Rocket Wrap Up

Dear Families,

It is hard to believe but summer break is almost over and we are almost ready to welcome your students back into the building. Custodial and summer staff have been extremely busy cleaning and making improvements to the building and grounds, teachers have been in and out planning and attending professional development, and administration has been collaborating and planning. We are excited to welcome everyone back for what I know will be an amazing year!

Our staff is continuing to focus on the four pillars of learning, safety, partnerships, and fiscal responsibility. A few of the ways we continue to do this are:

• Learning--Teachers have been working with our instructional consultants to learn additional ways to incorporate literacy in all areas of the school day, especially math! They have also been learning additional strategies to intervene in the area of math.
• Safety--Our final access points were installed this summer. Two include keypad entry to better allow law enforcement and first responder entrance into the building in case of emergency. We are anticipating our new public address system to be installed before the start of the school year.
• Community Partnerships--We are excited to further expand our community partnerships through our Change the World and other efforts. We will be partnering with For the Children Marion this year to make a local impact to benefit the youth in Marion County. We are also continuing, and looking for new ways to further, our partnership with the Marion Area YMCA with Marion Mentors and Teen Leaders.
• Fiscal Responsibility--We were extremely diligent over the summer to use grant funding to purchase needed furniture and supplies for classrooms and programs. Thanks to our summer learning grant we now have fishing equipment for Miss Thiel to begin her fishing unit in PE. Our 21st Century grant was able to provide new classroom furniture in two classrooms in the elementary, as well as a new poster maker and printer cutter. These materials will be used to benefit our students participating in grant programming, as well as our students during the school day. We were able to receive an extension on our TeachArtsOhio grant to partner with Marion Voices to provide additional, specialized arts education units for all students this fall from local artists. We will continue to seek our grant opportunities to provide additional, valuable opportunities and resources for our students now and in the future.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me, or your child's teacher, if you have any questions or concerns. We appreciate having the opportunity to educate your student, as well as to work with you to help ensure this is a safe and secure place for them to be each day.

Yours in Education,

Jess Parthemore, Ed.S.

Principal

Ridgedale Elementary

Traffic Flow for 2024/2025

As we continue to focus on safety, please see the notes below for drop off and pick up directions.

Bus Transportation

All buses will load and unload behind the building. During afternoon dismissal, when buses are released student drivers and family pick ups will be held until all buses have left district property.

Family Drop Off (Morning)

Families will follow the traffic pattern outlined above. Please utilize two lanes of traffic. If a family has a student in both buildings, please drop off in the elementary line and the older student(s) will walk over to the high school building.

Please wait to drop off students when they are at the doors marked with a star above. Elementary staff will assist students from cars through the passenger side doors.

Family Pick Up (Afternoon)

Families will follow the traffic pattern outlined above. Please utilize two lanes of traffic. Elementary students will be assisted into vehicles at the doors marked with a star.

If your family has a student in both buildings, please pick up your elementary student/s first and then circle back to the Jr/Sr High pick up line.

Student Drivers

Student drivers will enter and exit by using the North parking lot. It is essential that student drivers do NOT drive south toward the athletic facility. Those students staying after school for extracurricular activities should walk to the athletic facility or wait until ALL buses have left the campus.

Access to all supply lists (Preschool - 12th Grade) is available here.

If you, or someone you know, is in need of assistance for school supplies, please contact the office so that we may be help!

We would like to extend a welcome to new staff this year:

• Miss Davidson - will be joining our 3rd grade team. She comes with 19 years experience, almost all in 3rd grade! We are excited to have her join our team and begin working with our students in this crucial year!
• Mrs. Thrush - will be joining our kindergarten team. She is coming to us after taking a few years off to spend with her young boys and has 16 years experience, most in kindergarten. She has already been in working with our kinders during kindergarten launch and is ready to get started shaping and helping these young learners!
• Ms. Pierson - will be joining our team as our school nurse. She holds her Bachelor of Science in nursing and has 10 years clinical experience. She is very excited to make the switch to school based nursing and work with all of our students and families!

In addition to our new staff, we have a few staff that have changed positions this year:

• Mrs. Hitchings - will move from kindergarten to our Title I Reading Specialist. Her expertise in literacy instruction will benefit all of our students with targeted assistance to students and staff in the area of reading.
• Mrs. McLaughlin (formerly Miss Frost) - along with getting married this summer, Mrs. McLaughlin will be joining our 1st grade team. She is eager to begin working with some of our youngest learners!

