November Update from the Principal

Dear Great Falls Families,

I hope you enjoyed your parent/student/teacher conference and feel as though you have a better understanding of what your child is learning, how they are demonstrating their learning and the goals your child has to be successful in the learning yet to come. Fall conferences are a wonderful time to talk about learning expectations and how your child will grow throughout the school year. Thank you for participating in this process!

At the K-5 level, teachers have already identified the performance indicators in all content areas and are now using assessments aligned to these indicators. Teachers are using Jump Rope, an online standards-based grade book, to track student progress to the performance indicators. The 1st-trimester report cards are scheduled to be emailed to parents on Friday, December 4th. 

It is hard to believe that the end of October is here and we will be heading into the month of November. I am including an overview of November. Please pay close attention to next week as Tuesday is the at-home learning day swapped with Friday as our school is serving as a voting station. 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
2 “A” Day	3 At-Home Learning Day	4 “A” Day	5 “B” Day	6 “B” Day
9 Mismatch Monday Show off your silly side! 😻 Wear your wacky mismatched socks🧦 to school for all to see! “A” Day	10 T-Shirt Tuesday Show your team pride 📣 and wear your favorite t-shirt from Gorham or from any team you support!👏 “B” Day	11 No School	12 Totally Tubular Sock Thursday Show off your silly side!🧦 Wear your wacky socks to school for all to see!🙌 “B” Day	13 Favorite Friday Show your team pride and wear your favorite t-shirt 🙌from Gorham or from any team you support!📣 “A” Day
16 “A” Day	17 “B” Day	18   “A” Day	19 “B” Day	20 At-Home Learning Day
23 “A” Day	24 “B” Day	25 No School	26	27 Trimester #1 Ends
30 Trimester #2 Begins “A” Day

Heather Perry has shared her information regarding the “new” snow day in her letter found HERE. As always, please feel free to reach out to me at any time with questions and feedback.  

Becky Fortier, Great Falls Principal

Update from the Principal - Red Plan

 

October 22, 2020

  

Dear Great Falls Families,

 

Thank you for being our partner in keeping our students on campus. It is not an easy task of monitoring your child’s daily temperature and symptoms and notifying us before your child arrives on campus. We appreciate you very much. It is because parents have been so diligent about keeping symptomatic children at home and so wonderful about following all of the COVID-19 related protocols that we have successfully completed week 8 of being on campus. Continue being diligent about the procedures and know that our school nurse, Melissa Tringali, is willing to work with you and answer any medical questions that you may have regarding COVID-19 protocols. You can monitor the district cases here.

Although our diligence is paying off, we know that being prepared is important. There may be a time this year when your child’s educational cohort, class, or school may be required to move from our current yellow hybrid on-campus level to the red remote instruction level. The move would occur only after consulting with the CDC and the Superintendent in the event of a confirmed case of COVID-19 at school. If that were the case, you would receive a phone call from myself, Mrs. Etienne, or Ms. Tringali notifying you that your child may have to stay home for the duration of the designated quarantine period due to their close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 at Great Falls. You would be asked to stay in contact with Ms. Tringali if symptoms develop with your child during the quarantine period, or if your child receives results from COVID testing.

If this were to occur, you could expect to hear from your child’s teacher with more specific details regarding your child’s academic programming. There could be a day designated for you to pick up some instructional materials from the school. Students would continue to follow their “A” and “B” schedules as currently defined in the yellow hybrid model while they receive instruction at home from their classroom teacher. Below is a sample schedule for the “A” and “B” cohorts of what instruction at home would look like if your child had to quarantine due to a positive COVID-19 exposure at school. 

“A” Schedule - Remote
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday / Friday
Virtual Morning Meeting with the teacher Virtual Reading groups Pre-recorded lessons: -Literacy -Math Virtual Creative Arts  Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable	Independent reading Reading assignments Journal writing Handwriting Without Tears Math assignments Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable	Virtual Morning Meeting with the teacher Virtual Reading groups Pre-recorded lessons: -Literacy -Math Virtual Creative Arts  Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable Creative Arts	Independent reading Reading assignments Journal writing Handwriting Without Tears Math assignments Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable	Virtual Class Meeting Complete unfinished work from the week Read Complete optional activities Possible virtual meeting for special education services Possible virtual meeting for RTI services Creative Arts activities

 

“B” Schedule - Remote
Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday / Monday
Virtual Morning Meeting with the teacher Virtual Reading groups Pre-recorded lessons: -Literacy -Math Virtual Creative Arts  Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable	Independent reading Reading assignments Journal writing Handwriting Without Tears Math assignments Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable	Virtual Morning Meeting with the teacher Virtual Reading groups Pre-recorded lessons: -Literacy -Math Virtual Creative Arts  Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable	Virtual Class Meeting Complete unfinished work from the week Read Complete optional activities Possible virtual meeting for special education services Possible virtual meeting for RTI services Creative Arts activities	Independent reading Reading assignments Journal writing Handwriting Without Tears Math assignments Virtual RTI/Special Education Sessions as applicable

Again, being prepared is important and I will continue to work with my staff to be ready for any circumstance that may arise. As always, please reach out with any questions. I appreciate your partnership!

