Lion's Den
Lakeview Family Newsletter ~ October 29
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Covid Questions and Answers
• When we are notified of a positive case, we act on it immediately. Sometimes, a student or staff member may be home sick for several days before receiving a positive result. This is why it is important to stay home whenever anyone has symptoms. If someone is a close contact, it may have truly been a week in the past, but the person had not been in school and there was not a positive test result to act on. Nobody at school was needlessly exposed.
• Sometimes an entire class has to stay home and sometimes just some students. Why? Those decisions are tricky. In 4K-2nd grades, we cannot accurately contact trace since little kids are playing and learning with each other all day long. For 3rd-5th grades, if we can accurately contact trace in a timely manner, we try to just exclude the students that are truly close contacts. If our contact tracing cannot be done fast enough to ensure proper notification and safety (such as if we are notified of a positive case late in the evening), then we need to ask the entire class to stay home.
• When a student is excluded from school, we depend on families to read the email from our health team carefully. Our health team uses the email that you listed in your Infinite Campus parent portal. Generally, an email is sent the same day. Often, those emails come in the evening. If you do not receive an email or if you have questions, please call us.
• The return dates can sometimes confuse families. Read the timeline in the email carefully to understand how to get your student back to school as soon as possible.
• Testing, testing, testing. If you choose to get your child tested, it must be a PCR test. Your child cannot return to school until the test results are acknowledged by our health team. This is best done by reading your email and sending the test results to our health team by email.
• Why won't school provide an online teacher for my child whenever he/she is quarantined? If the entire class is quarantined, that teacher will provide virtual instruction. Once students start to return to school - or - if only part of the class was quarantined, the teacher will provide instruction to the in-person students and online, asynchronous learning for students that still need to remain at home (Google Classroom, SeeSaw, Lexia, ST Math, independent reading). These decisions are individualized to the situation of every classroom.
• My neighbor (or social media) told me that ... Be careful here. We have had people think that an entire grade level went virtual when it wasn't true. We have had people think that the entire school went virtual when it wasn't true. If you are impacted, we will always contact you - at least by email, and often by phone. If you have a question, call us!
• What is the definition of a "close contact"? Since everyone at Lakeview wears masks all the time, close contact means being with 3 feet of a positive individual for a total of 15 or more minutes across the day. That is why some students get to stay in-person while others in the same classroom sometimes need to switch to virtual. (By the way, if we didn't use masks, the rule would be everyone within 6 feet, which would likely mean a lot more students needing to go virtual. Masks keep more students in school.)
• I'm upset about all of this! We get it. We don't love it, either. We all want to be done with pandemics, quarantines, etc. We're not there yet. Please be kind to our secretaries, health team, and teachers. Kindness and patience is a gift that we need more than ever in our society. Our teachers, secretaries, and health team are all working extra hours to make these decisions and communicate as well as possible.
• These situations are usually unique and each requires a slightly different answer. The good news is that, once we emerge from the pandemic, we should hopefully never have to face these questions again. We just need to keep working together to keep everyone as safe as possible.
Holiday Help
This Week's Golden Lions!
There were 25 Golden Lions awarded to students this week. Here are the descriptions for each of those Golden Lions. Our students demonstrate GREAT character at Lakeview!
• David knows almost all of the uppercase and lowercase letter names and their sounds! Since the beginning of the school year, he has learned 9 new uppercase letters, 7 new lowercase letters and 13 new letter sounds! Congratulations, David!
• During Word Work, Landen got right to work. His job was to use 5 words in a sentence. Landen stayed focused and went above and beyond using all of his words in a sentence. He was so proud of himself. Keep up the good work, Landen!
• Ben is so engaged in his independent work. He understands what is expected of him and works hard to meet those expectations. In addition, I hear Ben consistently helping his partners by repeating directions for them as well as coaching them through places on assignments that are tricky. Way to go, Ben!
• Team stays with his class and listens carefully.
• Kiyus asks for help with his work when he needs it.
• Each student did an outstanding job learning virtually at home. The kindergarteners learned how to use their Chromebooks to stay engaged in learning. They were able to problem solve and use their belly breaths when things got tricky. I am so proud of all the hard work each student put into their learning. Great job friends!
• Dajjen is working very hard to learn all the letter sounds and snap words! All of his learning is helping him to be a better reader and writer! Keep up the great work, Dajjen!
• Eliezer focuses on work when he works other students in small group.
• Aaliyah was engaged in painting during the entire class period in Art. When it was time to clean up, Aaliyah took a leadership role and volunteered to put away paints and clean the paint brushes. Thank you, Aaliyah!
• Logan did a great job working with me and staying engaged!
• Eli was really engaged during a writing prompt that he took. He also tried encouraging another student to work hard too!
• Gavin shows he is engaged by working precisely with the pattern block shapes in our geometry unit. He was the first student in the class to figure out that small shapes will make more in an outline and big shapes will make fewer in an outline.
• Jaliyah showed she was engaged by persevering through a large counting collection and counting it all by 2s.
• Aliyah is just such a delight everyday at recess. She tries to organize games for friends, share ideas and really models being a good sport! Thanks Aliyah!
• Natalie is just such a delight everyday at recess. She tries to organize games for friends, share ideas and really models being a good sport! Thanks Natalie!
• Joey is always on task and focused during our small reading group time! Also, Joey figures out tricky words by looking at the picture, blending the letter sounds together and looking for small words hiding in bigger words (like "am" in "Sam"). Keep up the terrific work, Joey!
• Amina has been working hard to make sense of our math lessons. Even when it gets hard, she continues to persevere until she understands. Way to work hard, Amina!
• Aaliyah is working hard to make sense of our math unit. Although it's not always easy, she still participates in our mini-lessons, asks questions and meets in small groups to help herself understand better. Great job, Aaliyah!
• Aaliyah is a student I can always count on to be doing what she should be doing. She keeps herself organized and is kind to her classmates. Thank you for always following expectations and being a great role model for others!
• Vince is working hard on staying more engaged in reading and mastering his sight words. Keep up the hard work!
• Jayden did an awesome job or putting his instrument away and getting into line with no talking. Great example for his class!
• Charlotte set an excellent of good listening for her classmates during a listening activity in music today!
• As we are starting to use Epic to become an expert about an animal, Annalise smartly took out her sticky notes and was jotting ideas that she learned so that she could include them in her non-fiction book next week! And that got other people jotting notes too! Great modeling Annalise!!
• As we were making our scientific plant models, John very kindly said to me, "Mrs. Busalacchi, thank you for this very fun activity!" That made me feel like a million bucks! Thank you John for your kindness!
• Antonella did her final narrative writing prompt independently, retelling her moment bit by bit, and she stretched out many words she used so that she could hear all of the sounds in the words as she wrote her story. I'm so proud of you Antonella-keep up the great work!
From the Rec Department
Roar Awards!
Lakeview Elementary School
Email: csepersky@sdsm.k12.wi.us
Website: lakeview.sdsm.k12.wi.us
Location: 711 Marion Avenue, South Milwaukee, WI, USA
Phone: 414-766-5252
Twitter: @sepersky