Gateway College Prep Newsletter

Gator Community,

We hope all of our families have had a wonderful summer break. Excitement and eagerness fills the air as we look forward to the upcoming school year and prepare for the return of our amazing staff and students! This is going to be an incredible year, as we have so much to celebrate and look forward to!

We revel in the opportunities that each new school year brings and are thankful for the chance to reset and re-establish our goals for the year ahead. Please take a moment to review the information in this newsletter, and let us know if you have any questions; it is packed with a lot of important information that applies to helping you and your child successfully prepare for the 2024-25 school year.

We look forward to seeing you all very soon!

Respectfully,

Donna Weirich

Head of School

As you are aware, we are still under construction in several areas of our campus. We appreciate your understanding and support as we travel this journey together. The new High School Annex is set to be complete by the beginning of August, and our parking lots will be finished soon after. We realize many of you have concerns about parking for Meet the Teacher, but because this will be a "come and go" event, we are hopeful there won't be any issues as we want you to utilize any parking space available.

This year, we will have new arrival and dismissal procedures to accommodate all of our staff and students in what we feel is the most conducive and time efficient manner possible. As with anything new, it will take a little time to get adjusted and learn the new expectations, so we appreciate your understanding, support, and cooperation in advance! More details and maps will be coming soon, but for now, some important take-aways are as follows:

• WSP will NO LONGER be a place to drop off or pick up your child each day.
• We will be utilizing the gym as a drop off and pick up location for certain student groups at specific times. (Specific details and maps will be shared soon.)
• We will remain using the K8 loop as a drop off and pick up location and our secondary students will have a new campus entry point to utilize.
• With the return of our "Sibling Pick-Up" program, we will have specific expectations on how to pick up your children each day.
• We will be utilizing two specific entry points and two specific exit points for both arrival and dismissal traffic, so when you review the upcoming maps, please pay close attention to these directions.
• Our staff will have a specific traffic pattern to enter the parking lot and park, so please be respectful of this and enable them to get to their designated area.

This year, with the parking lot expansions and additions, all of our staff will be parking on the K8 loop side of the campus. Our front office staff will park in front of the Student Union, and some of our coaches will park in the front row of the gym parking lot. That said, we are designating specific areas for our students to park as well as our parents and any guests. Detailed maps will be coming soon that show these specific areas, but please know that we will need your help and support in maintaining these designated areas as such.

This year we are doing things a bit differently and look forward to serving all of our Gator families on such an important night. We designed this evening as a "come and go" opportunity for our K-12 families to quickly get through our passport requirements in preparation for obtaining their child's schedule/homeroom teacher assignment. More details and maps will be shared soon, but please save the following date and times:

Friday, August 9, 2024

"Come & Go" from 4pm - 7pm

**As a reminder, this is a "come and go" opportunity to meet your child's teacher and drop off your child's school supplies. (Please see the school supply lists below.) This is not a time designated for parent/teacher conferences. We appreciate your help and consideration to our teachers in advance, and thank you for your support!

We are very excited to bring back this service to our families. If you have an elementary age student (K-4) with older siblings (either MS or HS age), you can take advantage of this paid service. We have had many of you register your child already, but if you have not had the opportunity to do so, please know you will have the chance to sign your child up as a late registration at Meet the Teacher night. Please read the information below and reach out to Ms. Andrews with any questions you may have.

Please review the updated 2024-25 Student Handbook, as it has some changes from last year especially in the following areas:

• Student Dress Code
• Cell Phone Policy

It is time again for parents to complete annual forms for each of their enrolled children. Annual forms need to be completed for ALL students prior to the first day of school.

Annual forms are completed through the Orenda Education Frontline Parent Portal. Instructions for accessing and navigating the Frontline Parent Portal are found here.

Many of our MS or HS students have already completed this, but in the event your child still needs to complete their summer reading assignments, please see the link below.

In preparing for a safe and healthy school year, a record of the following immunizations will be required for your sixth grader to enroll in seventh grade:

• One booster dose of Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (Tdap) is required if at least 5 years have passed since the last dose of tetanus-containing vaccine
• One dose of quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV4) is required on or after the student’s 11th birthday

If your child has already received one or more of these vaccinations, please submit an updated record to the nurse as soon as possible.

It is highly recommended that you submit your child’s updated immunization record before the end of this school year to avoid delays in August. Students who do not have their complete immunization record on file with the nurse will not be permitted to obtain their schedule, and will not be permitted to begin classes on the first day of school. Please contact the nurse’s office with any questions or concerns.

Megan Ferrell, RN, MSN

megan.ferrell@orendaeducation.org