Happy New Year and Welcome Back!
Hello again, Chester Ronning School Community!
With the seek of at home programming, it feels like such a long time has passed since we've had an opportunity to connect. I hope that the holidays provided a welcomed opportunity for some rest and rejuvenation! Personally, I am quite happy to be putting 2020 in my review and I'm doing my best to stay optimistic that 2021 will bring better days and more opportunities to connect with others!
I hope that this past week of at-home programming has worked out well for our students and their families and that, at the very least, that it provided a useful transition from the break to the upcoming return to classes. Mrs. McLeod and I had the pleasure of visiting a number of Google Meets throughout the week and it was great to see a high level of engagement from the students and so many interesting projects and learning opportunities taking place. I know that this format is often an imperfect facsimile of the rich learning environments that are available in the physical classrooms of our talented staff but, at the same time, I was often impressed by how much of a classroom feel I was sensing in many of those Google Meets. Kudos to our teachers and to you for making it work!
We are excited to welcome students back to classes again on Monday, January 11th. Since we've all had three weeks away, I thought it might be useful to review a few of the processes that we are using to help ensure the safety of our school community as we continue to navigate this pandemic.
- Daily Health Assessment - Please make yourself familiar with BRSD's COVID-19 Checklist, which can help ensure that children are well enough to attend school and please keep them home if they are experiencing any symptoms. If your child does have symptoms, please also use the AHS Online Assessment Tool or call Alberta Health Link 811 to determine if COVID-testing is recommended.
- Drop-off and Pick-ups - To help us maintain cohorts, we ask parents to help students arrive as close as possible to our 8:35 am warning bell and to pick students up as close as possible to our 3:10 pm dismissal. Our back parking lot remains the designated spot for families with students in Kindergarten and/or Grade 1, but they are reminded not to block the tenant parking stalls in the alleyway. Families with only students in Grades 2-5 are encouraged park on 43rd Avenue, west of the bus loading zone. Please note that the construction crews working on our replacement school building have been asked to park on the south side of 43rd Avenue.
- Mask Use - Following the advice of Alberta Health Services, all adults and developmentally-able students in Grade 4 and 5 must wear a mask when using common areas or when physical distancing is not possible. Mask use is a parent/guardian decision for student in Grades K-3.
Additional details about these and other pandemic-related procedure are available on our school website, on the Re-Entry 2020 page.
As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out through email or by calling the school at (780)672-5588.
Yours in education,
Reid Lansing
Principal