Principal's Update

I hope each of you has had time to enjoy the things you love this summer! Our team has been working hard to prepare for the upcoming school year, and we wanted to send a few quick updates today.

Teachers will be emailing class placement information to families this afternoon between 3:00-3:30 pm, so please be watching for an email from your child's teacher!

We are excited to welcome back our Ridges Wolves this fall and we look forward to working together as a team to make this an amazing school year!

Hope you have a great end to your summer,

Miranda

All kindergarten through 5th Grade students are invited to join our Supply Night on Tuesday, August 30th. This will be an open house event from 4-6 pm and your family can attend any time during that two hour block. Your families will have time to see your child's classroom, meet their teachers, and drop off supplies. A list of supplies for grades K-5 can be found linked here. Please note that PreK students will bring their supplies with them to their orientation days and will not attend supply night.

If your family needs help with supplies, please see the section below from the SHARE center!

Our first day of school for grades 1-5 will be Thursday, September 1st! Kindergarten and PreK schedules can be found linked below. School begins at 7:55 am and information about drop off and pick up can also be found below, as well as other important info about lunches, transportation and more.

Kona Ice will also be at Ridges at 2:15 on the 1st to celebrate our first day of school!

As a part of our annual safety and security review, our district elementary team has been thoughtfully considering how to make our elementary arrival and dismissal times as safe as possible. One major safety concern for our buildings is the entry of parents into the building for drop off in the mornings. Allowing parents to enter the building without background checks or scheduled volunteer times, creates a large breach in our building security measures. As such, we are going to continue to keep our arrival (and dismissal) procedures the same as last year. Parents will be allowed to drop off their students at the main entrance doors in the morning and all teachers will walk students out of the building at the end of the day. This will still provide parents with the opportunity to check in with teachers at pick up if needed, and will also help us to very closely monitor who is in our buildings at all times.

For more details regarding drop off and pick up locations please see the slide deck linked here.

Volunteers and parent helpers will still be welcome in our schools during pre-scheduled volunteer times with our PAC or our classroom teachers. Additionally, parents are encouraged to attend our Supply Night open house on August 30th from 4-6 pm to visit classrooms and see the building. We will also host an in-person Back to School Night on Thursday, September 22nd from 5:00-6:30 pm, and in-person conferences in late October and early May. It is important to us that we balance both student safety and parent involvement in our school community, and we believe this plan will allow us to do both. Additional information about volunteering can be found below.

Information about lunch and breakfast prices and menus can be found on our Nutrition Department web page linked here. If you would like to apply for our free lunch program please complete the application linked here.

The Sherwood School Board has approved our school calendars for the 22-23 and 23-24 school years. These calendars can be found on the district calendar webpage linked here.

If your home address is more than one mile radius from our school, or you live on the opposite side of Hwy 99W, you may be eligible for transportation. To view transportation maps, routes, and pick-up/drop-off times please visit the transportation web page linked here.

Our new Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Lyon will be hosting an opportunity on Thursday, September 8th to meet members of the community, answer questions about the upcoming school year, and discuss the proposed social science curriculum for grades K-5. This will be the first of several community engagement opportunities with Dr. Lyon in the coming school year.

Please join us at Ridges Elementary in the Laurel Side Cafeteria on Thursday, September 8th, 6:00-7:30pm.

The SHARE Center is here for all of your back-to-school needs! We have lots of clothing, shoes, backpacks and school supplies -- all ages and sizes!!

For an appointment at the SHARE Center, please contact:

Alyssa Thompson at athompson@sherwood.k12.or.us or 503-825-5087

Maria Quinones at mquinones@sherwood.k12.or.us or 503-825-5085

The Ridges Site Council has open positions for the upcoming school year and we hope you will consider joining the team. Site Council meets on Tuesdays throughout the year from 2:30-3:30pm at the school. The purpose of Site Council is to help identify school improvement goals and guide the school toward achieving these goals. If you are interested in being included on the ballot, please complete the survey linked here by Friday, September 9th.

Once names are collected, a formal site council member vote will be held in September to confirm our final team members.

Our parent volunteer group is a very important part of our school. Get connected with the Ridges PAC today! Visit the link here to see upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, and other ways to get involved and be connected.

The Ridges PAC meets on the second Tuesday of each month from 7-8:30 pm in the Ridges Community Room. They would love to have any and all parents attend.

Our most recent District Newsletter with additional information about transportation, school meals, volunteers and more, can be found linked here

If you missed our Kindergarten Newsletter earlier this month, a copy can be found linked here.