Students and teachers alike had a great time at this year’s Summer POWER Hours. Looking back, I can’t believe how much we were able to accomplish in just one month! We went on so many fun field trips including some of our students’ favorites like COSI and Zoombezi Bay. Students were able to spend time at a local farm learning through service, and spent time each day investigating social-emotional learning, looking at who they are as a human, and how they relate to others around them. Our Ridgedale students worked hard on hands-on collaborative projects in ELA and Math lessons, as well as to level up personally on platforms like Zearn and Readability. We had so much fun playing games and getting some exercise in each day during KidFit time, and students loved Club Choice, where they could choose what they wanted to spend their time learning about from things like: Art, Tumbling, Esports, Legos, games and more.

POWER Hours is so grateful for all the Team members that showed up every day ready to give their best to help Ridgedale students have fun and grow more successful in their lives. And thank you to all the parents who partnered with us, brought your child(ren) each day and let us be a part of your summer!

We had a wonderful four weeks of summer learning! We worked on sharpening our reading and math skills with fun activities. We learned to work together and built great relationships with each other even if we were in different grades. Our group took some awesome field trips to the Tall Grass Trails, Mckinley Park, The Buckeye Imagination Museum and MaxAiir.

Our kindergarten staff provided a week of Kindergarten Launch to welcome our incoming kindergarten families.

Students were able to meet staff, become familiar with the building, and begin to get ready for their time as kindergarteners. It was amazing to see the kids walking through the hallways and beginning their learning!

We can't wait to see them here full time in a few weeks!

Welcome back families! I am so excited to meet you all this upcoming school year! Just like last year, I will continue to share resources to help support the mental and emotional well-being of our students. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to reach out! Please click the attached link for an extensive list of mental health resources to utilize throughout the school year.

https://mhanational.org/mental-health-resources-parents?scrlybrkr=1278b810

Dear Ridgedale Rocket Families,

I hope that this letter finds you all well rested and ready for a great 2024-2025 school year. I am

looking forward to working with all of you to make sure that this year is both safe and healthy for

our Rockets.

The clinic is located in the Elementary Building. If at any time, you would like to discuss

the health of your child, please do not hesitate to contact me at kpierson@ridgedaleschools.org.

Here are a few reminders as we start the school year:

Immunizations

If your child has received updated immunizations over the summer, please provide a copy of

his/her Immunizations. Specific immunizations are required prior to Kindergarten and 7th grade.

Medications

If your child requires administration of daily or as-needed medications during school hours,

please complete and return the form. A separate form is required for each medication. Please note: Medication Authorization Forms are active for the current school year only. If the medication is prescription, the form needs to be signed by the physician. The medication must be in the original container and delivered by an ADULT to the nurse’s office.

Illness and Fever

On occasion, your child may need to stay home from school due to illness. Following a bout of

vomiting, diarrhea or fever, your student should stay home and be observed for further

symptoms. Fever is defined as a temperature of 100.4 or above. In order for your student to

come back to school, they should be fever free for at least 24 hours without the use of

fever-reducing medications. Please make sure that your information is always up to date in

Final Forms in the event that your child becomes ill at school.

Wishing you all a healthy school year,

Kayla Pierson BSN, RN

School Nurse-Ridgedale Schools

Please send a note to the office or call the office whenever there is a change from your child's regular dimissal schedule. Our staff will follow your selected dismissal path unless we hear otherwise.

Buses are released at around 3:10 each day (after the Tri Rivers shuttle returns), so it is often too late to get someone off the bus or put them on the bus if we do not know about it before dismissal begins (and not that we don't trust your child, but sometimes they want to go home the opposite way that they are supposed to and will try to make that choice for us :-)).

Thank you for your help with this!

Ridgedale Schools has partnered with PublicSchoolWorks to offer the Safer Schools site to help with student safety reporting.

You can now use this to report any concerns that you may have. PublicSchoolWorks monitors these reports 24/7. If there is anything that is especially concerning, administration is immediately called to begin to address the concern. If it is not considered an immediate need, administration will receive an email notification to address the situation the following day at school. Please see below for screenshots (they are also hyperlinked to be able to direct you directly to the site).

You may always access the site from the Ridgedale website and app.

