COVID Health + Safety Information
Thursday, January 14, 2021 Knightline
Returning to Hybrid Model -- Tuesday, January 19, 2021
ARK Families,
With the return to hybrid learning quickly approaching, I wanted to provide you with some information to prepare for students returning to school.
This will be a fairly new experience for all of us and there are some new procedures and protocols in place to ensure our students return to school is a safe one.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact your teacher, the main office or me.
Sincerely,
Mr. Park
Change in Learning Model
Regards,
Mr. Park
Principal
Quarantine
Arrival and Dismissal Procedures
Socially Distanced Arrival
In the morning, our doors will open at 8:45 am. Please do not send or drop students off prior to 8:45 am.
Once dropped off, Students will proceed to their designated entry and go directly to their classrooms. We will not be lining up outside or in the hallways. As students are being dropped off, our staff members will check for masks. No one will be permitted into school without a mask.
We will have adults directing our students to the appropriate entrances.
All grades K, 1 and 2 students will enter through the main entrance.
All grades 3, 4, 5 students will enter through the 3, 4, 5 blacktop entrance and go directly upstairs to their classrooms.
If you are dropping off your child, have them exit the car quickly and move toward their designated entrance. Please do not leave your car parked in the drop off area and walk your child to the building. We have lots of traffic in the morning and many waiting to drop off.
Socially Distanced Dismissal
In the past, we have called all walkers at the same time. In order to safely exit the building, we will be dismissing walkers by grade level. Bussers will be called when their bus arrives and is ready to receive students.
Kindergarten and 1st grade Walkers will be released through exits leading directly to the blacktop area located at the rear of our building:
- Room 1: Ms. Griggs & Ms. Nosenzo
- Room 2: Ms. Abesh & Ms. Patterson
- Room 3: Ms. Johnson
- Room 4: Mr. Angelucci
- Room 9: Ms. Marchetty
- Room 10: Ms. McAllister
- Room K1: Ms. Leipow
- Room K2: Ms. Forrest
- Room 30: Ms. Glass
There are sidewalks that can be used to access the rear blacktop exit area. Please do NOT go through the parking lot.
Grades 2, 3, 4 & 5 Walkers will exit through the main doors at the front of the building.
We do not have a car pick up area. Anyone picking up their child will need to pick them up at their child's designated exit area or direct their child to a meet up location.
Kindergarten families will need to come to their child's pick up area. For safety reasons, we will not release a kindergartner without seeing the child's adult pick up person.
We do not have any public parking available on school grounds between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm. Therefore, you will need to use street parking.
We have a high volume of traffic in the parking lots with bus pick ups. We do not offer public parking during school hours for safety reasons. Please do not walk through parking lots and always use the sidewalks.
Transportation
Students Need to Bring:
An extra mask in a ziplock bag to be kept in their backpack. A separate baggie or small container to store facemask if needed during snack.
For students K-2 - a change of clothes in a large ziplock bag to be kept in their backpack.
Weather appropriate clothing including gloves, hats, coats, and scarves.
Your teachers may request that your child brings a small towel to sit on when taking outside breaks. You do not need to send in a towel unless your teacher has requested it.
Devices
Additionally, I encourage that students only bring district issued devices, not personal devices to school. The district is not responsible for personal devices, and will not be troubleshooting any issues with personal devices.
If your child has not borrowed a district issued chromebook, they will be provided access to a device when they are in school.
Classroom Set Up
Dress Warm
Dry Snack
Students may bring in one snack and water bottle each day. This should be a dry, nut-free snack that they are able to open and eat themselves. Staff members are not able to touch the snack.
Additionally, we will attempt to eat our snack outside as the weather permits.
We recommend avoiding snacks that may leave residue on fingers (Takis, Cheetos, Cheese Balls, Doritos, etc). The temptation to lick tasty snack residue off your fingers is real!
Playgrounds
Due to security reasons, we do not allow anyone on school grounds when students are on school grounds.
Unfortunately, if you have been using the playground during the school day, you will now only be able to access school grounds after 6 pm. Our after school program, SACC, ends at 6 pm.
Visitors to Our Building
Visitors to our building will be limited and scheduled ahead of time.
All visitors will be scanned with a temperature check. If their temperature is 100 degrees or above, entry will be denied.
Classrooms
- Student desks are spaced 6 feet apart.
- Materials are accessed only by the teacher. Items that are used by the students will be left out for one week or misted, if possible, prior to dispersing to another student
- Soap dispensers are filled regularly.
- Hand Sanitizer will be available in all classrooms.
Encore (Specials)
Our art, music, SSI, Spanish, and physical education teachers will be pushing into the homerooms.
PE classes will be held outdoors as much as possible, weather permitting.
Restrooms and Water Fountains
We recommend children bringing a bottle of water to school since water fountains will not be available.
Nurse
Our school nurse now has two rooms designated for use. This allows for any person exhibiting COVID symptoms to be isolated. Please do not send your students to school with fevers. Any student showing a temperature of 100.0 degrees or higher will be sent home.
Please do not send children to school if they are exhibiting symptoms or feeling unwell. We understand that symptoms may overlap and may be related to an unrelated health issue, such as allergies, sinus infections, etc. However, nurses are not in a position to use “best judgement” and they must err on the side of caution - based on guidance from the local health department.
Contact Tracing
Close Contact
Close contact is defined as 15 cumulative minutes during a 24 hour period of being within 6 feet of an infected person.
Most people are considered to be infectious beginning 2 days prior to symptom onset and 10 days after onset of symptoms.