Dear Greenwood Families,
Happy Monday! It seems hard to believe that we’re heading into the last week of our hybrid model and gearing up for the next phase of full in-person learning. Everyone is busy with logistics and procedures, as you might imagine. However, it is really important for all of our families to know how excited we all are for this step! I’ll be honest: next Monday, April 5th is going to feel like another “first day of school” in a lot of ways. Greenwood teachers and staff are going to be spending a lot of time teaching new procedures, reteaching old ones, and connecting all of their students together into one learning community. These are things we cannot rush or minimize - laying a solid foundation in this new model allows us to build an amazing structure as we move through the rest of the school year together. We can’t wait to begin the work!
Updated Greenwood Safety Procedures Document
On Thursday of this week, we will send out a School Messenger with updated procedures and protocols for the full in-person learning model. Some information, specifically about arrival, dismissal, and lunches, is detailed in the following blurbs. If you have other questions before Thursday, please feel free to reach out.
Reminder - Wednesday, March 31st
All students who will be part of the in-person learning model starting on April 5th will meet virtually with their classroom teacher from 8:25-8:55am on 3/31. There will be no PM hybrid cohort meeting.
There will be no specialist classes on 3/31.
Staffing Update
I am pleased to announce that we will have a new staff member joining the Greenwood community as our Speech & Language Pathologist. Kayla Haas comes to us with experience as an SLP in a K-5 elementary school in New York City, as well as working with younger children through Early Intervention. She is very excited to join our Greenwood community and meet all of our Gators! Kayla will begin her time at Greenwood on Monday, April 12th.
Loaner Chromebooks
As we prepare to enter full in-person learning, Chromebooks that were borrowed for asynchronous learning time must be returned to school. An email will be sent out directly to families later this week with more information about how/when to return your device. This does not apply to families remaining in the full remote model. We will collect those devices before summer break.
School Day - Starting April 5th
The school day for Greenwood students runs from 8:30am to 2:20pm. Arrival begins at 8:15am, as explained below.
Arrival - Starting April 5th
The arrival window for students in all grades is from 8:15-8:30am. Students will enter the building immediately upon arrival and head directly to their classrooms. Multiple doors will be utilized to facilitate social distancing, per the chart below:
Classroom teachers will be in their classrooms at the start of the arrival block to be ready to welcome students. Other staff members will be assigned to monitor an outside door or inside hallway to ensure smooth traffic flow and proper social distancing.
No car traffic will be allowed in the front driveway during arrival for the safety of our students and families. Students who are dropped off via Greenwood Avenue may need to walk around to the front of the school building to access the appropriate entrance door.
Students arriving after 8:30am must enter through the main front door and pick up a late slip at the office.
Dismissal - Starting April 5th
The official end of the school day for students is 2:20pm. However, classroom teachers will escort their students out the appropriate dismissal door in a staggered manner to help with social distancing. Kindergarten will be dismissed first and their pick up will take place on the ramp side of the school building as it has in previous years.
As has been happening during the hybrid model, students in Grades 2 & 3 who are leaving the building through the front door may be picked up in the front of the building if there are no siblings from other grades to collect and you are leaving school grounds on the Main Street side. Students exiting the front door who have not been picked up after a minute or two will be walked around to the back of the building.
Lunch
Here is a quick overview about lunch, as shared at the WPS School Committee meeting last week:
Students will have a 30 minute lunch block each day, consisting of recess and lunch.
During recess, students must remain masked while moving around the playground/blacktop.
Each grade level will have a separate lunch block to facilitate distancing.
Students will eat in the cafeteria, seated 6 feet apart.
Tables will be cleaned between lunch periods.
We will continue the prepackaged Grab & Go lunch format - there will be no hot lunch option.
Lunches are available for free for any student through the remainder of the school year. It is likely that we will still send out a survey for families to complete, as that not only will help us with lunch counts but also facilitate lunch lines.
More details about the specific grade-level lunch times will be shared later this week in the updated Greenwood Safety Procedures document.
Greenwood Spirit Weeks
I couldn’t let this newsletter just be all about transitions, logistics, and procedures...we’re an elementary school, and elementary school needs to be fun! The Greenwood staff is busily brainstorming some school-wide “spirit days” for each day of school from Monday, April 5th through Friday, April 16th. Here’s what we have for the first week:
Health Reminder - Stay Vigilant!
Thank you for supporting us in our efforts to keep everyone safe by practicing and promoting safety precautions, which include hand hygiene, mask-wearing, social distancing, and avoiding group gatherings and travel to high-risk states where the rates of transmission are high (here is a link to the MA Travel Guidelines, in case a need to travel out of state arises). We are also asking for you to keep children home if they are experiencing any of the following symptoms:
Fever of 100.0 or higher, and/or chills
Cough (not due to other known cause such as chronic cough, asthma, allergies)
Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
New loss of taste or smell
Sore throat
Headache when in combination with other symptoms
Muscle aches or body aches
Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
Fatigue when in combination with other symptoms
Nasal congestion or runny nose when in combination with other symptoms and not due to other known causes such as allergies
Unusual rash when in combination with other symptoms
Our school nurse, Mrs. Doherty, is always happy to answer any questions you may have or provide clarification.
Technology Support
Please email the WPS Tech Department at technology@wpsk12.org if your child is in need of technology support while at home.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out with questions. Thank you for everything you do to support your children and their learning!
Tiffany Back