The Cardinal Connection

Sept. 22nd: Virtual Principal Chit Chat 6 PM

Sept. 30th: Virtual Back to School Night 6 PM-8 PM(More details forthcoming)

Oct. 1st: Family Movie Night...Gates open at 6 PM...The show starts at 7:30 PM

Oct. 7th: Virtual Parent-Teacher Conference Day/No School for Students

Oct. 8th: Professional Development Day/No School for Students

Oct. 11th: Indigenous Peoples Day Holiday Observed/No School for Students or Staff

"The J.O. Wilson website has launched! Please visit the site at jowilsondcps.org. Building the site has been a labor of love between the PTA and the administration. Please send comments and feedback to jowilsonpta@gmail.com."

The JOW Virtual Principal Chat for the month of September takes place Wednesday, Sept. 22, at 6 PM. Please come join us if you can. You can register in advance for this meeting by clicking here https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIscuyorDorGdQ3qCneFiWBr_LO7UEebjrk

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Hope to see you there.

Greetings Pre-K Parents,

It has been such a pleasure getting to know you and your child and seeing the joy of our Pre-K students in their classrooms during these first weeks of school! We are writing to share with you some information about Pre-K learning resources that are available to you and your child and share important guidance for our Pre-K families on COVID-19 protocols for our littlest learners.

Family Resource Guide

We encourage you to visit our DCPS Pre-K Family Toolkit for information about your student’s experience and classroom learning standards for this year. The Toolkit also includes a variety of easy-to-implement activities that you can do with your child to support learning at home and in the community. These activities have been designed to accommodate families’ busy lives and include tips for ways that you can promote learning while doing everyday activities.

COVID-19 Protocols

Chancellor Ferebee has previously shared some important information [found here] with all DCPS families about what happens when an individual tests positive for COVID-19 and how our schools respond. We follow DC Health's guidance on how to respond to any positive COVID-19 case in our school. Your children have been doing a great job with our hygiene protocols - wearing their masks, maintaining appropriate distance from their friends, and regularly washing their hands. Thank you! We appreciate the hard work of all of our families in helping prevent the spread of COVID-19. DCPS has a layered approach to preventing the spread of COVID-19 based on three key pillars: prevent; screen; and inform. You can read more about the measures in place, like enhanced air filtration, universal masking, no-symptoms screening tests, and our response protocols at https://dcpsreopenstrong.com/health/.

In the event that a brief shift to virtual instruction is needed, however, we are prepared and we want you to know what to expect. During virtual instruction, children will participate in regular live whole-class, small-group, and individual virtual lessons using Microsoft Teams. We will also schedule weekly virtual check-ins with you, as your schedule allows, to touch base on how your child is doing and how we can support you. Students will also have access to a variety of online learning resources to support learning from home through the Pre-K Family Toolkit, Seesaw, and Hatch. We kindly ask that you reach out directly to your student’s teachers to gain more information around how they will be using Seesaw and Hatch to support learning.

As always, please reach out if you have any questions. We are thrilled to be providing a safe and joyful academic experience for your child this year.

Click on the link below to read and learn about Rajah Caruth, a former J.O. Wilson Cardinal and now professional NASCAR driver. Rajah attended JOW from PK3-5th grade and we are extremely proud of all he has accomplished and will continue to accomplish. #Cardinals SOAR

Keep up the great work young man!

https://theundefeated.com/features/meet-rajah-caruth-17-year-old-eyeing-a-nascar-career-and-a-drivers-license/

Excused Absences

What types of absences are considered “excused” and how do I notify the school? Any absence for an entire day without a valid excuse is marked as an unexcused absence. For learning at home, an absence is when a student does not log in to Canvas and/or call the school to indicate they completed their coursework through another mechanism, such as paper packets due to technology issues. The following absences may be classified as an excused absence:

