Sawnee Elementary

Dear Sawnee Families,

Sawnee Elementary continues to be an amazing school with almost 1,500 students and is attracting many new families to the area. We are welcoming over 200 new families including our kindergarten families to Sawnee this year. Approximately 100 of our students will be served in a virtual environment to begin the year. Although this is a very large community, our goal is to continue to make it feel small, personal, and family-oriented. If you have not taken the time to get to know a new family member or staff member yet, I would strongly encourage you to connect with them to support them with this transition.

As we begin the 2021-2022 school year, we will endeavor to place relationships and community as a big part of our work as we create effective learning environments for our students. Our vision at Sawnee is “The Sawnee Family - empowering all to be their best.” Every student at Sawnee Elementary is valued and worth our best effort. We will continue to be guided by the Forsyth County Learner Profile as our end goal for each child. The main objective of the Learner Profile is to “Grow Leaders for Success” in the following areas:

• Pursue Continuous Learning
  
• Exhibit Strong Personal Qualities
  
• Utilize Creative and Critical Thinking
  
• Engage and Contribute
  
• Interact Effectively
  

Please join me in thanking our PTO for all of the support they provide to our school. If you have not joined our PTO yet, I would strongly encourage you to do so as a way to invest and partner with us to help directly improve your child's educational experience. Our PTO has continued to be supportive to our staff and students as they continue to host family events and support staff initiatives.

We are excited to partner with you as we work toward a common goal of supporting the growth of our students. On behalf of our entire staff, It is an honor to serve your children. Again, welcome back to school and thank you for your continued support. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any member of my administrative team.

With much gratitude,

Derrick Hershey

Principal

Please click here to view our car rider procedures for both before school and after school. Although all procedures for drop-off and pick-up will be the same, we will be making changes to how students are grouped together to keep students spread out in the afternoon. Please make sure that your students are aware that they will not be sitting with their siblings in the car rider area when waiting to be picked up as all students will be sitting by homeroom in either the gym or cafeteria. Below is a map, but please make sure to review procedures prior to attending on Thursday.

Our Sawnee Zone pick-up location remains to be in the front of our Back Building. Please make sure to bring your ID with you as we will follow all procedures that we do for student check-outs. For any questions about Sawnee Zone, please click here for more information.

We love having parents partner with our school! At this time, elementary schools will not be having classroom volunteers or lunch visitors. We hope to be able to welcome visitors and volunteers into our school in the near future per FCS Guidelines.

Due to the recent guidelines that were developed by FCS, we will be creating a virtual Curriculum Night experience for our families. Teachers will be communicating more details parents.

The following practices will be put into place:

• Students will have multiple opportunities for hand washing/sanitizing throughout the school day. Students are encouraged to bring their own water bottle and hand sanitizer.
• We will be strategic when transitioning to lunch, specials, and recess to eliminate large gatherings in the hallway that typically create large volumes of students within a small space.
• There will be a reduced number of students on the playground in designated areas.
• Teachers will walk students through the lunch line and back to their classrooms to eat for the first 2 days of school. Students will then be eating in the café using an alternate schedule to reduce the number of students in the café
• Students will attend the same Special for 5 consecutive days and will change Specials each week. Student classes will not be intermixed during specials to the extent possible.
• Students will maintain their own school supplies (pencil box, gallon ziplock bag, etc.)
• At this time, elementary schools will not be having classroom volunteers or lunch visitors and will be limited only to essential visitors
• We hope to be able to welcome visitors and volunteers into our school in the near future.
• We will not be allowing parents/guardians to walk students to classrooms on the 1st day of school. We will have staff members available to ensure students get to their classrooms safely.

We will continue to utilize Facebook as a way to share our daily story with you. If you haven't followed us yet, please do so as this is a great way for us to post pictures and share great things going on at Sawnee. Please follow us at facebook.com/SawneeES

We are also working on setting up our Instagram account and will be coming very soon!

This year, we will continue to use PBIS (positive behavioral interventions and supports) framework to support students in our four school-wide behavioral expectations (safe, respectful, responsible, problem-solver). We will also be utilizing the 7 Mindsets to have a common language with our staff, students, and parents. Each month, I will include information in our newsletter about each mindset for you to review with your students at home. We genuinely believe that students will thrive in an environment where all stakeholders attempt to “Be the Difference”; by being safe, respectful, responsible, and a problem-solver, we can all have a meaningful impact on our community.

My Payments Plus is the online payment program Forsyth County Schools uses for lunch and school activities. Sawnee uses this program for online payments of field trips, t-shirts, Sawnee Zone after school care, yearbooks, ice cream, and clubs. We highly encourage you to activate your account to streamline paying for these activities. You can use a credit card or bank draft as your method of payment. Transaction charges are not applied to Sawnee activities, only to student lunch account payments.

