Hello CSS Community, I hope you had a wonderful winter break. I have enjoyed checking in with families and students and hearing about your time off.

I hope everyone is on the mend if your family was struck with illness. In the last week of school, we averaged 30% of our student population out sick. Anywhere from 110-150 students. We have about 475 students total at CSS. I thought I had escaped being sick once break started but on Christmas night I found myself with strep and both my girls were sick and had ear infections. But we are on the mend and found ourselves continuing to recover through last week.

I also want to share my appreciation for the Amazon gift card. I am grateful for the thoughtful gift and am honestly surprised I have not spent it yet. I appreciate you and am thankful to be apart of this community.

As we enter through the coming months there are many activities and some small changes coming up. I ask that you read this entire newsletter. I try not to give you information that is not valuable or needed. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy New Year!

Emergency Early Release:

The School is informed about the early release due to weather or other circumstances.

Parents are informed via PPSCOMMS and school messenger.

Teachers are informed via email and phone. Teachers are to remain with students in their classrooms and continue teaching to the greatest extent possible.

Taking into consideration that students will be leaving. Kate/Lacy will get out attendance rosters to everyone -

• Teachers need to record on a roll sheet how students leave campus.
• K-5 Teachers will record their homeroom class.
• Midlevel will record the class that they are with at the time of dismissal.

All parents picking up students must check into the office to get their students. Students will be called to the office or an office support staff member will get the student. Parents will not go down to the classroom unless they have checked in as a visitor.

Meisha will send a message through School Messenger to families:

We will give a 30-minute window for walkers to released. The school messenger says, “Attention Creative Science parents and guardians, the school will be released early today. We will be releasing students who walk home in 30 minutes. If you do not want your child walking home at this time, and would like to pick them up instead, please email *(Lacy or Kate)”

Students that typically walk, will be permitted to walk home. Students who do not usually walk, will not be able to do so without parental permission.

If students are still at the rooms by the normal 3:15 dismissal time then they will be brought to the office to wait for their parent/guardian. Parents should be contacted again. Admin will decide the next steps for the students that remain. Andrew or I will stay at school until all students are connected with their family. Please plan accordingly.

Do you have a neighbor or friend, grandparent that you might send to pick up your student if you cannot come to school at the early dismissal time? I so, PLEASE ensure that they are on your emergency list. You can add someone by coming into school or by sending Kate and Lacy (kbennett@pps.net and lmckinney@pps.net) an email with their name, phone number and relation to the student.

Our school's front doors have remained unlocked while we keep the rest of the perimeters locked at all times. Starting this week, the front doors will be on a schedule that will have times that the doors are unlocked and locked. This will take some adjustment as we move forward and with all of our community/evening activities.

Tentatively the schedule will be:

• 8:30-9:05 front door unlocked
• 9:05-3:15 front doors locked
• 3:15-3:45 front doors unlocked

If you or your student needs to get into the building while the doors are locked. There is a call button with a camera on the right-hand sidewall. Students and visitors will push the bottom which calls into the office. We are able to see who is at the door and open it.

I am asking that all after school enrichment instructors walk students to the front of the building to be released to their parent there.

I am working with Campfire to come up with a plan as well on Monday. Campfire will communicate with their families how this will work.

I understand that this is a change for our school. This safety upgrade is happening around the district. We will continue to get additional cameras and a large monitor in the office to be able to see more on the outside of campus.

The buzzer system is also at the back of the school through the main entrance.

Thank you for your patience as we determine what will work best for our school and community. Things may change but I will keep you informed of any further changes.

Interested in learning more about the safety procedures, policies, and resources for PPS? Join me and Kyle Olsen from PPS Security Services on 1/28 at 6:30 in the library from 6:30.

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

* emergency drills

* secondary location for family reunification

* threat assessments

* SafeOregon

* Importance of emergency contacts on your student's file.

With many upcoming celebrations and culminating events, it is important that you set aside extra time to check into the office. If you have never visited or volunteered at school we will need your government ID to log you into the system. This takes a moment to scan. Once your information has been saved to our system then you can come and sign-in from the computer quickly.

* If you do not have a government-issued ID we can have a conversation to see what other options are available to add you to our system.

School staff is trained to either ask visitors without badges for you to come back to the office to check-in or to call the office and have an administrator ask for them to come back and sign in.

Under the proper conditions, animals can be an effective teaching aid. Additionally, there are situations when federal and state statutes allow people with disabilities to bring their service animals onto District premises. Portland Public Schools recognizes that there are medical and physical risks associated with animals, both wild and domesticated, in the classroom and/or on school property.

I ask that you do not bring your dog(s) on campus or into the building. I have had community members express concern for allergies, fear and being uncomfortable. Thank you for following this and taking care of our community.

 

SITE COUNCIL INTEREST FORM FOR THE 2020-2022.

What is Site Council?
The duties of a 21st Century Schools Council shall include but not be limited to:

-The development of plans to improve the professional growth of the school staff;
-The improvement of the school instructional program;
-The development and coordination of plans for the implementation of programs under this chapter at the school; and
-The administration of grants-in-aid for the professional development of teachers and classified district employees.

Parents and guardians express interest and must be voted on by their peers to serve in this role.
There are three open positions and it is a 2-year commitment. We meet one Tuesday a month from 3:30-5:00. Please Click HERE if you are interested in joining this teacher, parent group.

We had an EXTREMELY GENEROUS DONATION. On Friday, I was going to share with the community that CSS students currently owe $3,000 dollars in school lunch debt. We had a community member that does not have students at our school come and PAY OFF all student lunch debt! This was beyond generous. We plan to do a big thank you for this community member. If you'd like to personally take time to write a thank you letter, contact Veronica in the lunch services and she can provide you with the person's name and address.

I know many families do not apply because they don't need assistance. I ask that if you know you may qualify but have not applied that you do. We are just missing the thresholds for getting grants and other financial supports for CSS based on our Free or reduced lunch numbers. This can translate to thousands of dollars of savings on programs that we contract with. For example VIBE, GrowPortland, etc. It can also mean extra staff allocation for our school or grant funding. Four years ago we qualified for an extra $30,000.00 dollars by our free and reduced meal numbers increasing by about 5%.

 

A message from the district:

While the Nutrition Services department has processed thousands of applications for free/reduced price meal benefits for families this fall and many others were directly certified (eligible) because they received SNAP benefits, we are finding that families who were eligible last year may not have reapplied this school year. On October 10, all families who were eligible last school year (2018-19) and did not reapply this school year, switched from free/reduced status to paid status. It is not too late! You can still encourage families to apply at any time. If a family’s financial situation has changed midyear, they can still apply throughout the school year. Please note that the USDA Child Nutrition Programs are not subject to the “Public Charge” and will not jeopardize anyone’s immigration status:

From the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Website: Any benefits not listed not in the rule are excluded from consideration. Notably, the rule does not include consideration of emergency medical assistance, disaster relief, national school lunch programs, foster care and adoption, student and mortgage loans, energy assistance, food pantries and homeless shelters and Head Start.

Please contact our department for further support: mealbenefits@pps.net or 503-916-3402

 

1/5/ * Happy Belated Birthday, 3rd grade Katie

1/13 Parent Coffee 9:00 am

1/14 Karin, 8th grade Spanish Teacher's Birthday

1/20 No School

• Rawl's Birthday (7th and 8th grade Math)

1/24 2nd Quarter of School Ends

1/27 No School for Students, Teacher's Report Card/Planning Day

1/28 Community Meeting: School Safety 6:30-8:00

• Storyline assembly