Sincerely,

Becky Fortier

Great Falls Principal

Parent/Student/Teacher Virtual Conferences

 

Hello, Great Falls Parents!

It is just about time for our virtual Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences! Here is some important information for you to have:

WHAT: The general purpose of our virtual conferences is to connect with your child’s teacher, as well as obtain an update on academic progress and “skills for life.” These progress checks may include student sharing of their work products, goal setting, and the presentation of other assessments and work by the student or teacher. As your child will be present, it is understood that issues that are private and confidential require a different forum for communication. It is expected that issues that are of a serious concern would have been discussed prior to and outside of these conferences. IEP meetings, even in close proximity to conference dates, do not take the place of student-led conferences. 

WHEN: Conferences are held throughout the next two weeks and the full day of Friday, October 23rd. The available dates and times during this window of time vary depending on the teacher. You will be able to register for your child’s conference beginning on Friday, October 9th.

 

HOW: The PTCfast online program is used for scheduling conferences unless teachers know that there is a family who does not have Internet access at home.  Teachers will be sending out notices and passwords for parents to use to set up conferences. The procedure is user-friendly and quite efficient, especially when a family has more than one child in our school.  This program allows you a maximum choice in dates and times, choosing the one that works best for your schedule. When you pick a day and time, you will receive a confirmation and a reminder prior to the conference. If you need to change the date and/or time, you simply return to the site and do so, unless it is beyond the cutoff time selected by the classroom teacher. 

Step 1:  You will receive a letter or email from your child’s teacher containing a link to the class’ conference website.  Enter the link into your browser.

Step 2:  Enter the class code your child’s teacher has sent to you into the box on that screen- you can copy and paste it if that's easier!

Step 3:  You will see the list of available time slots your child’s teacher has available.  If someone else has already selected a time slot, you won’t be able to check the box and the time slot will be red.  Check the time you would like for your conference. Reminder emails will be sent out closer to the conference.

Please make sure to contact us if you run into any difficulty with this process.  We don’t anticipate that you will, but we are, of course, happy to help. Great Falls takes pride in having a very high participation rate in Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences.  Although we would prefer to have you on campus, we appreciate your flexibility and know the experience for you and your child will be a great one! 

Sincerely,

Becky Fortier, Great Falls Principal

 

Dear Great Falls School Families,

 

The safety of your children is our priority. We take safety procedures and protocols very seriously at Great Falls and we work diligently to ensure that our staff and students are well prepared in case of an emergency. We hold regularly scheduled safety drills, including fire drills, playground drills, and emergency drills. Following each drill, the building staff evaluates the effectiveness of the drill to determine if any adjustments need to be made to ensure preparedness.

Last year we adopted some changes to the District’s emergency management plan, specifically implementing a safety program called ALICE. ALICE is a research-based, proactive, options-based, empowering program for responding to a dangerous incident. ALICE is an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate.  With regard to classroom messaging to students, as with years past we continue to keep this information developmentally appropriate and low-key.  Students know that we regularly conduct emergency lessons for everyone’s safety; including evacuations during a Fire Alarm and locking down during a Lockdown Alert.

 

For our children, the biggest shift is there is no longer only one response during a Lockdown (moving to a predetermined safe spot in the classroom and staying there).  Instead, they now focus on the teacher for specific directions that may include the ‘shelter in place’ option or any number of other responses depending on the situation.  Our staff are all trained to respond in a variety of ways, making the decision that will best ensure the safety of the students in their care.  In order for these actions to be met with success, our students are being coached to stop, look, listen, and follow directions without questions in these variable situations.

 

Our first emergency lesson using ALICE protocols is scheduled this week and next.  In this lesson the teacher will lead a discussion on what it means to be safe at school, read the book I’m Not Scared, I’m Prepared: I know About ALICE to the class, and highlight that the procedures during an emergency are to stop, look, listen and follow teacher directions without question.

 

We will continue to conduct lessons throughout the remainder of the year, but as this is the first school-wide emergency lesson with students present, I wanted to let you know in advance. Please feel free to reach out to me anytime with questions.

 

Sincerely,

Becky Fortier

Great Falls Principal