• Illness of the student (a doctor’s note is required for a student absent five or more cumulative days in a term);
• Illness of a child, for parenting students (a doctor’s note for the student’s child is required when the student is absent five or more cumulative days in a term);
• Medical or dental appointments for the student;
• Death in the student’s immediate family;
• Exclusion by direction of the authorities of the District of Columbia, due to quarantine, contagious disease, infection, infestation, or other condition requiring separation from other students for medical or health reasons;
• Necessity for a student to attend a judicial or administrative proceeding, or court-ordered activity, as a party to the action or under subpoena;
• Observance of a religious holiday;
• Religious event celebration outside of a religious holiday (up to five cumulative days);
• Absences to allow students to visit their parent/guardian who is in the military, immediately before, during, or after deployment;
• College visits for students in grades 9-12 (up to three cumulative days);
• School visits for students in kindergarten through 8th grade (one day);
• Absences of expectant or parenting students for a time period specified by their doctor and any accommodations mandated by law;
• Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
• An emergency or other circumstance approved by DCPS.

A written note must be provided electronically to the school by the student’s parent/guardian within five (5) school days after the student’s return. Please Email notes to Jowilsonesenroll@k12.dc.gov and be sure to include STUDENT's NAME in the subject line.

Our family movie night has been moved to October 1st and we need your help to make this event a success! To help with movie night, please use the volunteer sign-up link at

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040E4BABAA2CAAFA7-family Please review the available slots below and click on the button to sign up. Thank you!

**Gates will open at 6:00 PM, and show times start at 7:30 PM.**

As a reminder, if you have to pick up students for an early dismissal, Please ensure that you do prior to 2:30 pm as the office gets extremely busy after this time. We ask that you please schedule appointments so that they do not conflict with your child's instructional day. Every instructional minute counts towards your cardinal's academic success.

For After-Care early dismissal, we kindly ask that parents please wait until 4:00 PM, as students are transitioning and getting settled into their after-care locations and staff persons are still settling the students in to start After-Care programming.

In the event that weather prevents us from dismissing from the field in the afternoon using our normal process, we will follow the prescribed process below...

*If your child is in PK3 or PK4: Enter the playground gate and pick them up from the rear classroom (or entrance) door. Parents must not be experiencing any symptoms of Covid-19, wear a mask, sanitize hands, and depart within 5 minutes.

*If your child is in grades K-3rd: Please enter the left front door. Pick up students in grades K-2 from the cafeteria and students in grade 3 from the commons area. Exit using the 7th street cafeteria door only. Parents must not be experiencing any symptoms of Covid-19, wear a mask, sanitize hands, and depart within 5 minutes.

*If your child is in grades 4th-5th: Please provide your child’s name to the guard or staff member at the right-side front door and step to the side to leave the areas in front of the door clear. They will have your child called down from their classroom.

**As a reminder, for the safety of our students and neighbors please do not double park or park in the coned-off bus area. We will also try to provide advance notice by communicating to families via blackboard when we may have inclement weather dismissal.

Thank you to all families who have returned school-issued devices to date. As a reminder, we are asking all families to please have students return their DCPS issued devices and chargers to school. This is extremely important as we will be updating student technology to ensure that our Cardindlas have the most recent versions and are able to connect properly when needed. All devices will be reissued back to our students in the coming weeks once our updates have been complete. Thanks in advance.

The Cardinal Kiss and Go is off to a great start! Thank you to all the families that are using this convenient way of dropping our cardinals off at school each morning. We thank you, thank you, thank you, for helping us to make this venture a success. Please see below for a few reminders to help us make this process even better.

Kiss & Go Dos:
To keep the lane open for Kiss and Go, parking is prohibited in the orange cones on K during morning drop-off.

• Plan ahead. Encourage your children to gather their belongings in the car before arriving in the Kiss and Go lane.
• Proceed as far as you can in the coned-off section in front of the school on K Street
• Remain in your vehicle. A Kiss & Go staff person will open the car door & help your child exit the car.
• Exit the Kiss & Go lane with care. Please pay attention to the flow of traffic on K Street before exiting the coned section.

Kiss & Go Donts

• Do not drop off students in the middle of K Street in front of the school. Remember, PEASE no double parking at any time.
• Do not allow students to exit the car on the driver's side of the vehicle in the Kiss and Go lane.
• Do not drop off PreK3 and PreK4 students at Kiss & Go. PreK3 and PreK4 students use a separate entrance and have to be walked to the door by an adult.