September 4, 2020
Dear Rowe Families,
The summer has flown by and we are very excited to welcome the children back to school. The appointment days with teachers are coming up on Tuesday, September 8th and Wednesday, September 9th. Please be sure to sign up for an appointment with your child’s teacher if you haven’t already done so. Contact your child’s teacher if you need the signup link sent to you again. On that day, your child will be receiving the two masks that the school is providing and car tags for our dismissal app (see full explanation below.) There will also be some other pertinent beginning of school paperwork handed out. It is an opportunity for your child to spend some time with the teacher one on one before the first day of school. There will also be a couple of brief assessments given to help guide instruction. If you are unable to make the appointment, please contact your child’s teacher.
The schedule for the first week of school is as follows and is posted on our website:
Monday, September 7th - Labor Day holiday
Tuesday, September 8th - Appointment Day with the classroom teacher
Wednesday, September 9th - Appointment Day with the classroom teacher
Thursday, September 10th - first day of school for students in Cohort 1 (Monday, Thursday group)
Friday, September 11th - first day of school for students in Cohort 2 (Tuesday, Friday group)
Instruction for fully remote students
iPads for first grade students will be distributed on the appointment days. We have new iPads ordered for kindergarten children, as we have not had a device for every student at that level prior to this year. They will be arriving soon and we will have parents pick them up at Rowe once they arrive and are ready to go. Mrs. Caron has been in touch with her fully-remote families with the instructional plans for the days following her appointments. We will be starting with community building and read alouds on the 10th and 11th. Our tech team is working to get full instruction going by September 14th. This will allow us to work the kinks out of any potential tech issues as well. We will be in touch with updates as they become available to us.
Attendance
For fully remote students and on remote days for students in the hybrid model, there will be a link sent out to a google form on which to log your child’s remote attendance each day. Attendance will be taken by teachers in the classroom on the days that children in the hybrid model are physically at school.
Arrival and Dismissal
Morning arrival begins at 8:40. All students must arrive at school by 9:00 to avoid being marked tardy. Arriving on time goes a long way in helping them to start the day out right. Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
Afternoon dismissal begins at 3:00 and ends at 3:30. Pick ups begin at 3:00 and end at 3:25.
Arrival procedure:
If you are driving your child to school, you will pull into the drop off lane at the end of the parking lot closest to the school. From there, you can quickly help your child out of the car and a staff person will be there to greet you and to walk your child inside. If the drop off lane looks busy as you drive in, you can park in the lot and walk your child to the sidewalk where a staff person will greet you and escort your child into the building. Please do not pull into the circle in front of the school. This area is reserved for buses only. In addition, the circle will be closed to traffic during the school day. If you need to come to the school during the instructional day, you will need to use the parking lot.
Dismissal procedure:
PIKMYKID
In our ongoing efforts to enhance your children’s safety, we have decided to begin using the PikMyKid Dismissal Application for car pickups afterschool. This app allows you to be in full control of your child’s dismissal and it gives us, the school, complete information regarding dismissal and the ability to acknowledge every change and to instantly check your child’s dismissal status should you have a question. We are optimistic about this addition and we think you will be, too.
Whether you have an Android phone or an iPhone, you can visit the appropriate app store and download the PikMyKid app for free. Once downloaded, the registration process is very simple. You will receive three PikMyKid Car Tags from the teacher appointments on September 8 or 9. As you register in the app, use the number on the car tag you receive from us. You will be the Primary Parent for your child and in control of their dismissal. You can delegate alternate individuals, but they should have the app also. It will send a matching number to the phone for us to validate the correct person is picking up the proper child. If you are part of a car pool, each child’s number will be sent to the phone for validation. You will be asked for the necessary information (Child Name, Grade, Teacher, Dismissal Mode, & Car Tag Number) upon registration. Please make sure that you have downloaded the app by September 18.
