The Russell Review

Happy New Year!

I hope that each and every one of you were able to find some time to rest, relax, and rejuvenate during the winter break. December was a busy month full of many wonderful happenings both at Russell School and within each of your families. Though December was filled with new learning opportunities, we did find many opportunities to infuse a little school spirit and plenty of seasonal magic.

While I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of December, I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things as we enter the new year. In the spirit of that thinking, I'm looking forward to a great first week back and the busy weeks that will follow. Before we know it, February vacation will be upon us.

Enclosed you will find a number of reminders about the days and weeks ahead. Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

January 1st

No School

New Years Day

January 2nd

School Resumes

January 6th

Russell School Family Engagement Meeting

4:30 - 6:00

January 15th

Early Dismissal

Students Dismissed 2 Hours Earlier Than Normal

January 20th

No School

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 27th - January 31st

NWEA Math & Reading Testing

February 12th

Early Dismissal

Students Dismissed 2 Hours Earlier Than Normal

February 10th - February 14th

Russell School Kindness Week

February 17th - February 21st

No School

February Vacation

Changes to your child’s afternoon dismissal plan must be communicated to the main office before 12:00 on the day of the change. This communication is essential for us to plan accordingly and get your child where they need to be at the end of each day. Additionally, this communication should be prioritized early in the day as we intend to dismiss buses before parent pick-up this year. Families who do not inform us of changes will likely have to return to pick-up their children from home or daycare.

It is important to note that this communication should be made to the main office and not only to classroom teachers. Our classroom teachers are not constantly or consistently monitoring email while students are in class. You can reach us in the main office at 657-4929 or by email at jfernez@sad15.org.

The first two meetings of our new Russell School Family Engagement Team were a success. Our next meeting will be held on Monday, January 6th from 4:30 - 6:00 in the Russell School Library. Our 90 minutes will be spent developing action strategies that engage families in their children's learning with the ultimate goal of helping improve our overall student achievement data at Russell.

Please email Mr. Blake at dblake@sad15.org or call the Russell School Office at 657-4929 if you are interested in joining us!

Team Meeting Dates:

January 6th

March 31st

May 12th

At our most recent Family Engagement Team meeting, members shared that they believe families have questions about how to best support their students but may not always think to reach out to classroom teachers. After a thoughtful discussion, we decided to create a new opportunity for families to ask questions and get advice from our school staff.

We are excited to introduce a "Dear Abby" style column where parents can submit questions, and each month, Mr. Blake will select one or two to answer.This will be a great way for us to connect and support one another with the intention of strengthening our school community and increasing our student achievement at Russell School.

Examples might include: ways to engage our students at home, tips and tricks for creating routines at home, games and activities that can be done in small doses that don't feel like school, etc. The sky is the limit. What's on your mind?

If you have a question you'd like to ask, please use the link below to submit it. We look forward to hearing from you!

We are pleased to announce that breakfast and lunch will be free to all students for this school year! This only applies if a student takes a "complete meal".

Students who choose to only get milk with their breakfast or lunch will be charged $0.65 for each milk they take.

Lunch menus are published monthly on the MSAD 15 website. In addition, monthly menus will be sent to families through our email service, School Messenger.

Please note that due to staffing shortages, the yogurt meal is temporarily unavailable. We hope to add it back to the menu soon. In the meantime, we will continue to serve the main entree and have a secondary option of sun butter and jelly.

Students who will be purchasing milk only are strongly encouraged to use the My School Bucks program. Information pertaining to the program can be found below.

With winter weather arriving in the near future, I want to remind families to have a plan and be ready for one of the several inclement weather plans. Please see below for more information.

Inclement Weather Options Include:

• School Cancellation

• Two-Hour Delay

• Remote Learning Day (when feasible)

Notification:

• Interim Superintendent Turner makes all decisions and determinations about school cancelations, delays and implementation of remote school days

• Interim Superintendent Turner works to get official information to families as soon as possible

• Interim Superintendent Turner communicates about storm days using School Messenger (phone message and text), television news, and the district website

We will be watching the weather throughout the winter. When weather is worrisome we will be sending home our school iPads. When devices are sent we will communicate this to you through an email. The iPads should stay in backpacks at home unless we actually have a snow day. If there is no snow day, the iPad and sleeve will still be in the backpack ready to come right back to school that day.

