Sycamore Canyon Family Newsletter

Thank you for an amazing first week back! We had great attendance! I realize we made a lot of changes to arrivals and dismissals given the program changes we made over the summer. Please see the parking lot section later in the newsletter for answers to your questions.

Additionally, it was great to have families on campus for the first three days. However, starting on Monday, students must walk themselves onto campus. Breakfast starts at 8:00 AM and the regular gates open at 8:15 AM. See you then!

I am excited to share that we will have will a Canine Instructional Assistant here on campus at Sycamore Canyon. Waffles is a 20-month old English Bulldog that is AKC Good Citizen Approved. We have witnessed on other campuses the power and motivation of having a support animal on campuses can do. Used as an academic, social emotional, and behavior reward support system. Waffles, with the guidance of a specific adult, will be used to support reading growth, modeling emotions, and rewarding students that are kind, respectful, problem solvers.

If you do NOT want your child to participate in the Canine Instructional Assistant Program with Waffles for any reason, please simply email me directly at tylene.hicks@santeesd.net and I will happily make accommodations.

You can learn more specifics about Waffles and the Canine IA program in the attached flyer!

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This year all programs, with the exception of our afternoon Preschool Classes, will start at 8:30 AM. As such, our mornings in the parking lot just became very busy with parent drop off and buses. We have made a few changes to try and ease the process:

• If you have a student in the Special Education Preschool or Special Education TK classes (Rooms 15-21), you will be encouraged to drop your children at their classroom doors this year. We will no longer congregate at the gate and wait for it to open. Between the hours of 8:15-8:30 AM, parents in those classrooms will be invited to walk their students to the classroom door and drop their children with the Instructional Assistant or the Teacher in the classroom. The gate will be promptly closed and locked at 8:30 AM, at the start of classes.
• We have re-opened the top gate on Settle Road for morning arrivals and both the 2:20 PM and the 2:46 PM dismissals.
• Additionally, for our 4th-6th grade student dismissal at 2:46 PM, we will be opening the lower property gate on Strathmore as well. This gate opens between to homes, but there is a path there that we use as an emergency exit. We hope that opening an additional gate into the neighborhood will help relieve some of the congestion in the parking lot.
• 4th-6th Grade parents may still come into the parking lot, however, we will soon have afternoon buses for our preschool program picking up students in the first bus lane, and things will become congested. We wanted to give you a couple alternatives in case the wait time was not something you wanted to deal with on a daily basis.

If you have questions about any of these procedures, please see the map below or contact the office.

Thank you for your continued patience in the parking lot as we all get used to our new procedures.

Over Spring Break and Summer, most families completed the "A.I.R. Process" to update your family contacts, addresses, and phone numbers. Please be sure to log into Powerschool and check your contact information. If something is inaccurate, please reach out to our Attendance Clerk or send an email to the office so we can fix any inaccuracies.

During the school year, if you want to update an emergency contact, your address, or your phone number changes, please communicate with our Attendance Clerk. We want to be sure we always have the most accurate information available at all times. Thank you!

**If you are a returning family, and you did not complete the A.I.R. Process, your student will not be allowed to use or take home their iPad until the process is completed. Within the process is our Use of Technology Agreement form as well as some other necessary forms. Please see the office if you have any questions.

There are numerous ways to stay informed about our fabulous school. We also have an Instagram account: sycamorecanyon.

Email: infoSC@santeesd.net
Website: https://sc.santeesd.net/
Location: 10201 Settle Road, Santee, CA, USA
Phone: (619) 956-5400
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SYCCAN