Mustang Family Newsletter

Dear Minot Consolidated School Families,

We hope this letter finds you well and that you’ve enjoyed a restful summer break. As the 2024-2025 school year approaches, we are thrilled to welcome you and your children back to Minot Consolidated School!

By now, you should have received a letter from your child’s teacher in the mail. If you haven’t received this letter yet, please reach out to Wendy Simard at (207)346-6471, and she will be happy to assist you.

Our dedicated staff have been working tirelessly to prepare for the return of students. Our custodial team has done an outstanding job ensuring the building is clean, safe, and welcoming. Meanwhile, our teachers have been busy arranging and decorating classrooms, as well as thoughtfully planning lessons to engage and inspire your children. The school looks fantastic, and we are eager to fill it with the energy and enthusiasm that only our students can bring!

Last year, one of our major school-wide goals was to improve attendance, and we are proud of the progress we made as a community. Through consistent effort and open communication, we significantly reduced the percentage of students who were considered chronically absent. This year, we hope to continue this positive trend. We encourage families to plan vacations or special family days during times when school is not in session. Of course, we understand that illnesses happen, and we ask that you keep your child home if they are not feeling well.

This year, our Leadership team has focused our goals around building classroom-based academic interventions. With the loss of Title I funding, we have unfortunately lost additional staff members who provided essential academic support to students in need. Despite this challenge, our staff remains committed to ensuring all learners receive the support they need. We will be dedicating time and resources to developing and implementing these classroom-based interventions. We also warmly welcome any volunteers who are interested in contributing to this effort. If you would like to volunteer regularly, please don’t hesitate to reach out—we would love your help!

We are excited about the year ahead and look forward to working together to support the success and well-being of all our students.

Warm regards,

Kaitlynn Brown (MCS Principal)

&

Kayla Wielki (Dean of Students)

We are excited to inform you that our school will be transitioning from Seesaw to ClassDojo as our primary communication app. The unpaid version of Seesaw does not support whole school messaging, but ClassDojo offers the same features and more, ensuring that we can effectively keep you informed. All you need to do is download the ClassDojo app, and our teachers will provide additional details on how to sign up during Open House. We look forward to a smooth transition and continued strong communication with our school community.

This year we will continue to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students at MCS. While this is an amazing opportunity to be able to offer our students, we have found that having free lunches has led to less families filling out the Free & Reduced Application Forms (shown and linked below). It may come to a surprise to many, but these forms are what is used to determine our Title I funding. With fewer forms being filled out, we have actually lost our Title I funding... and with it, we have lost some very vital supports for our students. It is so important for ALL families to fill out forms for ALL students so that we can have the best opportunity to provide our students with the most support! Everyone must fill out this form regardless of choosing hot lunch for their child or not.

The COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL application is available to print, complete, and return to your school (find form below) or you can complete the online form by clicking here. If you have difficulty accessing either of these methods, the form can also be sent home with a student...just contact your school's office to make the request. If you have any questions please contact Ellen Dore, RSU 16 Food Service Director, edore@rsu16.org, 207-998-5400 ext 107.

Our district will be switching from School Messenger to ReachMyTeach as our new mass messaging platform. In addition to the traditional robo calls and emails, ReachMyTeach will now allow us to send text messages directly to your phones, ensuring timely and convenient communication. This upgrade will enhance our ability to keep you informed and connected.

Just a reminder that we typically have early release days on Wednesdays with dismissal starting at at 2:05. However, with the first day of school, we have a full day in which we start the dismissal process at 3:05. Note: We do not have early release on a Wednesday if the district called a late start due to weather.

Please remember: If your child has medications that they are required to take at school, we are required to have the following form filled out by your child's Primary Care Physician in order to administer these medications at school. This form is required to be filled out for any daily medications that are required to be taken daily at school regardless of if they are prescription or over the counter medications. Medications must be brought in by an adult. Those with Asthma, allergies, diabetes, or any other chronic illnesses that require support at school will need an updated action plan.

The form is linked here: Form

We are so excited to welcome our families back into our building for a traditional Open House this year! Open House is planned for Monday, August 26th from 5:30-6:30. The purpose of Open House is to allow students a chance to come to school, meet their teacher, and see the environment in order to reduce anxiety about starting the school year.

