This week brought us our first run in with Mother Nature's Winter Mood. Thank you to everyone for your understanding and cooperation as we navigated through our first weather delay of the year.
When we return from February Vacation we will be introducing a new process and product for reporting your child absent for school. This new program is called Safe Arrival. There is information below and we will roll out more information in the weeks to come in an effort to make this as smooth a transition as possible. Please pay attention to this newsletter and our social media for all the information you will need.
On Monday, January 22nd, GMS will kick-off the Great Kindness Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to create a culture of compassion, inclusion, unity and respect at school and beyond. Our GMS Student Council has helped to create a fun week that will get their school community excited to be kind! Below is more information on what is planned:
Please make note of THIS LETTER from our Food Services Department regarding an upcoming Meal Price Change.
Finally, on Friday, January 19 we will have our next Coffee with the Principals. We hope you are able to join us for some coffee and conversation. We will be prepared to answer any questions regarding the new school project or any other questions or curiosities you may have. Please feel free to bring your younger children if that is the only thing stopping you from attending.
Call Out Changes Coming Soon
One of our greatest priorities is ensuring that all our students arrive safely to school every day. To improve our safe arrival process, we are adding a new system that will make it easier for you to report –and respond to – school absences of your student.
The new student absence reporting system will let you use a mobile app, a web site, or an interactive phone line to report an absence in advance. As a result, it will take the school less time to verify student attendance, and less time to begin to notify parents and guardians of absences that were unexpected or unplanned.
This time savings makes it faster and more efficient to account for all students and their safety.
If your student is marked absent and the absence hasn’t been explained in advance, our new SafeArrival system will be able to rapidly contact you by automated phone call, text message, email, or mobile app push notification to get a reason for the absence. Calls and contacts will continue until you choose an option to explain the absence.
This new, automated SafeArrival process is part of our SchoolMessenger notification system from West, and our new SchoolMessenger mobile app for iOS and Android devices. It’ll be available 24 hours a day,
7 days a week, to make it convenient for you to report future absences.
You’ll soon be receiving more details on how to sign up for SafeArrival and we look forward to all families taking part.
GMS Chorus
The 2nd session of Chorus will be starting up on Thursday, January 18th. If your son/daughter was not in the winter session of chorus, and they are interested in joining, please find the information on the following Google Form and fill it out as soon as possible. If they were in chorus during the winter session, you do NOT need to fill this form out again, as Miss Magoon already has your information.
Here's the form: https://forms.gle/osyHiQqDkdbe6KHb9
Counselor Corner with Mrs. Hayes
Please enjoy this update from our School Counselor, Mrs. Hayes.
Counselor Corner Newsletter
News from the SAU/ Superintendent
With winter weather arriving this weekend, I wanted to remind parents of the procedures we will follow to delay or cancel school due to inclement weather. The goal is to make a decision, based upon current safety conditions, on the morning of each weather event. That decision will begin to be shared no later than 5:00 AM.
As soon as a decision to delay school, cancel school or have a remote learning day is made, the decision will be posted:
On the district Facebook page, and
As a pink banner on the top of the district website, and
Reported to WMUR Channel 9.
In addition, an email and a text message will be sent to all parent, student and staff email addresses and cell phones via school messenger.
As a final and active form of notification, a phone call from the Superintendent will be scheduled to go out to families and staff between 5:45 and 6:00 am.
The school district will provide only these 6 methods of notification of school cancellation or delay. We will not be contacting any other media outlets, so please be sure to monitor these 6 methods (Facebook, text message, email, website, WMUR and finally a phone call).
Remember: Parents can opt into Litchfield School District text messaging by texting “Y” or “YES” at any time to 67587 if they would like to receive district information, including school delays and closures.
I often get asked why I don’t make the call the night before like some school districts. The reason is that we are a small town (3 miles wide by 7 miles long) that is relatively flat. [Fun Fact: Compare Litchfield to a large regional district like Kearsarge where the DAILY combined mileage of their bus fleet equals round trip mileage from Concord to Denver, Colorado!] And, we are dealing with weather in New England which has notorious surprises in store for those who think they know what is going to happen. Timing is everything so unless it is an all day event with clear impact, I will wait to make a decision based on what actually happens.
Please Note: We are currently operating at 50% staffing capacity in custodial, buildings and grounds. That raises snow removal concerns which directly leads to safety concerns. Please anticipate a greater likelihood that school delays and cancellations will occur this winter due to our staffing shortages.
One Final Note: When school is canceled, our school and district office staff may be working remotely. Rather than coming to school, please email staff members for assistance.
News from the PTO
February PTO meeting
Please join us for our next meeting on Tuesday, February 13th at 6:30pm via Zoom. We hope you will join us as we hear updates from Mr. Mitchell and Mrs. Clinton-Jones as well as updates about the PTO events and happenings!
Monthly Newsletter - January
Be sure to read our monthly newsletters where we will highlight important dates and upcoming events, and we'll introduce you to our Executive Board and Coordinators.
Calling all Fourth Grade Families
Please take a moment to verify you have filled out and signed the Permissions/Agreements form in PowerSchool for your student.
