"There's a spider on your shoulder - April fools!" I hear this extensively every year as students enjoy fooling me. I have to admit I really missed it this year but the good news there will be plenty of April Fools tricks in our future.

The Governor's Decree on Thursday, March 26, is making an impact on all school communities throughout Vermont. We knew schools would most likely be closed through April but we're all stunned when we heard we were closed for the remainder of the school year. We are still figuring out how we will meet this new challenge. The Vermont Agency of Education's direction is that we create daily work schedules, to take attendance and to create learning plans. This is an extensive task that we will be addressing in the near future.

Here are a couple of beginning steps:

• We are sending Chromebooks home to all 2nd and 3rd-grade students next week. The district is planning to drop them off at addresses, not bus stops. We are hoping to begin working through Google Classroom on April 13th. This is going to be a stretch, especially for our 2nd graders, but we hope to continue to make gains as we move through the spring.
  
• This means grades 2 - 5 will be accessing learning through Google Classrooms, we are still working on plans for students in PreK - 1st grade. This will most likely continue to be like the Monday delivery packets.
  
• We will continue to keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.
  

I am also including an attachment right below here for how the district will repair broken Chromebooks. Check out the Family Technology Support attachment directly below this article.

Important Nutrition News: I am doing a shout-out to our Kitchen staff - as of today, they are serving over 680 breakfasts and lunches every day! I can't help to be impressed and inspired by their work. Besides this, I will continue to include the Free Meal Application (see below). It is important that families know Free Meals are available as our economy continues to decline. It is also really important for parents to know that our school receives larger federal grants when our Free Lunch rate increases. We are hoping to have an online application in the very near future - remember it is all confidential.

Our librarian, Donna Sullivan-Macdonald, continues to add more awesome items to our Cool Tools for School website. Check it out!

We are loving the photos coming in for The Core. Please email them to me at mtrifilio@sbschools.net. Have a good socially-distant weekend; be safe, be well and take some time to read with your child.

Mark Trifilio

My newest addition to the Cool Tools for Schools webpage is Wide Open School, from Common Sense Media. It has LOADS of helpful resources.

Also check out free audio-books Audible.Com: "For as long as schools are closed, we're open. Starting today, kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids."

Donna

Donna Sullivan-Macdonald

Library Media & Instructional Technology Specialist