Blue Ash Elementary News
September 25th, 2020
Spirit and Pajamas This Week!
Healthy and Happy at BAE!
Math is Marvelous!
Upcoming Events
September 26 ~ Virtual Students in Kdg and 2nd grade, resource pick up, Maple Dale, 6100 Hagewa Drive, 1:00-3:00.
September 29 ~ Virtual Student MAP Reading test for grades 1 - 4 *See below
October 1 ~ Virtual Student MAP Math test for grades 1-4 *See below
October 13 ~ Picture Retake Day for Face to Face students
Parent/Teacher Conferences
ALL conferences will be held virtually, for both Virtual Classroom and Face-to Face students. Parents will receive details regarding the conferences as they get closer. Dates are as follows:
Oct. 15 (Thursday) Evening Conferences (Gr. 9-12)
*Nov. 19 (Thursday) Evening Conferences (K-6)
*Nov. 20 (Friday) Daytime conferences (K-8 only - No School)
*Nov. 23 (Monday) Evening Conferences (K-4 and 7-8)
Dec. 1 (Tuesday) Evening Conferences (Gr. 5-6 only)
March 4 (Thursday) Evening Conferences (Gr. 9-12)
Virtual MAP Testing
Virtual students grades 1-6 will be taking MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing next week. This assessment measures each student in both Reading and Math.
Virtual MAP Schedule:
September 29 - Reading MAP test
October 1 - Math MAP test
Virtual students will need to take this assessment on their district issued Chromebook. Teachers will be sharing information directly with their students about the schedule for the day including how to begin the testing.
It is imperative that each student - especially your youngest students - have a Learning Partner with them at the start of testing to help them access the testing and begin the assessment. Similarly, once the assessment is started, it is imperative that students complete this assessment completely on their own without any assistance from their Learning Partner or anyone else.
Results from this assessment will help us to better understand each student’s current level of understanding and will be a data point in considering their next steps instructionally.
Make ups for virtual students who miss a Map test on Tuesday or Thursday will be held on Friday, October 2 with a morning session for Reading and an afternoon session for Math.
**Virtual students who registered to and take the MAP assessment in person on Saturday September 26 will not need to take the assessment(s) a second time - meaning that if they took the Math MAP in person on Saturday, they would not need to take the Math MAP again remotely on Thursday.
Virtual Classroom Principal Picnics.....
Starting in October, your child will have the option to join a "Google Meet" to hang out with Mrs. Combs, Mrs. Ament....and other guests! Lunches will be held on the following schedule:
Kdg - 1st Thursday of every month
1st Grade - 1st Tuesday of every month
2nd Grade - 2nd Tuesday of every month
3rd Grade - 3rd Tuesday of every month
4th Grade - 4th Tuesday of every month
*Links to the meetings will be shared by your classroom teachers. Please only have your child attend their grade level meet so we can more easily manage our numbers.
This is optional for students, and is an additional time for us to stay connected.
We know that there will be some months that we will not be able to get together, but we look forward to seeing you all as often as possible!
Virtual Learning Partners...
Many thanks to our families who have provided us with feedback over the past two weeks. We have heard you and are working towards an even better experience for our learners each and every day. We truly appreciate our partnership with our parents and our virtual Learning Partners!!
One frequent point of feedback has been that technology challenges appear more problematic during whole class sessions, either over Google Meet or Blackboard Collaborate. The promising news is two-fold; 1.) the new devices recently provided to our K-2 learners are helping with connectivity and 2.) all K-6 teachers are now making the natural shift from large group community building into the use of more small groups in their instruction, typical of best practice at this point of the school year in an elementary classroom. While there certainly will be opportunities for whole class meetings and sessions, the evolution towards more targeted small group learning should reduce the number of technology challenges that some virtual families have experienced. This shift will also result in less consecutive and focused screen time, including some natural breaks for our youngest students as they move between different learning experiences provided by their teacher.
Learning Partners will begin to notice more utilization of student-centered, small group instruction/activities on a regular basis. In practice, students will be grouped by the teacher to participate in differentiated activities and learning experiences designed to provide targeted instruction to meet their needs. In the face to face classroom, this often entails centers, stations, or small group activities around the classroom as well as individual meetings with the teacher. In the virtual classroom, this may include breakout room activities, individual sessions with the teacher, or other virtual grouping techniques.
Learning Partners will play a pivotal role in helping our younger students navigate the various learning activities being developed for small group instruction and will be key to helping them manage their time. This might include helping the student navigate to and from online and offline work throughout the day, completing assignments, or joining the teacher online at a specific time. The following chart provides some additional guidance using our 4 Be’s
Our elementary teachers are highly trained in student-centered instruction, as this is a key element of their craft. With ongoing professional development and on-site support from our instructional technology specialists, our teachers will continue to translate key learning practices into virtual learning opportunities. With your continued partnership in this endeavor, we will continue to work toward creating a high quality, engaging virtual learning experience for our youngest students.
As always, please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns.
Free lunch for Face to Face and Virtual!