Pre-K families will receive an email with general information on August 26th with additional details about orientation and supply lists.

The District will be welcoming volunteers back into our school buildings this year. All volunteers will need to complete and have an approved background check on file prior to volunteering (this must be renewed each school year). The background check process can take 7-10 business days, so please allow sufficient processing time if you are planning to volunteer for a specific event.

As per the active Governor's mandate, school volunteers are additionally required to either be vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus -OR- have an approved vaccination exception. If you are vaccinated, please bring proof of vaccination with you when volunteering to show to school office staff during sign-in. For an exception request, please submit the request to your school office a minimum of 1 week prior to volunteering to allow sufficient time for the exception approval process. If you already submitted these items to the Ridges office in the spring, you will not need to resubmit for this coming school year.

For more information on volunteering in the Sherwood School District, please visit our website here.

Our Ridges Parent Advisory Committee (PAC)is creating an updated email list for school information and other ways to support our school. If you are looking to volunteer this year, please sign up using the link shared here. If you are new to the Ridges you will need to create a new login. Past volunteers can use their old sign in. (Please note that this link does not work well on your phone so you will need to use another device).

ALL parents will need to fill out their information again as the system was cleared out when we transitioned to the new school name. The registration will ask some questions about volunteer preferences, please still answer the questions even though we currently do not have volunteer opportunities and PAC will save that information for when things reopen again.

• As the new school year gets underway, please note that our district will be continuing to follow the same COVID-19 protocols that were in place at the end of the 2021-22 school year. These include:

  
  

  • Use of masks/face coverings is optional (not required).

  
  

  • Students and staff with primary symptoms of COVID-19 will be excluded from school, as per this guidance. Primary symptoms of COVID-19 include:

  • Cough

  • Temperature of 100.4° or higher

  • Chills

  • Shortness of breath

  • Difficulty breathing

  • New loss of taste or smell

  
  

  • Students and staff with a positive COVID-19 test are required to isolate for five days, with Day 1 being the first full day following the positive test result or onset of symptoms.

  
  

  • If your child has a positive COVID-19 test result -OR- has developed primary symptoms of COVID-19, please keep them home from school and contact your school’s office for additional guidance. Our Health Services Department will continue to contact families of ill students to provide information, testing support, and to confirm the date which your child may return to campus.

  
  

  • Families of students who have been exposed to confirmed positive COVID cases in classrooms, on sports teams, etc. will continue to be notified by their child’s school. Please note that school-wide notifications will no longer be sent out this school year unless directed by the local public health authority. There is no current quarantine requirement for close contacts of positive cases.

  
  

  • Diagnostic testing will continue to be available in our schools for students and staff who become sick with primary symptoms of COVID-19. Testing is optional, and written permission is required for students to receive diagnostic testing. If you would like your child to participate in testing in the event of symptom onset during the school day, please see your school office to complete a written permission slip.

August 26th | Teacher Placement Emails sent between 3:00-3:30 pm

August 30th from 4-6 pm | Open House Supply Night

September 1st | First Day of School for Grades 1-5

September 1st | Kona Ice at Ridges 2:15 pm

September 1st, 2nd and 6th | Kindergarten Orientation Dates (see Kinder Newsletter for more info)

September 5th | No School- Labor Day

September 9th | No School for Kindergarten Only

September 13th | Ridges PAC Meeting in the Ridges Community Room 7 pm

September 14th | Early Release- Students Dismissed at 1:15 pm

September 12th | Kinder Students Attend with Assigned Teacher

September 21st | Early Release- Students Dismissed at 1:15 pm

September 22nd | Elementary Back to School Night 5:00-6:30 pm (more info to come soon)

September 28th | Early Release- Students Dismissed at 1:15 pm

September 30th | Ridges Fun Run! (more info to come soon)

October 5th | Early Release- Students Dismissed at 1:15 pm

October 12th | Early Release- Students Dismissed at 1:15 pm

October 13th | No School- District Inservice Day

October 14th | No School- State Inservice Day

Ridges Front Office: 503-825-5700

Helpful Links for Ridges Families

• Ridges Elementary homepage
• School Lunch Menus
• Ridges PAC website
• Enrollment Information
• Champions (after school child care)
• SHARE Center | (503) 825-5087
• Sherwood Community Information
• Sherwood School District Calendar

Email: mmjohnson@sherwood.k12.or.us
Website: https://re.sherwood.k12.or.us/
Location: 21472 Southwest Copper Terrace, Sherwood, OR, USA
Phone: 503-825-5700