Daily, consistent attendance is crucial for your student's development and academic growth. The State of Ohio has establish attendance law that requires us to track student attendance, notify you when your student is not present at school, and notify you if your student meets certain attendance thresholds. Please see the document here for more information about attendance law.

If you child is sick, please call the office or send an email to Ms. Outcalt (routcalt@ridgedaleschools.org). If you take your child to the doctor or urgent care, please send the school excuse in to school (paper form or email).

This will be an excused absence.

If your student has a medical appointment (doctor, dentist, counseling, etc.), please send the school excuse (paper form or email) in to the school.

This will be an excused absence.

If your family has a planned absence, please send a note/email in to the school before the absence. This allows our staff the opportunity to provide work or materials for your student and allows for the absence to be an excused absence.

Any vacations or planned absences that are not notified before the absence occurs will be not be excused absences.

Do you have a child under 5 at home? Do you know a family that has children under 5?

The Imagination Library, offered through the Ohio Governor's Office, Marion Public Library, and Dolly Parton's Imagination Library provides a FREE book for any child under 5 that is signed up, each month!

If you are interested in signing up, please use the QR code below or download the sign up form. This program is free for all who participate!

"The single most important factor influencing a child's early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school."

August 6th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

August 9th - Family Fun Night/Meet the Team @ 4:00 - 6:00 PM

August 12th - Board of Education Meeting @ 5:30 PM

August 19th - Open House @ 4:00 - 6:00 PM

August 20th - First Day of School for Grades 1 - 12, Kindergarten start 9:00 - 2:00

August 21st - Kindergarten KRA Testing

August 22nd - Kindergarten KRA Testing

August 23rd - Kindergarten Staggered Start (

August 26th - 1st Day of Preschool, Kindergarten Staggered Start

September 2nd - No School/Labor Day

September 10th - PTO Meeting

September 16th - Board of Education Meeting @ 6:00 PM (@ Tri-Rivers

September 19th - Elementary Fall Picture Day, Quarter 1 Interims

September 20th - No School/Professional Development Day

September 30th - No School/Conferences 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM

October 2nd - Conferences @ 4:00 - 6:00 PM

October 8th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

October 17th - End of 1st Quarter, 3rd Grade trip to Palace Theatre

October 18th - No School/COTA Day

October 21st - No School/Professional Development Day, Board of Education Meeting @ 5:30 PM

October 22nd - October 25th - Mrs. Keller's Class to Safety City

October 28th - November 1st - Mrs. Curren's & Mrs. Thrush's classes to Safety City

October 29th - Scare at the School

October 31st - Picture Make up Day

November 1st - Fall Fundraiser Begins, Mobile Dentist

November 9th - Booster/PTO Fundraiser

November 12th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

November 14th - Grades 1 - 5 to Palace Theatre

November 18th - Group Picture Day, Board of Education Meeting @ 5:30 PM

November 26th - Quarter 2 Interims

November 27th - November 29th - No School/Thanksgiving Break

December 10th - Holiday Program (Grades 1 & 2) @ 6:00 PM, PTO Meeting @ 6:30

December 11th - Fall Fundraiser Delivery

December 16th - Board of Education Meeting @ 5:30 PM

December 23rd - January 3rd - No School/Winter Break

January 10th - End of 2nd Quarter

January 14th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

January 17th - Yearbook Sale Begins

January 20th - No School/MLK Jr. Day

February 7th - Quarter 3 Interims

February 11th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

February 14th - No School/Professional Day

February 17th - No School/Presidents' Day

February 20th - Spring Picture Day

March 3rd - No School/Conferences @ 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM

March 5th - Conferences, 4:00 - 6:30 PM

March 7th - 9th - Musical

March 11th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

March 14th - End of 3rd Quarter

April 7th - 1st Grade to Palace Theatre

April 8th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

April 17th - Quarter 4 Interims

April 18th - April 21st - No School/Spring Break

May 13th - PTO Meeting @ 6:30 PM

May 15th - Last Day of Preschool/Preschool & Senior Clapout

May 16th - 5th Grade Field Trip

May 22nd - Last Day of School

Jessica Parthemore, Ed.S.

Principal

jparthemore@ridgedaleschools.org

Website: ridgedaleschools.org
Location: 3103 Hillman-Ford Road, Morral, Ohio
Phone: 740-382-6065
Facebook: facebook.com/ridgedale
Twitter: @Ridgedale_Pride