Greetings Parents,
We are preparing to have your little ones back in our care. We are looking forward to having a GREAT start to the new school year. I sent a back-to-school letter to everyone but wanted to follow up with a few reminders.
Rosebud will have our open house on August 1st from 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM. If you have a child in one of our self-contained units, your open house will be earlier to avoid the noise of the crowd and provide a convenience to you and your child. It will take place from 9:00 AM until 11:00 AM. One change we made for our parents of students in self-contained units is the drop off location. We have several parents who bring their child in the car in the morning and drop them off in the front of the building. This year, we will have you go through the car rider lane, and we will have a paraprofessional assist with getting your student out of the car. Teachers will share any other information with you during open house.
Open house is a great way to meet your teachers and provide us with critical information. Please know how your child is going to go home in the afternoon. You can also make us aware of any health concerns and food allergies. Many parents don’t attend open house for scheduling reasons and other conflicts. This is perfectly understandable, however, please don’t use the first day of school as your open house day. We will have over 1000 children in the building. Using the first day as open house causes a disruption to teachers who have a classroom full of children they must attend to. If you were not able to meet your child’s teacher prior to the first day of school, feel free to attend Curriculum Night. Curriculum Night is August 22nd from 6:00 – 7:30 PM. Right before Curriculum Night, we will have our first PTA meeting. Joining PTA is another great way to learn about the amazing things happening at Rosebud and provide much appreciated feedback. The PTA meeting will take place on August 22nd at 5 PM.
Your child’s safety is critical. One of the most important parts of safety is making sure your child gets home the right way. During open house you will need to provide us with how your child is getting home. If you are not able to attend open house, the teacher will reach out to gather this information. Your phone number in our school database must be updated. If you have changed your phone number, you will need to go into the parent portal and update that information. You can also email your new number to Kim Roberts so we can update your phone number. You will get calls from the school and from teachers. We will need to verify information, so please answer calls during the week prior to school starting and through the first week of school as these calls may be critical in gathering needed information.
Ensuring your child’s transportation is a major reason for our call. We will make a backpack tag for how your child will get home the majority of the school year. We also understand that we have new parents and people just moving to our community working to get things settled. Example: A parent buys a new house but won’t move in until after the school year starts. The parent will drop their child off and pick them up for the first few days but know they will be a bus rider for the remainder of the school year. We will make a backpack tag for your child to be a bus rider and create a car rider pass for the first few days of school.
Transportation changes should be emailed to rosebudtransportation@gcpsk12.org. Changes include anything that is NOT part of a child’s normal routine and impacts the way a child will get home.
If you plan to do something different or have any type of transportation change, please send the change request to our email BEFORE NOON of the date of change. If you know you are going to do something different for the first few days of school, you can go ahead and send the change in now. We will have the pass ready for the first day(s) of school.
On the first day of school, and throughout the first week, transportation may flow a bit differently. We will have parking attendants to guide traffic the morning of first day of school. We have also instructed the staff to park in our back field on the first day of school so that you can park in the parking spots in the front of the building and the side of the building. You cannot block the bus lane. The bus lane needs to stay clear from 7 AM until 9 AM and from 1:30 PM until 3:30 PM to avoid traffic issues or blocking buses. We will also request that kindergarten parents, or parents new to Rosebud exit the building by 8:10 AM. This is when we will begin our routines, make sure students get breakfast, and work to get them acclimated to school. Getting students into the swing of school right away helps them transition much faster and allows them to learn processes and procedures.
If you did not complete registration and need to register your child on the first day of school, this will take place from 10 AM until 1 PM. Please review the online registration process as this will make your registration process much smoother. Information for registration can be found on our website https://schools.gcpsk12.org/RosebudES. Kindergarten registration is completely digital this year. You can scan in all of the documents from the convenience of your own home, but if you are having trouble, we can help. You will need to bring all of the registration documents in so we can assist.
After the first day of school, staff will park back in the parking lots. If you still need to register your child after the first day or bring in paperwork, you will need to make an appointment so you can receive the attention you deserve.
It is encouraged that children ride the bus. If your child is a bus rider, be aware that the bus drivers are getting familiar with routes and may come a bit earlier or later than the time provided. It is encouraged to give a 30-minute window before reaching out to transportation. If you to have concerns, GCPS transportation has a direct line that will be more convenient than calling the school please call 770-513-6686 and prompt 3. This will be more convenient than calling the school.
It is early in the year, but I did want to make you aware of a change for this school year. Our lost and found tends to pile up. I want to encourage you to come into the building to see if you can find your child’s missing items. Last year, we did a lost and found clean out at the end of each semester (December and May). This year, we will have a lost and found clean out at the end of each nine weeks (October, December, March, and May). This will eliminate the clothes from piling up, but I want to make you aware so that you come in and search for missing items. We will also put more protocols in place for students who are missing clothing items, so we avoid the huge pile that tends to build up.
I also encourage you to fill out the free and reduced lunch form and sign up for a mypaymentsplus account. Even if you are not sure whether you qualify for free and reduced lunch, still take time to visit the website. I placed the website for mypaymentsplus and the school free and reduced lunch form in my back-to-school letter.
Our goal this year is to make you aware of all our happenings and fun events. Each year, we hope to improve communication so that you know what’s going on and can join in the fun. You will receive information from me through parent square and my newsletter. We are encouraged to shift to being fully digital, but parents requested that we continue to have paper newsletters. I will make sure to send a monthly newsletter to parents. Our goal at Rosebud is that the school and community work together like a family, where each member is focused on what’s best for the child. I am grateful for all that you do because your children are the reason why we do what we do. Rosebud loves and appreciates your support.
Thank you for everything,
Brittany
The file below is a PDF version of this same message.
