Daisy Daily for the Week of October 26, 2020

 Welcome to Week #9 of School!

Let's keep up all the good work with all of our safety protocols to keep students and staff in the safest environment possible!

Many, many thanks to Heather Gersz for organizing "PINK DAY" on Friday, October 16, to raise awareness and donations for "Susan G. Komen for the Cure." October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Heather has organized this very important event for many years in memory of her good friend,  Michelle, and others who have fought the fight, as well as for the many friends and colleagues who are breast cancer SURVIVORS!  This year, our generous staff donated $371 to "Susan G. Komen for the Cure."

A few notes about the week ahead:

• We will hold Grade Level Meetings as scheduled.  Please look in the Daisy Google Calendar for the links to virtual meetings, as well as all other calendar events:
• DAISY STAFF GOOGLE CALENDAR
  
• Thursday, Oct. 29, will feature early dismissal at 1 pm. for students.  Teacher Professional Development will take place from 1:15-3:15 pm.  Details for that PD afternoon, as well as a full day of PD on November 3 will be forthcoming.  Responses that faculty provided to the survey were very helpful in planning requested/needed PD for these days.
• Preschool ONLY will dismiss at 11:30 pm on Friday, Oct. 30, so that our preschool staff can conduct a preschool screening in the afternoon, from noon to 3 pm.
• Please review the email sent to all staff and families re: Spirit Day next week.  Due to COVID safety protocols, we can not hold our traditional costume parade, but we do have lots of fun in store for next week's Spirit Week, including:

• Please consider donating to the United Way.  Dr. Pat Charles has sent out emails and placed donation forms in everyone's mailboxes.  The United Way supports many important services for our Westbrook Community, including helping to provide for our Early Childhood Director.  Please be as generous as possible.  We will also accept donations in the office on Friday on our "Orange & Black Day" for United Way.

Many thanks to the Frame Family for donating a flag

 from New Zealand to our flag displays in our hallways!

We have been enjoying so much quality outside time with our students.  Please continue to take students outside as much as possible, even if it means bundling up in the weeks ahead!

A Few Other Notes:

• Please remember to update the voicemail messages on phones in classrooms.  Currently, many are outdated and if you don't update with your name and code, you won't be able to retrieve messages.
• Please be sure that all online trainings are completed, i.e., Cyber Security, Blood Pathogens, Mandated Reporting, etc.
• We have plenty of child-size face masks, as well as adult masks, if anyone needs a change or if masks are not fitting well.  Please be vigilant about covering nose and mouth completely.
• For adults---if you are working with multiple cohorts, wearing your district-supplied face shield in addition to a mask, is recommended.  Of course, anyone can wear both at any time as this provides additional protection for students, colleagues and you.
• Please continue to find creative ways for families to be involved in school, such as through virtual meets for reading books; sharing passions and interests; leading crafts; learning about customs and celebrations; etc., etc.  Please share with colleagues some of your novel ideas!
• If you must be absent, please email Alicia, Lisa and me so that we can work together to plan appropriate coverage.  Calling and leaving a message in one mailbox does not ensure that we are all informed.  We will let you know if we might have an available building substitute or if the absence also needs to be entered into Kelly Services (for teachers) or Delta T (for paraprofessionals).  Coverage is becoming increasingly difficult due to the scarcity of available substitutes and we must all work together on this.
• Although we are not accepting food items from families this year, such as cupcakes for birthdays, there are other ways to make birthdays special.  Please see our Daisy webpage for this notice to families.  Also, we are still offering birthday books for students in the office.  Please let us know when you have a child celebrating a birthday and we will make sure to schedule a visit!

Thanks for all that everyone is doing to help keep students and staff members safe at school!  Let's keep it up and wishing you a great week ahead!

Take care,

Ruth

Daisy Daily for the Week of October 12, 2020

Birthday books for kindergarten students.

 

Daisy Faculty & Staff,

It has been a very busy three-day weekend as we prepare to re-open on Tuesday, October 13, after announcing that there was a COVID-positive case from our school on Saturday, October 10.