Should we need to implement a remote day we would use the following schedule:

K-2 Remote Day Plan

• 9:00-9:45 Live Zoom - Morning Meeting & Literacy (whole group)
  
  
• 9:45-10:00 Break
  
  
• 10:00-10:30 Live Zoom - Math (whole group)
  
  
• 10:30-12:00 Asynchronous work on Seesaw (including Specials) and/or small group/individual sessions with the classroom teacher, Response-To-Intervention staff, or Special Ed services
  
  
• 12:00 - 12:30 Lunch
  
  
• 12:30-2:00 As needed, small group/individual sessions with the RTI or Special Education

You can also expect a specific communication from myself and your child's classroom teacher should we need to implement remote learning for any reason.

We kindly ask that you remember to call us when your student will be absent from school or in instances when your child will be late in the morning. To ensure your student's safety, if we have not heard from you by 9:30 AM, we will call you. Our first attempt will be at home and by cell phone. Should we not be successful, we will call you at work or try your emergency contacts.

It is extremely important that you inform the school office with any changes to phone numbers or addresses. Should an emergency arise, it is necessary for us to know where and how to best be in contact with you.

Please keep in mind that when a student misses school, they miss instruction and that learning experience cannot be replicated through make up work. This is especially true during extended trips and vacations that occur outside of our vacation weeks. For that reason we strongly suggest that trips and vacations be planned around our pre-established vacation weeks.

Additionally, it is not a reasonable expectation for teachers to provide all missed work before a student leaves on a family vacation. We certainly can provide some items that might be helpful to keep your student engaged while away, but much of our planning is done daily to meet the dynamic needs of the classroom.

Please be reminded that temperatures in our building are known to fluctuate substantially throughout the day. We highly recommend that students dress in layers now and through the cold months ahead.

Dressing in layers allows students the greatest opportunity to be at the just right temperature of their choosing. Please be sure that each layer is labeled with your child’s name so lost items can be easily returned.

Additionally, please be reminded that as the winter weather arrives we will continue to play outside. Students should bring appropriate outdoor clothing for recess each day. Students who do not have the appropriate gear will be asked to stay on the pavement during recess. We kindly ask that you please plan accordingly.

If the temperature is below 40 degrees it is too cold for shorts, tee shirts, and no coats. We will NOT go outside if the temperature feels like 10 degrees or below. Wind chill plays into this, but fluctuates within minutes, so it is important that students come prepared to be outside. Minimally, this means children should come to school with a jacket, hat, gloves and appropriate footwear.

Students who want to play in the snow and on snow banks (when it arrives) must wear winter jackets, boots, gloves, and snow pants.

If you are in need of winter weather clothing for your child, please reach out to Mr. Blake or Mrs. Wigmore. We do have resources available for those in need to make sure that all students have the proper gear.

Thank you for your help with this to keep our children healthy and warm this winter!

School nurses are keeping our school communities healthy and safe for all learners. We have some resources that can help parents and caregivers aid us in that endeavor. Please consider the following to help us to identify communicable illnesses like flu, RSV, strep throat and COVID before they have a chance to spread through our schools.

If your child has been sick with a fever please keep them home for 24 hours after the fever has resolved without the use of fever reducing medicines like Tylenol (acetaminophen) or Ibuprofen. A fever for our purposes is considered anything over 100.0 degrees on a basic home thermometer.

Additionally, there have been a couple of reported cases of lice at Russell School. We will use this as an opportunity to remind students not to share hats, earmuffs, and hair items. Parents, please watch for any symptoms like itching of the scalp. It is very common to have dry skin on your scalp at this time of year, but you should not see white or tan-colored specs attached to hair follicles. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please don't hesitate to contact the health office staff.

MSAD 15 values clear and effective communication with our community. We have heard consistently from the community that unless you are a parent in the district, it is difficult to receive information and updates about the district. Using the form below, stakeholders can pick which messages you wish to receive and how you wish to receive them. Feel free to share this link with other community members who may be interested in receiving this information.

We hope you enjoyed your children's artwork! We saw so many cute gifts and projects as we unpacked the boxes.

What a great memory you now have for many years to come!

Patriot Parents thanks everyone for all their support during 2024 and is looking forward to all the great things ahead in 2025. Starting with our first event of 2025, we have GNG Day at the Mariners on January 5th. Get your discounted tickets at the link below and sit with others from GNG (https://fevo-enterprise.com/event/MSAD15PTO).

If you are interested in volunteering Sunday, we still have slots available for working the concession stand (https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0949A4AF22A3FF2-54148656-volunteers?useFullSite=true#/ ). A portion of ticket sales and concession sales comes back to help our schools through the PTO.

We hope to see you there!