Ockley Green News

I am excited to welcome you all back to the new school year! Our support staff have been busy this week with preparing for the return of staff & students. Last week, our Admin team had the opportunity to learn together with members of our Instructional Leadership Team (ILT). The conversations & planning were incredibly thoughtful with ELA Teacher Daniel Linton, Climate Coach Kathryn Dennis and Instructional Coach Elise Hughes at the table with our Admin Team. We continued to critically review our School Continuous Improvement Plan (SCIP) to ensure we have coherency across our school practices and that they are closely-aligned to our climate and academic outcome goals.

This newsletter contains a LOT of information, as these newsletters often do at the beginning of the school year. I hope that it will help you answer some questions.

In this week's edition, you will find information about:

• Project Community Care on Sat., August 17th

• OG Welcome Back Block Party

• Expectation Reminders

• NEW School End Times and Special Schedule Days

• Chromebook Carts

• Where to find your student's course schedule

• ParentVue Access

• School Supply Lists

• Student Verification Forms

• Bus Route Information

In Partnership

Julie Rierson

Pronouns: she/her

Principal, Ockley Green Middle School

In partnership with OG Supporters, we are hosting a Community Care Day on Saturday, August 17th, 10 - 12:00 to get our school grounds ready to welcome back staff & students.

Meet us at the Cafeteria Entrance on Ainsworth Street. I look forward to seeing you there!

We will send out specific expectations as we review them with students during the opening weeks of school. Your partnership in reminding students of the expectations we set last year and will continue with for this school year.

Cell Phones

We will continue to expect Cell Phones to be Off & Away. Please remind students that their cell phone is to be always out of sight. You are able to call the office when you need to communicate a message to your student and they are able access the phone in the office for calls home.

Ockley Green is a closed campus, which means that we will not accept DoorDash, Uber Eats, or other deliveries to students. Parents/guardians are welcome to drop lunch items off for their students and we ensure that students receive them for lunch time. PPS students from other schools are not allowed to visit Ockley during the school day or extended day programming hours. Ockley students are to remain on campus unless they have signed out with Parent/Guardian permission.

Once a student gets on the bus they become our responsibility - door to door. They MUST stay on campus once they arrive on campus. If you drop them off at school, they may not leave school to walk to the store or anywhere else.

Your child's safety is our highest priority and your support in adhering to these expectations will support us to make sure our students are safe.

Middle Schools have some changes that impact the start/end times for students. The following will start this school year:

• the regular school day is extended by 15 minutes to end at 4:00 PM;
• staff meetings will now take place in the morning before school begins, resulting in a slightly later start for students; and
• there are 6 early release days for professional development.

We are excited to add Computer Carts across our building to support student access to functioning computers in their classrooms. We will not check-out computers directly to students this year. Instead, we will have fully charged computers available to classrooms, per the teacher's discretion. This will greatly reduce our need to send in computers for repair, ensure students can access fully charged devices for learning and eliminate the financial impact on families for lost/damaged computers. Please reach out to myself or our secretary lead for technology support, Jennifer Jardee-Borquist jjardeeborquist@pps.net.

Student schedules are mostly finalized and we are continuing to balance classes. Students & families will be able to see their final schedule on August 26th on StudentVue/ParentVue. We will also provide a paper copy of their schedule on the first day of school.

ParentVUE is a secure website and mobile app which offers parents and guardians real time access to:

• School Messages, Calendar, Attendance, Grades, Class Schedule, Course History, Grade Book, and School Information.

User ID and password remain the same each year. If you have not set up your account or have any questions, contact Ian Palu, ipalu@pps.net .

Please check out the General School Supply recommendation for students. Please note that teachers may have additional supply requests specific to their class that they will share with students in the opening week of school.

Each year parents and/or guardians are asked to review and update the information on file for their students. We have noticed a high number of non-working phone numbers and email addresses, which creates challenges in contacting families. Please take a moment to update this information in support of our ongoing partnership.

This information can be reviewed, edited and submitted online via PPS ParentVUE.

Benefits of verifying online via ParentVUE:

• Complete yearly verification of your student's information

• You can update your communication and language preferences

• Ensures the school has the most up to date information

• Saves paper and time

Go to ParentVUE and verify your student's information today! Questions? Contact Ian Palu, ipalu@pps.net

Bus Route information for the 24-25 school year are now available on the PPS Transportation webpage.

September 10th - Late Start for Students @ 9:30

September 19th - Picture Day

September 25th - Early Release for Students @ 1:45

September 26th - Back to School Night, 5:30 - 7:30