February 28 – March 4

by Melanie Sylvester · Published February 25, 2022 · Updated March 3, 2022

What a week! As we work to implement the new directives, we appreciate your patience, and your questions.

Welcoming many of our students back this week will be wonderful. We can anticipate that there will be new cases and a number of our staff and students will be working from home. We will see people moving in and out of on and off campus. For the next few weeks, we are going to have to be flexible and responsive to helping out wherever we can.

I will be sending out an internal coverage plan over the weekend. Remember, this is temporary. This too shall pass and teamwork is dreamwork.

With the current situation we recognize that both staff and students will be experiencing a mix of emotions. As always, please reach out to others as we support each other. Lance, myself, Dan and our whole SLT are here to help.

David Bott’s physiological sigh is going to be very important and useful!

Right now it’s important that we acknowledge that this is difficult. It’s also important that we try to find the “Bright Spots.” If someone helped you this week, if you experienced a moment of joy this week with your students, or if you have anything joyful to share: You can find the form here!

What a wonderful reminder of the importance of our core values!

Coverage Slideshow

Thanks to everyone for your responsiveness and flexibility! “This Too Shall Pass”

Return to School Slideshow

VSTracker

Upcoming Logistics to Note:

Grades 3-5: All the turnstiles will be exit only, and their won’t be ‘maze’ of stanchions in the plaza to weave through. Traffic flow will be direct and one-way, so it should be faster and easier.
Grades EC-2: You will need to help your own students through the turnstiles. Allow extra time for this procedure on Monday. (You may want to practice ahead of time and have them all have their IDs in their left hands. Great opportunity to learn the importance of ‘left’ from ‘right’.). Also, when you get to the pavilion, you may dismiss your students to their parents when you are ready… we won’t be holding parents back until a certain time. Please make sure to keep a clipboard so you can keep track of who picked up each student since we won’t have the turnstiles keeping tracking of which adults are on campus, and we won’t have video recording of which student leaves with which adult, so we need your help with security records.

Duty Schedule: We are returning to full implementation of our regular duty schedule.
Please take time to review the duty expectations for your assigned areas.

Staff Recess and Lunch Guidelines

If you are absent from your duty (including those of you at home), it is your responsibility to ensure there is duty coverage for your assigned duty. If you cannot do this, please let Minh or I know.

School Photos:

Link to School Photo Schedule

Please continue to follow this schedule.

Attendance Codes:

We are here for you! Dan & I continue to invite you to book meetings with us, using our Google Calendars, if you would like to talk about anything.

ES Yearbook: We are still going to produce a yearbook this year with the theme of “Zoom In, Zoom Out”. In preparation for that, I am hoping that you can drop a few photos from this quarter into this Yearbook Folder. Minh has created folders for your first SuperUnit. We will need to be creative … so we’d love to have anything you think might be usable. Parents may be able to help with providing photos of their kids working virtually as well. Thank you!

Bright Spots: Please take a moment to read the “bright spots” that were shared last week on the right side widget! Let’s continue to focus on, and celebrate, the good things.

When we do this we can share a joyful educator moment or share a shout out to a staff member who has brightened our day. You can find the form here!

Professional Development Opportunities: I have started a sidebar widget with links to amazing PD opportunities. If you know of others, please share with me, and I will continue to populate this.

Campus COVID (from Lisa C): Thank you everyone for your help in following the government regulations when coming to campus. Following up on Catriona’s email (#108 Sept 25), these are the protocols currently in place for all faculty and staff coming to campus:

Every staff or faculty member must be fully vaccinated (and 14 days after the second dose of the vaccine).
All staff must self-test on Monday mornings before coming to campus.
Staff and faculty members who have recovered from COVID-19 may come to campus after the nurse verifies the documentation.
Follow all 5K rules while on campus (masks, hand washing, social distance, no gatherings, health declaration)
Staff and faculty must use Gate 2 and Main turnstiles (AKA ES entrance).
A DAILY health declaration on the SSIS App must be completed by every staff or faculty member
Turnstiles are now working for staff and faculty with SSIS ID cards. If you don’t have your ID card then you must SIGN IN and SIGN OUT the logbook with Security.
All deliveries are at Gate 4 (lunch delivery, Starbucks coffee, parcels, envelopes, etc)
COVID testing is recommended for staff to be done weekly.