- Go to https://litchfieldsd.powerschool.com/public/
- Navigate to your fourth grader's name in the top left corner
- Click "Forms" in the left navigation bar
- Click the "All Forms" tab
- Click the "Permissions/Agreements" form, fill it out completely, sign, and submit
This is required for your student to appear in the yearbook. Thank you for your time.
Yearbook Ads
Each year the GMS PTO is proud to present each of our graduating fourth graders with a yearbook that captures memories from their last elementary school year at no cost to families. In an effort to support our publication we are soliciting advertising partnerships with local businesses. Please see the letter linked below and consider sharing it with your workplace or submitting an advertisement for your family-owned business. Thank you for your support!
GMS Yearbook Ad Form
Attention all GMS Volunteers
For the 2022-2023 the GMS community volunteered over 2300 hours!! We'd like to keep track of volunteer hours again this year. We are currently using a Google form to track. Please be sure to enter any time you may have spent volunteering this school year. Some examples include baking for the back to school breakfast bash, volunteering in the library, planning/coordinating an event, shopping for items to donate, etc. Thank you to our volunteers for all that you do!
News from the Community
GMS Daisy Troop
New Kindergarten Daisy Troop is still looking for members and will meet every other Wednesday. Please visit Girl Scouts of Green and White Mountains and join Troop 64205. Contact Sarah at 207-615-6921 for more details
Repeated News/ Long Term Info to Know
To help you organize and plan for this year, we have created a list of all of our intended Spirit Days. We will remind you as they get closer, but in order to prevent the scramble that sometimes comes with these days, we hope to give you as much time as possible to prepare. The days can be found HERE. These flyers are also available on our Facebook and Instagram pages for your reference.
School and District Text Messaging
You can take advantage of our Text Messaging Service. Our school utilizes the SchoolMessenger
system to deliver text messages, straight to your mobile phone with important information about events, school closings, safety alerts and more. You can participate in this free service* just by sending a text message of “Y” or “Yes” to our school’s short code number, 67587.
You can also opt out of these messages at any time by simply replying to one of our messages with “Stop”.
SchoolMessenger is compliant with the Student Privacy PledgeTM, so you can
rest assured that your information is safe and will never be given or sold to anyone.
End 68 Hours of Hunger and the Litchfield School District 2023-2024
The End 68 Hours of Hunger Program and 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 to school on Monday morning. 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 and easy to prepare. If your child has any food allergies, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate this need. Nut products are included for those who are not allergic, but children are informed that they are not to open the bags until a parent can review the contents.
Each week, bags containing food will be provided to students at school. Students will bring the bag home on the bus or by whatever mode of transportation they have at the end of the day. If you prefer, parents may pick up the bag at school.
If you’d like to sign up for the program or need additional information, please contact Taryn Staples, School Social Worker, at tstaples@litchfieldsd.org.
Hannaford Helps
Do you shop at Hannaford? If you do then please help Hannaford support GMS by just doing your regular grocery shopping!!
Shopping In-Store
SHOP – Look for shelf tags on over 1,500 participating products.
CHECK OUT – Collect your School Dollars from an associate at checkout.
DEPOSIT – Drop your School Dollars in the Hannaford Helps Schools collection tower in-store.
Hannaford To Go
SHOP – Look for the apple icon on over 1,500 products online.
CHECK OUT – Receive your School Dollars with your receipt.
DEPOSIT – Drop your School Dollars in the Hannaford Helps Schools collection tower in-store, or send them to school with your child.
Morning Drop Off Procedures
During the morning drop off, both buses and cars will utilize the big loop. As vehicles pull in please pull as far forward until all cars have stopped. Then you can let your child out of the car. Please then wait until the cars in front of you move before pulling forward. Please DO NOT pass a stopped car or stop at the front door if there is space in front to pull forward. We also ask that you avoid parking in the parking lot and walking your child to the door, this adds pedestrian traffic to car traffic. Our attempt is to make this a safe and fluid process. We understand that some back ups do occur, but this procedure ensures safety of all and limits the length of any delay.
Pick Up Procedures
Those utilizing parent pick up are asked to fill in the large loop at the designated time. Please have the colored pick up slips that were sent home, as these act as verification for our staff. If you arrive early for your designated time, you will be directed to a waiting line in the parking lot until your group time.
Pink Group (Last Names A-G): 2:45
Yellow Group (Last Names H-O) 2:52
Blue Group (Last Names P-Z) 3:00
Buses: 3:10 targeted departure
Absence Reporting Email
The GMS office now has a dedicated email address to use to report your child tardy or absent: GMSabsences@litchfieldsd.org. You can also find it on the Griffin Memorial School homepage, on the top, left side under “ABSENCES”.
When you send an email please include the following information:
*Child’s first and last name
*Teacher
*Reason for absence
If you would prefer to leave a voicemail message when your child is absent or tardy you are still welcome to call 424-5931 and then hit “2” when you hear the automated message. Please remember to include the above information in the voice message.
Please note that when you email or leave a voice message saying that your child “will be out” then the absence is recorded as unexcused. Please tell us the reason for the absence so it is documented correctly.
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