October 9, 2020

 

Griffin Memorial School News

October 9, 2020 Dear GMS Families,                                                                                                  As a follow up to yesterday's COVID update, I wanted to let you know that as of the writing of this blog we are now aware of 4 positive cases involved with the current cluster. As a reminder, the term cluster is used by the state to describe any case that involves 3 or more positive cases that can be linked to each other. Due to the measures that we have put into place however, these additional cases have had no further impact to the operations of the school. As always we strive to be as transparent and timely with these notifications as possible.        Facebook and other social media are great avenues to share, create communities, inform each other, support each other, get answers, and generally check in with each other. As we interact on these platforms I would ask that you take special care not to accidentally disclose protected or confidential information in an attempt to be helpful. For example, helping another parent with log on passwords, information or instructions may accidentally reveal ways to access our networks and make them less secure. When in doubt please PM each other so the information is sent only to those intended. And as always, please feel free to reach out to us and see if we can be of assistance as well.  Thank you for doing your part to keep us all safe.             Finally, yesterday we sent home our updated Daily Health Screening Form and Screening Algorithm. Please consult these forms when making your decision to send your child to school each day. We thank you all for doing your part.  As always Be Well, Be Curious, and Have a Great Long Weekend, Dan Mitchell, Principal Maura Clinton- Jones, Assistant Principal Upcoming Dates Monday, October 12 No School GMS News End 68 Hours of Hunger Litchfield Schools are pleased to inform you about a free, confidential food program which provides students with meals from Friday after school until they return on Monday morning. The program is sponsored by “End 68 Hours of Hunger,” a local, private food program whose mission is to help families feed their children over the weekends. If meeting the weekend nutritional needs of your child is challenging at this time, we would like to help meet that need. All food is non-perishable as well as easy to prepare and we do our best to accommodate food allergies when necessary. Guaranteeing your child’s confidential participation in the program is also a top priority. For additional information or to sign up, please contact Jennifer Hayes, GMS School Counselor, at 424-5931 x1106 or jhayes@litchfieldsd.org. News from the SAU/ Superintendent We continue to learn from your feedback each week.  Please complete this quick survey and tell us how we are doing. Thanks, Mike Jette, Superintendent News from the PTO “Hello GMS Families.  Every year, the GMS PTO puts together a Family Directory with contact information for our students to facilitate communication among our GMS families (i.e., play dates, birthday parties, etc...), as well as to provide information about GMS PTO events, activities, and volunteer opportunities.  Due to privacy laws, the school is unable to provide GMS families with the contact information of other students.  This year, with COVID 19 and various learning models, it is more important than ever to have each other's contact information.  Inclusion in this directory is completely voluntary and only those who sign up to be included will receive an electronic copy.  If you wish to be included in the Directory, please fill out this form:  https://tinyurl.com/GMSFamDirectory2020.  We are also gathering information from those who are interested in becoming room parents this year.  If interested, please click on this link for more information and to sign up:  https://tinyurl.com/GMSRoomParent2020 As always, please let us know if you have any questions – Heidi Ames (hames@mooreames.com) and Jenny Eisenbeis (jeisenbeis@gmail.com).  Thank you!” News from the Community No News At This Time Repeated News and Announcements  Now that we have gotten into a nice groove with parent drop off and pick up we have recognized there are some areas that we can make some adjustments to to tighten up the process and make it move even smoother. Beginning Monday the new group times for parent pick up will be as follows: Pink Group            2:45-2:52 Yellow Group         2:53-3:00 Blue & Purple        3:00-3:05 Our goal and intent is to then have buses loaded and able to depart at 3:10. 3:10 is the assumed departure time on the SAU website, so this should allow the buses to arrive at homes closer to the publish arrival time. Thank you again for your cooperation with these processes. We have been blown away by how well they have been going. A Message from our Art Teacher, Mrs. Starrett Mrs. Starrett has set up a virtual art gallery on Artsonia.com. She has created accounts for all of the students currently enrolled at GMS, however student work will only be displayed publicly if the parents/guardians have given permission through a link that was sent via email over the summer. If you have not received an email please contact Mrs. Starrett (kstarrett@litchfieldsd.org). Use the following link to browse through the artwork that our students at GMS have created so far this year: https://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=273 Powerschool Parent Portal This summer we switched our Student Information System to Powerschool. As part of Powerschool, you are able to access the Parent Portal in the Infinite Campus feature of this system. Please follow the link below to set up you parent portal account. Please contact the main office if you have an issues creating an account. For Parents - Directions for Parent Acces A Message from Food Services Good Afternoon Parents/Guardians, As of Wednesday, we have received a lot of inquiries about the remote lunch pickup due to the extension of the USDA Waiver to provide free meals to Litchfield School District Students until 12/31/2020.  Here's the official statement from Food Services, please read it carefully and do not hesitate to contact Lauren Crowley with any questions you may have!  If you are not utilizing the remote pickup plan - please disregard this email. Thank you very much! Remote Lunches are available at each school daily for pick up.  The pick up times are determined by your student's lunch time.  If you cannot pick up lunch each day, you can certainly pick up on days that are better suited for your schedule, or combine with another family at your same school to pick up lunches together, just please know that it is only one lunch per day due to our staffing needs.  If you have a situation where you are unable to leave your home for pickup due to medical or other such purposes, please contact Lauren Crowley immediately to begin the process for delivered meals.  Contact information below. If you have multiple students in different schools in our district, you have two options.  A- Pick up all meals at one location (you'll order off that school's menu exclusively) or B-order off the different forms and pick up at the location you ordered food from.  Different schools offer different options based on the student's tastes, ages and not all schools offer the exact same menu items.  The Google Forms open at 1 PM the day prior to pickup.  The Google Forms close at 9 AM the day of pickup.  This allows our staff prep time to get the meals ready to go.  This is a hard closure, we are asking that parents please get the form in to us for 9 AM.  Links provided below. The pickup locations for each school are located as follows: GMS - back doors to the cafeteria - where parent drop off usually takes place (pickup starts at 11 and ends when the last lunch is served).  LMS - Kitchen back door located to the right side of the building near the dumpster (pick up starts at 11:30).  CHS - in the vestibule (CHS pickup is 11:00 - 11:30 due to scheduling and open campus for upperclassmen).  Any meals not picked up will still be charged. If you have any questions regarding lunch pickup, please contact the Food Services Director.   These forms will not be changing again, and therefore you can save them wherever you can for easy access. Thank you very much for your patience and support while we navigate this crazy time! Lauren Crowley 603-546-0300 x3112 lcrowley@litchfieldsd.org GMS Form Link OFFICIAL: https://forms.gle/q7nErcWuB5mmr8P96 LMS Form Link OFFICIAL: https://forms.gle/Tg57MJAqNNqk4nhr7 CHS Form Link OFFICIAL: https://forms.gle/37gjMSve7qVaSj2L9

229 Charles Bancroft Hwy. Litchfield, NH 03052 (603) 424-5931 Past Editions of the GMS School News can be found at: https://griffinnhnews.blogspot.com/