Happy Friday to all! It is the end of our 19th week of face to face instruction in our hybrid learning model here in Gorham...and yes, we have officially made it through a full half of the school year (knock on wood)! Hard to believe for sure...but definitely worth the time to pause and reflect and give ourselves (parents, students and staff) a big pat on the back for a pandemic job well done so far!
Once again, I've got lots to share - so let's get right to it!
UPCOMING NEW KINDERGARTEN PARENT MEETINGS SCHEDULED
Please help me to spread the word around Gorham that our three elementary schools have scheduled their new Kindergarten parent information nights for March 2nd, 2021 via zoom. At these meetings, parents will meet school staff, learn about a day in the life of a Kindergarten student, and receive information about the enrollment process. Details about how to pick up enrollment packets and schedule students for a Kindergarten screening will also be shared.
Parents of incoming 2021-22 Kindergarten students should please visit the district's website (www.gorhamschools.org) and click on your neighborhood school and pre-register using the kindergarten registration link. If you are unsure of your neighborhood school, or have ANY questions we can help you with, please call any of the elementary schools directly for this information. Phone numbers for each of the schools and links to each parent information night zoom meetings are listed below.
Great Falls Elementary School - Tuesday, March 2nd
Parent Information Meeting at 6:00 p.m.
Zoom Link: https://networkmaine.zoom.us/j/88370984361
Narragansett Elementary School - Tuesday, March 2nd
Parent Information Meeting at 6:00 p.m.
Village Elementary School - Tuesday, March 2nd
Parent Information Meeting at 6:00 p.m.
Hope to see you there!
MATERIALS FROM RECENT PRESENTATION: PARENTING TEENS IN A PANDEMIC
A little over a week ago now Gorham's Action Team for Youth (GATY) sponsored an incredibly informative parent information night via zoom on the trials and tribulations of parenting teens in a pandemic. As if parenting teens weren't hard enough - right? The presentation was well attended, however I know for a fact, not all our parents of all our teens attended and therefore I know some of our parents missed out on some great information shared that evening. We couldn't record the meeting due to HIPPA policies for Opportunity Alliance staff who were the key speakers, they were kind enough to share with us the slides used during the presentation. Although this won't provide the full experience...these slides do contain some incredible resources for our parents of teens that we thought was extremely valuable to share. Please CLICK HERE to view the slides from that presentation and feel free to reach out to your school's counselors if you have follow up questions we can help you with!
A FEW MORE COVID REMINDERS
As I say every week now - it is still very important to keep COVID at the forefront of our thinking as we continue to strive to keep our schools open for our children. That being said, I promise to keep it brief with just two key points for reminders:
1. A reminder to all families that if you are traveling out of state, you need to keep travel guidelines in mind. Currently there are only TWO states on Maine's "Happy List" which allows folks to travel without need of testing or quarantine. Those two states are New Hampshire and Vermont. This means that if you have traveled or plan to travel to any other state, you need to follow Maine's rules for return. You can find those rules by CLICKING HERE but the cliff notes version is really this: If you travel to states not on the approved list, you need to EITHER (A) quarantine for 10 days upon return to the state OR (B) produce documentation of a negative COVID test. We all realize this may be a pain, but these rules are for our safety and they are state rules, which schools are bound to follow and enforce. Please reach out to your building principal or school nurse if you have questions as we are always here to support.
2. A reminder that if you elect to get your child tested for COVID 19 you should still involve your PCP in reviewing results. This isn't to say you have to go to your PCP to be tested. You do not. You can access several different types of tests and testing sites without PCP approval. However, what I am encouraging is that if you elect to use a site like Walgreens to get a COVID 19 test and you get your results back...you should keep your family's PCP in the loop. This is best practice and allows an opportunity for your PCP to seek clarification if any is needed.
That's it - promised to keep it short on this front this time! Of course, I wouldn't be doing my job if I also didn't remind you again to (1) Wear your face coverings, (2) wash/sanitize those hands and (3) keep your six! Those three safety protocols are truly "rocking it"...so be sure to continue to follow them! THANK YOU!
COVID 19 VACCINATION - DID YOU KNOW?
The following is from the Federal CDC Q&A page:
Can a COVID-19 vaccine make me sick with COVID-19?
No. None of the authorized and recommended COVID-19 vaccines or COVID-19 vaccines currently in development in the United States contain the live virus that causes COVID-19. This means that a COVID-19 vaccine cannot make you sick with COVID-19.
There are several different types of vaccines in development. All of them teach our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19. Sometimes this process can cause symptoms, such as fever. These symptoms are normal and are a sign that the body is building protection against the virus that causes COVID-19. Learn more about how COVID-19 vaccines work.