Please know that Dr. Patricia Charles and I have worked very closely with Westbrook's Director of Health, Zach Faiella, over the weekend to complete contact tracing.  Additional cleaning was also completed at our school over the weekend.

Contact tracing was thoroughly carried out and due to mitigating factors such as mask-wearing, social distancing, cohorting and complete record-keeping, it was not necessary to quarantine any entire classes of students, but rather just those who were determined by Zach Faiella to have had close contact with the positive individual, which is considered contact for 15 minutes or more within a distance of less than six feet.  All families have been notified and will have the opportunity for their students to be involved in remote learning.  Staff members who work with students who need to be serviced remotely have been or will be notified.

Thanks so much to everyone for your diligence in following safety protocols, as always.  The three-day weekend gave us the necessary time to conduct contact tracing and additional cleaning.

As we look at the week ahead, please note:

• We will have Grade-Level Team Meetings this week, as scheduled in our Daisy Staff Google Calendar.  I will send out virtual meeting links.
• Tuesday, Oct. 13: 7 pm, Board of Education Virtual October Monthly Meeting.  (Link will be posted on BOE website.)
• Friday, Oct. 16 will be PINK DAY to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure (Breast Cancer Foundation), organized by Heather Gersz.
• Please let me know if you and your students would like to participate in this challenge:

CHALLENGE TO STUDENTS:

I'd love to video students demonstrating "Social Distancing Greetings" to post on our website for families and friends to see.

Please let me know if your class would like to share these (and other creative) greetings that are appropriate for social distancing and I'll come by to video them.

Please remember to check our Daisy Staff Google Calendar daily, as we continue to add important updates, meetings, etc., to this staff calendar:

Daisy Ingraham Staff Google Calendar

Hope that everyone is coming back rested after a long weekend and ready for the week ahead.

We're in this together!  Welcome to Week #7!

Ruth

Thanks to everyone who wore Blue & Yellow 

last Friday to raise awareness for Down Syndrome.

Daisy Daily for the Week of October 5, 2020

 

Daisy Friends,

As you know, this week is Parent/Teacher Conference Week, with early dismissal at 1 pm on Tuesday, October 6 and Thursday, October 8.  We won't have Grade Level Team Meetings this week nor a Faculty Meeting so that everyone can concentrate on preparing for Conferences.

• Please don't forget to invite support staff (and/or me) to any conferences that you'd like us to join.
• Teachers/support staff can use "Language Line" for translating, as outlined in an earlier email.  If you need more information, please let me know.
• Please also let me know if any families have indicated that it would be a hardship for them to join a conference virtually, as student computers are now in school.  We can send home the child's computer for the conference or hold a phone conference.  I've sent this information out to families and will copy you on that.
• As stated earlier, virtual conferences can be conducted from school or home.
• We will distribute a revised daily schedule on Monday so that all classrooms will have a modified "Specials" schedule on the early dismissal days. 
• Thanks to all for your efforts in working with students in grades 1 through 4 to complete STAR Assessments last week, in advance of Parent/Teacher Conferences.  I was so impressed with how teachers handled assessments of remote learners as well as in-person learners.  Thanks so much to Ben for getting our classes set up with log-ins and passwords and to Kim for helping to coordinate testing with new teachers, remote students and make-ups for absent students.  The teamwork helped us get this done so that we can share this important data at Conferences this week.
• Please let me know anything that you might need to be best prepared for Parent/Teacher Conferences.

Also this week:

• We will recognize Down Syndrome Awareness Month on Friday, October 9, by inviting students and staff to wear BLUE & YELLOW on that day.  We'll send a flyer out to families and staff about that day.

*******************************************************

• Monday, October 12----Columbus Day Holiday--No School

CHALLENGE TO STUDENTS:

I'd love to video students demonstrating "Social Distancing Greetings" to post on our website for families and friends to see.

Please let me know if your class would like to share these (and other creative) greetings that are appropriate for social distancing and I'll come by to video them.

Please remember to check our Daisy Staff Google Calendar daily, as we continue to add important updates, meetings, etc., to this staff calendar:

Daisy Ingraham Staff Google Calendar

Let's make it a great Week #6 of the school year!

Ruth