The continued learning activities on Friday will be an important part of the student’s work on Monday, so they need to complete these assignments. All work is a review of previously taught material.
The student’s self-guided packet should take no more than two hours for upper grades to complete. Younger grades will take less time. We are also asking the students read for 30 minutes in an age appropriate book on Fridays. There will be an activity suggested by the teacher to complete for their chosen book each Friday that will also be turned in on Monday.
ATTENDANCE ACCOUNTABILITY: If the students have completed the assignments, they will be marked as present at school for Friday. If they do not complete the assignments, they will be marked absent on Friday. This is the accountability for the student for school for the day at home. For the week of Fall Recess and Thanksgiving, there will be NO Friday continued learning activities provided, as these are holidays.
In addition to the packet that is sent home, optional online activities will be available on the teacher’s Canvas course for practice, if the parent would like the student to have academic practice to do. NO CHROMEBOOKS OR IPADS WILL BE SENT HOME WITH STUDENTS FOR ONLINE ACCESS FOR FRIDAY OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES.
The school will also be sending home a breakfast and lunch on Thursday afternoon for Friday unless requested not to do so as part of our free breakfast lunch program.
TEACHER OFFICE HOURS/STUDENT SUPPORTS ON FRIDAYS: Teachers will be available on Fridays from 8:30 am-10:30 am to schedule meetings, answer phone calls and emails with parents and students every Friday. They will also be supporting any students who may be working online from their class due to illness/quarantine or travel, etc. Please feel to reach out to them if you need help. All staff can be reach directly by email in Canyons District by staff member’s firstname.lastname@canyonsdistrict.org You can reach our front office at 801-826-8800. Office staff can send you to the teacher’s phone in their room.
Our Special Education Team may be scheduling IEPs, DLPs and 504 meeting during their office hours, as well, with parents whose schedules may work for these meetings.
Halloween Celebration-In Person Students
We are happy to have the annual Halloween childhood fun continue on Thursday, October 29th. In collaboration with the PTA, every class will hold a party at the end of day. While we cannot have a parade this year or have volunteers in the building, the teachers have planned whole class games and activities and fun short movies. Teachers will be asking for donated wrapped treats and non-food fun items for the students from parents in the classes. You will see a flyer from each teacher come home for voluntary donations later this month.
Since we will not be having a parade, costumes are optional this year, but students are welcome to dress up for the day. If they choose to wear a costume, the same rules apply as every year. No weapons or facsimiles of a weapon may be used. No costume masks may be worn with the costume (we KNOW! How ironic, right? Just the health and safety ones. Perhaps they want to be a doctor or nurse this year? 😀 ) Also, students will need to wear the costume all day, as we will not be able to have students change in the bathrooms during the day into or out of costumes. Please consider make up challenges with wearing a face mask all day.
In the past, because we have had a public parade where it would be noticed if a child didn’t have a costume, we have helped a lot of students have a costume. To do this, we have had a donated costume store and had students try out different choices and sizes. Due to COVID, we are unable to do that process this year.
We have had to make the hard decision to not provide this support this fall. We are also hearing that most neighborhoods will not be holding Halloween events or trick-or-treating where our students would be excluded, so don’t feel this might be as big a challenge for these students to feel a part of the community. For these reasons, we will not be accommodating these costume requests for just this year.
District Window for Switching Learning Option
The District sent information to all parents this week and put information on our website concerning the window for parents who wish to switch their learning option. We have quite a long list of parents who are patiently waiting to come to school in person from online and parent directed. We have accommodated all the students we can at this time in some grades without staffing changes that need to take place should students make that shift. We will continue to communicate with you as the process gets closer, but please mark the window on your calendar as it is in CONCRETE! Secondary schools have started, but elementary is LATER.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS The window for submitting change requests is Sunday, Nov. 1 through Sunday, Nov. 8. Learning option changes will take effect with the start of the trimester on Monday, Nov. 23.
FROM THE DISTRICT: Those wanting to shift from in-person to one of two remote learning options available, or from remote learning to in-person instruction, will need to submit a change-request within the timeframe advertised by their school. No action is required of families who wish to stay with their chosen path. The three learning options are the same as described at the beginning of the year: In-Person Instruction; Online Instruction; or Parent-Guided, District-Supported At Home Instruction. An explanation of those options can be found at canyonsdistrict.org. The choices parents make during this window will guide the complicated process of shifting teaching assignments and allocating other staffing and classroom resources. For this reason, we cannot entertain late change requests.
As always, we wish to thank you for the wonderful collaboration we feel with you as parents. It was a delight to visit you during parent/teacher conferences. The students are thriving and we see a lot of growth in their academic and social progress. Please do not hesitate to reach out for anything we can do to support you and your family.
Warmest regards,
Tamra Baker, Principal