It typically takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity (protection against the virus that causes COVID-19) after vaccination. That means it’s possible a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination and still get sick. This is because the vaccine has not had enough time to provide protection.
UPDATE ON ATHLETICS
Its been a while since we got some good news...so wanted to be sure to share! The Maine Principals' Association, in collaboration with the Maine School Superintendent's Association, the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services recently got together to review a previous ruling regarding practicing and competitions in conjunction with the county color coding system. That previous ruling stated that for the purposes of interscholastic sports and competitions, a yellow county designation actually meant "red" and practices could not occur. After reviewing the clear data that demonstrates schools are doing an excellent job of following safety protocols and are indeed some of the safest places to be in our communities right now, the MPA has reversed this original decision and has now stated that these decisions may be made at the local levels.
As a result of this policy change, Tim Spear, Gorham's athletic director, sent out THIS LETTER to families yesterday. Bottom line, in person practices in Gorham will resume starting on Monday, Jan. 25. Again, please read the letter for more details and reach out to Mr. Spear with any questions you may have, but definitely good news for our students! Now, it's up to us to show folks that we can do this safely and I have no doubt that our responsible student athletes and talented coaches can do just that! GO RAMS!
FEDERAL COVID STIMULUS MONIES - AN OVERVIEW
I'm sure many of you have recently heard about a new set of stimulus funds coming from the federal government to support public education called ESSER funds. I wanted to use this opportunity to share information with you about these new funds and to share with you an overview of what federal funds we have received since the beginning of the pandemic. This will provide for you an overall sense of how much we've received, and how we've used these funds to support our schools and your children. As always when it comes to school funding, there are a lot of moving parts behind the scenes, but hopefully this summary will give you a baseline of information that we can then continue to build on over the course of the spring as we work to develop our proposed School Budget for FY 22.
Let's start with a summary list of the now six different federal funding streams we are using to support COVID 19 related school costs:
Although that last fund called "ESSER II" funds doesn't really give an indication of how we will spend those funds - I can share with you that the focus for the Gorham School's use of these funds will be on supporting struggling learners and addressing potential learning gaps created by the COVID 19 Pandemic.
As with all Federal funds, there are many, many, many strings attached, but for the most part - all of these funds must be utilized to support COVID 19 related costs to our schools. These funds have been used to help support the operation of Gorham Recreation's child care programs for parents and students on remote learning days. These funds have been utilized to support the purchase of PPE that was required to get a school system of 2,000+ and 500 employees safely "geared up" to operate in a Pandemic. They've been used to support additional cleaning and sanitization supplies, transportation costs, additional staffing costs to strengthen our nurses clinics, costs to provide 1:1 devices to students across grades K-12, costs to strengthen our network and internet connections, costs to improve radio and phone communications, costs to allow our school nutrition program to provide home deliveries, instructional supplies for teachers and families, and so much more.
It has been an extremely "heavy lift" to first open our schools and to then keep them open over the course of this pandemic. That is likely the understatement of the year. Operating our schools within a Pandemic has forced us to make changes that ripple across our entire district, impacting almost every aspect of our entire organization. These adjustments come at a cost. Thankfully these funds have been here to support our work, to help keep our schools open, stay open and to therefore support our entire community.
As we prepare to discuss our first initial proposed FY 22 school budget with the School Committee coming up later in February, I wanted to make sure folks were aware these funds exist. I also wanted to make sure folks knew we were being good stewards of federal funds and doing our best to utilize these funds (within the rules required by the feds) to maximize positive impacts to our children and to our community. Although these funds can't be used to directly reduce taxes for our community - these funds have helped us to prevent going back to taxpayers to place additional burden on our local community to keep our schools operational this year. As we do more public presentations on our proposed FY 22 budget, I will be sure to update folks on these funds and how they may, or may not be impacting our budget requests moving forward.
As always, if you have questions, please reach out to me directly at heather.perry@gorhamshools.org and I'd be happy to answer any questions folks have.
SHARING A NEAT WAY TO VIEW THE INAUGURATION - THROUGH THE ARTS!
No matter what political slant you might have, when you view the inauguration through the lens of the arts - you can't help but understand how the arts brings people together through expression. One of our teachers put together this slide show of Wednesday's Presidential Inauguration using the lens of "the arts" to share powerful messages about all that makes the United States an amazing country regardless of perspective. Worth the watch. CLICK HERE to view if interested.
IN CLOSING - A REMINDER ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF LAUGHTER...
I saw the quote below while surfing the internet the other day...I thought it was a good reminder to share, first with myself and then with all of you. I hope to hear the "giggles" from my office - especially from my Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers! ☺ Have a Great Weekend!
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