Huffman Headlines

Dear Huffman families,

It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of the first quarter of the school year. While we have had our challenges, we are grateful that the majority of our students have been able to attend school in person with minimal disruptions. What a welcome change from this time last year!

We have a busy month as we move into second quarter. There is no school for students on Friday, October 15 and Friday, October 22. We will be having parent teacher conferences on Wednesday, October 20 and Thursday, October 21, and school will be dismissed at 12:30 pm on both of those days. See below for a link to the online conference scheduler to set up your conference time. I look forward to seeing families in the building during conference week. Please feel free to stop by the office and introduce yourself if I haven't met you in person yet.

Respectfully,

Molly Hickox, Principal

Huffman Elementary School

We will be having Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday, October 20 and Thrusday, October 21. This is an important time to collaborate with your child's teacher and hear about academic and behavioral progress. Please click here to access the online conference scheduler.

Each family will be allotted one time slot for their student. We encourage everyone who has an interest in their student's success to attend the conference together. We'd also like to encourage families with multiple children to schedule 15 minutes in between your child's conference so that we can keep to our tight schedule. Often times, when you schedule sibling's back to back, your second conference starts a little bit late and then the rest of the schedule runs late after that. Thank you for helping us try and keep to our schedules for everyone! If you would prefer to have your conference over Zoom, please let your child's teacher know and they will be happy to accommodate that request.

Please remember to make sure your child has gloves, hats, warm jacket and snowpants for recess and/or PE every day. We follow district guidelines to go outside until it is -10 degrees. Many students were caught off guard this week and got pretty chilly during recess. We have a very limited amount of loaner gear for those that need it, so it's time to pull out all the winter gear at home and make sure it gets into backpacks for school!

I wanted to remind all families of our Student Cell Phone policy at Huffman. Students are allowed to have a phone at school, but they are not allowed to access their phone during the school day at any time, including lunch and recess. Phones must be turned off and/or silenced while at school, and they need to stay in a backpack on the student's person per their teachers classroom policy. Please do not call or text your child on their phone during the school day as this may create a situation where students are not sure what to do or if they should respond. Our office is always available to get a message to your child if it is urgent, and we need all communication to go through the office or through the teacher directly. If a students does have a phone out during the school day, it will be confiscated by school staff. For the first offense, it will be returned to the student at the end of the day. For subsequent offenses, parents will be notified, and the phone will only be released to a parent. Thank you for helping us provide a distraction free environment for learning.

Greetings from Scott Feris, K-6 classroom music. I am so happy to have landed here at Huffman. Playing, writing and preforming music has been my passion since I was sixteen years old. I have followed this passion all over Alaska , the West Coast and East Coast. I will be sharing this passion with your students inviting them to sing, dance and play instruments as much as possible. I believe in doing full participation. Look out for the grade level music newsletter that I will be sending out at the end of each quarter. The newsletter will include some prompts that will encourage your student to show you what we’ve been up to in class. Please feel free to contact me at feris_scott@asdk12.org.

Several families have asked about when we send notifications about positive cases in the school. We will send the following notifications to the email addresses we have on file for the parent/guardians of each student:

• If there is a positive case in your child's classroom
• If your child has been identified as a close contact of a confirmed positive case

Per district policy, we are no longer sending all school emails when we have a positive case. You can track the total number of positive cases at Huffman on the ASD website under School Operations/School Status in Real Time.

As always, if you have questions about COVID related health issues, please reach out to Nurse Krista Hepler at hepler_krista@asdk12.org or 742-5651.

Some of you may have received a letter that states your Free and Reduced Lunch benefits have expired. While all Huffman students will receive free lunch all year, it is important to submit a new application if you think you might qualify again. There are other district programs that use the Free and Reduced Lunch data for qualification. You can start a new application and submit it here.

All school volunteers must register with the district and undergo a background check. If you would like to volunteer in your child's classroom or anywhere else in the school, please fill out the volunteer forms on our website under Families/Forms and return them to our front office. You can drop them off in person or email them to bostick_jennie@asdk12.org. You may also just stop by our office and fill out a hard copy if you choose. Thank you for volunteering at our school!

When your child is absent, please call our main office at 742-5650 option 1 to report the absence. Please give a brief reason for the absence, and please be honest. Due to COVID protocols, Nurse Krista is required to follow up with all students who may be experiencing symptoms. If you are out for appointments, a family trip, or something else that is not related to illness, it will save us a lot of time if you state that reason in your message. Our school nurses have taken on a lot of extra work during the pandemic, so please help us be as efficient as possible.

Email: hickox_molly@asdk12.org
Website: https://www.asdk12.org/huffman
Location: 12000 Lorraine Street, Anchorage, AK, USA
Phone: 907-742-5650
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuffmanElementary

The School Board is committed to equal opportunity for all individuals in education. District programs and activities shall be free from discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, changes in marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, Vietnam era veteran status, genetic information, good faith reporting to the board on a matter of public concern, or any other unlawful consideration. The Board shall promote programs which ensure that discriminatory practices are eliminated in all District activities.