Lunch and Recess

If you can consistently give 1-2 hours of volunteer time each week next school year, we are looking for volunteers to help with lunch and recess supervision. You would be partnered with school staff. If you are interested in learning more, contact Wendy Simard, wsimard@rsu16.org

Classroom Volunteers

We are looking for 1-2 people who can commit to volunteering in classrooms at a consistent time 3 times a week to help with supporting students with some specific academic skills. The staff would provide you with all materials and guidance for what to work on with a small group of students. If you are interested and and have the time available, please contact Kaitlynn Brown at kbrown@rsu16.org

Volunteer Paperwork

Please remember that all of our volunteers have to be pre-approved to volunteer within our schools. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Wendy Simard, wsimard@rsu16.org for the paperwork and to provide a copy of your license.

RSU 16 is fortunate to have the first ever known Gus the Bus in Maine.

Gus will help throughout the year with school bus safety trainings, along with collecting school supplies for the district's students.

As the dollar gets stretched tighter and tighter these days some students may have difficulty acquiring all the much needed supplies they need to start the school year off. Any and all supplies would be appreciated

Thank You,

Stewart Mason Jr.

Director of Transportation

Gus the Bus donation drop off locations

Aug 19

Gus the Bus will be parked at Minot Consolidated School from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for school supply donations for students in our community

Aug 20

Gus the Bus will be parked at Elm Street School from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for school supply donations for students in our community

Aug 22

Gus the Bus will be parked at Poland Community School from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for school supply donations for students in our community

Aug 26-30

Gus the Bus will be parked at Central Office for school supply donations for students in our community

Minot Community Club is a dedicated group of parents and educators working together to support the academic and extracurricular growth of students at Minot Consolidated School. The club meets monthly and all are welcome to attend! If you would like more information, please like and follow their Minot Community Club Meeting Facebook page on Facebook.

The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 10th (7:00-8:00 pm)

Driveline will continue to be what we use for pick up and drop off. Please see the image below to see the route to follow (as of right now, it is the same as last year). Green tags with your child's number will be distributed during Open House. You MUST have a green tag present to pick up your child(ren). If your family would like any additional tags, please contact Kayla Wielki at kwielki@rsu16.org.

1. Please help us keep our arrival and dismissal cars to 6 on each side.

2. Please let us know if you need a replacement driveline number, so we can keep our dismissal efficient and fluid.

3. This is a friendly reminder that driveline is a no cell phone zone.

4. Please be mindful of not blocking the bus turn around when lining up driveline.

Thank you for keeping all students safe.

August 20th- Kindergarten Screening 9:00-4:00

August 26th- Open House (5:30-6:30 PM)

August 28th- First Day of School K-6 (FULL DAY)

August 28th- September 4th Pre-K Meet & Greets

September 2nd- No School (Labor Day)

September 4th- Early Release (2:05 Dismissal)

September 5th- Pre-K Orientation

September 5th- District Budget Meeting 6:00 at PRHS

September 6th- Pre-K First Day

Septeber 9th- School Board Meeting 6:30 at PRHS

September 10th- School Picture Day

September 10th- Minot Community Club Meeting 7:00 pm

September 17th- Budget Validation Referendum 8am-8pm at Town Voting Locations

Our Tip Line represents one approach our schools and communities may use to share the responsibility of school and student safety and well-being. This Tip Line provides students, staff or other members of the public with a safe and confidential way to report a threat or potential threat to student or school safety. Call 911 in cases of immediate emergency. It is located on our website: rsu16.org and scroll down.

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RSU 16 recognizes that planned absences for family vacations or other recreational activities are important and will support students for missing school for such events. Up to, but no more than, 5 days absent will be excused each year for such experiences. This absences must be planned and pre-approved by administration. Additionally. it is the expectation of the district that students complete missing school work in a reasonable time. If your child is expected to be out, please fill out the following form and return it back to school as soon as possible. Please also let Wendy Simard know in the office if your child is planning to be out.

Click Here

There are many benefits to providing families with newsletters electronically. An electronic newsletter conserves paper, is more cost efficient, and delivers the newsletter directly to parents. Minot Consolidated School will be providing newsletters electronically for the remainder of the year. If you would prefer to receive a paper newsletter moving forward, please contact us at (207) 346-6471 or at kbrown@rsu16.org in order to notify us. Newsletters can also be found on the MCS website

Future Newsletter Items

If you have any items you would like to have included in a future Family Newsletter, please forward them to me and I will be sure to add them!

School Hours

Arrival- 8:30 am

Dismissal- 3:00pm

Email: kbrown@rsu16.org
Website: https://www.rsu16.org/mcs/index
Location: 23 Shaw Hill Road, Minot, ME, USA
Phone: 207-346-6471