To activate your account go to www.mypaymentsplus.com. You will need your student(s)' ID number when you activate the account. This six-digit number can be found on the label on the outside of your child's red Open House folder, on your child's registration paperwork or by coming into the front office with your picture ID. Once you have the Student ID# and are logged in, go to Manage Accounts (upper left of the MPP home page)/Manage Student/Add all your students.

If you have any questions about My Payments Plus, you can contact Allison Taylor (Bookkeeper) here at Sawnee.

My Payments Plus Flyer

Birthday ice cream packs have been a big hit at Sawnee last year and we will continue to provide these for our students! The packs are $25 for the entire class and are FCS food service approved ice cream treats we sell in the cafeteria from Hershey's. We ask for at least three school days notice to provide enough time to schedule and fill the orders. Instructions are below.

Several people have asked about buying for a teacher's birthday, and YES you can do that too! When filling out the form on MPP, simply enter the teacher's name in instead of your student's name. If you need to pay by cash or check please send it in with your child in an envelope with the student name, teacher name and date you would like the treat. If you have questions please contact Allison Taylor at aytaylor@forsyth.k12.ga.us.

Birthday Ice Cream Pack Instructions (English)

Birthday Ice Cream Pack Instructions (Spanish)

You are also welcome to bring in your own store bought treats to celebrate your child's birthday. We will not allow homemade items due to student allergies. Thank you for your support with this.

Welcome Back, we are so excited and are looking forward to serving your children this school year. We are working hard to ensure the safety of your children while feeding them healthy foods. Please see attached flyer from our cafe team.

Mrs. Hughes (Grades 3-5 Cafe) & Mrs. Silvers (Grades K-2 Cafe)

Nurse Robyn and Nurse Kate would like to welcome you to Sawnee School Clinics. Please take time to read the Clinic Welcome Letter for important information from our nurses. Visit our webpage and access where you can learn about the school clinic and the services we offer. Our nurses welcome your calls and emails.

If you have any questions on whether or not to send your child to school based on symptoms or exposure, please contact Nurse Robyn, Nurse Kate, or administration for help.

Welcome back Sawnee families! We are the counseling team. We are here to support our Sawnee families. This year, our team is comprised of:

Ruthie Urban (grades K-2), Zach Kissell (grades 3-5), Desiree Clark (counseling support), Bonnie O'Neil (part-time counselor), & Jansky (therapy dog). We are looking forward to serving all our students in classroom guidance, and some through small groups and individually as needed.

For families with student concerns to share with the school counseling team, please click the link below to answer our survey.

https://forms.gle/MZPg3AvyCiTnEFVB9 (English)

https://forms.gle/4wJYhgpa7E7WLKQ79 (Espanol)

We look forward to working with our Sawnee students and families. Please feel free to reach out to any of us.

Your Counseling Team

August 5 - First day of school

August 25 - West Family Connection Night

September 3 - Early Release Day

September 6 - Labor Day (No School)

September 9 - Local School Council Meeting

September 13 - Fall Picture Day

September 16 - PTO Fundraising Event (TBD)

September 20-24 - Fall Break (No School)

September 29 - West Family Connection Night

Please join me in thanking our PTO for all of the support they provide to our school. Our new board has worked extremely hard to support our students and staff this year. To be able to support our staff and students, we would love for you to consider a PTO donation to continue with our projects from last year. We will continue to focus on staff appreciation, building upgrades, teacher grants for special projects, etc. We have many great things happening at Sawnee and want to continue with this great work! Any donation that you are able to contribute would be greatly appreciated. Click here to donate. This will take you directly to our new PTO website with all of their information. www.sawneepto.com

Take out Tuesdays: This is a way to support our families, raise money for our school, while stimulating our local economy. So take a break from making dinner and order from one of our business partners. We will be wearing spirit wear each Tuesday! * Spirit Wear is on sale all the time! And yes, it will be delivered straight to your house. Visit the spirit wear shop to view the awesome new Sawnee Swag options available this year!

Contact us: sawneeptoboard@gmail.com

Thank you to Mr. Wes Trunell, a financial advisor from Edward Jones, for partnering with Sawnee Elementary. Please visit Mr. Trunell's website for more information on how he could help your family.

Do you have a local business that would like to become a partner with Sawnee Elementary? Please contact Lauren King if interested.

Boy Scouts Information

Website: http://forsyth.k12.ga.us/sawneeelementary
Location: 1616 Canton Highway, Cumming, GA, USA
Phone: 770-887-6161
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SawneeES/
Twitter: @SawneeElem