Pinewood Weekly Newsletter
October 23, 2020
Principal's Message - Instructional Minutes
As a California Public School we are required to provide a specific amount of instructional minutes each school day. Due to COVID-19 the current minutes are as follows:
TK/Kindergarten = 180 minutes (3 hours)
Grades 1-3 = 230 minutes (3 hours 50 minutes)
Grade 4 and up - 240 minutes (4 hours)
Because we are currently in a hybrid model, these minutes are a combination of synchronous (live, in-person) and asynchronous (not in real time, not directed live by the teacher) activities.
On Mondays, your child is accountable to complete ALL Monday work assigned by the classroom teacher. Depending on your child's grade level, this work should take between three and four hours on this first day of the school week. It is very important that you and/or your child check in with the classroom teacher every Monday. Your teacher has established their own procedure for this check-in (i.e. Classtag, Google Classroom, Reflex or IXL logged minutes). Please refer to the teacher for how they would like you to check-in on this day. Teachers take their attendance on this day based on the check-in. In addition, if your student comes the following day and has not completed their Monday work as promised, we will go in and revise the attendance to a non-excused absence.
For our students attending in-person Tuesday through Friday, know that your child is getting 160 minutes of their daily instruction here at school. This means your child's teacher is giving them work to complete at home to make up the difference on these days. For homework, our TK and Kindergarten students will have 20 minutes of activities, grades 1-3 will have 70 minutes of assigned work and our fourth graders will have 80 additional minutes on these days. Again, please refer to the specific assignments that the teacher gives for this purpose. Please reach out to the teacher if your child says they have no work to do when they are at home.
For our distance learning families, these instructional minutes are the same. The live meeting on Zoom counts as part of this mandated time. Please continue to attend these meetings with fidelity and complete your assigned work on time. Your teachers want to support you as much as possible. I ask that you make it a point to attend your scheduled one-on-one meetings with your teacher.
I encourage you to log into your Aeries parent portal to check your child's attendance record or call the school office if you have any questions.
Respectfully,
Kim Little
Believe Kids Fundraiser
Fundraiser Student Incentives
Spirit Day 10/30
Check out our new Pinewood Spirit Wear! Order by November 6th. You can print the form below or pick one up in the office.
Upcoming Dates
- October 27-November 6th - Believe Kids Fundraiser
- Friday, October 30th - Spirit Day/ Dress as your favorite Book Character
- Sunday, November 1st - Daylight Saving Time - Set Clocks back 1 hour.
- Thursday, November 5th 3:30 pm - PTC Zoom meeting
- Friday, November 6th - Spirit Wear Orders are due
- Wednesday, November 11th - Veteran's Day, NO SCHOOL
- Friday, November 20th - 1st Trimester Report Cards will be sent home
- November 23 - 27 - Thanksgiving Break NO SCHOOL
New Art On Campus
Pinewood Elementary School
Email: klittle@ppesd.org
Website: ppesd.org
Location: 6181 Pine Street, Pollock Pines, CA, USA
Phone: (530) 644-2384