Important Note! From September 10- September 18 we will use the hard card tag only to dismiss students while we practice using the system before going “live” on September 21. This is highly recommended by PikMyKid. That means if you are picking up on those days you should:
Pull up to the pick up loop at the end of the parking lot nearest to the school. Make sure that your car tag is prominently displayed on the right hand side of the dashboard of your car. An adult on duty will need to see it in order to verify who you are picking up. We will radio inside for your child to be dismissed from a nearby location and you will be on your way.
If the loop is full, pull through slowly and either park your car in the lot or circle around to re-enter the car loop once other vehicles have moved out. PLEASE DO NOT REMAIN PARKED ON SCHOOL STREET, AS YOU MAY BLOCK BUSES TRYING TO GET IN.
If you park in the lot, you will need to walk to the sidewalk and provide a staff member with your tag number. A staff member will radio inside for your child to be dismissed and you will wait for him/her to be escorted out.
Please do not enter the bus loop in the front of the school for any reason. Thanks in advance for your help!
We will notify you when we “go live” with the app prior to September 21. To learn a little more on your own you can view this link PikMyKid Parent FAQ and/or video: Parent Video. PLEASE NOTE: This is a comprehensive video of all the possible features that PikMyKid has. Please don’t be overwhelmed by all the information and keep in mind we are starting slowly with this new app. To begin, we will be using it for car pick-up dismissals only.
Pickups or drop offs during the school day:
If you need to come to the school during the instructional day to drop off or pick up your child for any reason, you will be buzzed in by Amanda Murray, our administrative assistant or whoever is at the front desk. You will stay in the vestibule area, just inside the front door whether you are picking up or dropping off. We need to limit the number of people entering our school. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate our way through this challenging time.
Emergency Contacts
Please be sure to update your emergency contacts. Many people have grandparents, neighbors or friends listed as emergency contacts. If any of this information has changed, please be sure to update it. There will be a sheet provided to you on the appointment day that will allow you to make those changes. Again, if you are not able to make the appointment day, we will get the sheet to you another way.
As a result of the planning we have been doing as a staff over the last couple of weeks, there are a few items we would like for you to send with your child if you are able to do so:
A small bottle of gel hand sanitizer labeled with their name
A child size breakaway lanyard for a mask
A hat to wear on sunny days - Classes will be having some instructional time outside in addition to time outside out for recesses.
Three masks per day, including the one they wear to school. Please send two additional clean masks in their backpacks for a total of three.
Mask information
We have two masks per child that we will be handing out. They are one size and may not fit all children well. We have ordered beads that can be attached to the ear straps to adjust the fit. In addition, there is an amazing community group called the Yarmouth Sewing Warriors who will make masks for free. Please be in touch with your child’s teacher if you need additional masks.
Lanyards
We are hoping to have a lanyard for each child that they can attach to their mask. It has been recommended that masks not be worn around the neck during a mask break. This will also prevent masks from falling on the ground, getting lost, or someone mixing theirs up with another student’s. We have ordered lanyards, some of which will be in by mid-September and others that are back ordered and will not be delivered until late October. Those we have arriving in September will not be enough for every child. There are smaller packs available on Amazon for delivery in the next week or so. If you are unable to purchase one, we will provide as many as we can and know that we will have extras on hand when we receive our other order in late fall.
A huge thanks to the Yarmouth PTO and Yarmouth Education Foundation!
I want to take this opportunity to thank both the Yarmouth Education Foundation and the Yarmouth K-8 PTO. YEF funded our outdoor classroom spaces and provided the funding for all Rowe students to have a flexible chair that can be used both indoors and outside. The PTO funded lanyards for students and playground equipment for all 12 classrooms. We are indebted to both of these organizations. Please consider becoming involved with either or both groups. There will be more information in the coming days on their work and how you can help.
I will be in touch with more information soon. We are so excited to welcome the children back to school in both the fully remote and hybrid models! As always, your support is much appreciated. Please reach out at any time with questions. Have a wonderful, restful long weekend.
Sincerely,
Susan Lobel, Rowe School Principal