USDA and ODE passed a new waiver for all schools that participate in School Nutrition Programs. As of today, Sycamore Schools is now able to serve breakfast and lunch to all students for FREE until the waiver expires on December 31st (or until the allotted program funds are no longer available—whichever comes first.)
This does not change anything in the process of receiving breakfast or lunch at school for your Sycamore student other than that if a student makes a reimbursable school meal they will not be charged. A student has to take 3 components and one HAS to be ½ cup of fruit or vegetable for their meal to be considered reimbursable. Click on the links below for more information by learning model:
Virtual Learning- Free Meal Information
Face-to-Face- Free Meal Information
Change in Pre-Ordering Meals
The Child Nutrition Department has made a change to the pre-ordering deadline for Elementary students. Families now only need to order by Noon the day before, rather than a week at a time. This is to better serve our parents and students.
Please note: You can order up to 2 weeks in advance. If choosing to do this, please understand that if you ordered a meal for your student and they are present at school they need to take the meal that was ordered.
Thank you for being patient with this new program and way of providing meals to students in the safest way possible. The Child Nutrition Department is doing everything possible to fix any issues that are found in a timely manner.
Continue to send questions and concerns to warrenk@sycamoreschools.org or by calling the office at (513) 686-1796.
Online Ordering for Breakfast & Lunch
In order to receive breakfast or lunch for all four Elementary schools, as well as EH Greene, you will need to pre-order meals on “Me Meal Order.” Orders will need to be placed by noon the day before.
How to Order:
Click Here for How to Order Meals Video
Step 1- Account Setup Go to mymealorder.com and create a free account.Enter in your information and create a password. Account information can be edited at any time.
Add students you will be ordering meals for.
Please click subscribe when you are asked if you would like to subscribe. This will allow you to receive email notifications if there is a menu change due to food outages
Step 2 - Select MealsMeals can be viewed from either the weekly or monthly calendar view.
Meal details can be seen for each item by clicking ‘Meal Details.’
Click ‘Add to Cart' to add meal(s) to your cart. This will add the entire meal to your cart. To see items included in the meal, click 'Meal Details.’ To remove from cart, click ‘Remove from Cart.’
Step 3 - Order Online View your cart anytime by clicking the ‘View Cart’ green tab on the right hand side of the screen.
Checkout
Review Order
Place Order
If payment is expected at the time/location of meal service, or if your child qualifies for free
meals, your total will be $0.00. This is because payment will NOT be taken within My Meal Order. We will handle payment the same as in years past. Money can be put on accounts via parent portal or by sending in cash or check with your student. This year, please send cash or check in an envelope marked with the student’s name and ID#. This will be sent to the office each morning and collected by the kitchen staff.
FAQS:
Why am I having trouble registering my child in My Meal Order?
The last name when creating an account needs to be exactly what is on file with the school. This includes, “Jr” and hyphenated last names. The student ID# needs to be correct as well in the assigned school. If you have questions after double-checking this, please email warrenk@sycamoreschools.org or call the CN office at 513-686-1796.
What if I forget to order by the cut-off time? We ask that you do everything that you can to order before the cut off time. Please email our building CN Supervisor, Lisa Meadows, meadowsl@sycamoreschools.org to add on your child’s meal if you miss this cut off time.
If you notice any errors in our new system or have specific concerns, please call or email Kelsey Warren. warrenk@sycamoreschools.org OR 513-686-1796.
We appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks of this school year!
Virtual Meals
Thank you to everyone who ordered and picked up meals for the virtual curbside pickup service this past week. We served 368 students for a total of 3680 meals! Also, thank you for patiently waiting in the line at the high school, as we know the line was very long.
To avoid such long lines and traffic concerns we have decided to make each Sycamore School a pick up location EFFECTIVE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH. Please see location and times below:
Blue Ash- 10:00-11:00 am at the front entrance of the school
Maple Dale- - 1:30-2:30 pm at the front entrance of the school
Montgomery- 10:00-11:00 am at the front entrance of the school
Symmes- 10:00-11:00 am at the front entrance of the school
EH Greene Intermediate- 9:30-10:30 am at cafeteria doors
Junior High- 10:00-11:00 am in the back parking lot
High School- 11:00-12:00 am at the athletic entrance doors (has not changed)
We ask that you pick up at your student’s assigned school location. IF you have multiple students that attend different buildings, meals for all of your children will be available for pick up at the OLDEST child’s school. You do not need to visit multiple schools.
If you have not already signed up and would like to do so, please sign up here. You can also find all the virtual meal information you should need by clicking here.
NEW - Attendance Line for all students
ALL K-6 parents are asked to call 686-1707 to report a student absence each morning before school begins. The message will prompt parents to do the following: To report an absence that may be related to COVID-19 symptoms, exposure, or diagnosis, please press 1. To report an absence unrelated to COVID-19, all K-6 parents of students in the Virtual Classroom should press 2. Any K-6 parent of students in the Virtual Classroom reporting an absence after 9:00 should call the Sycamore Learning Commons at 686-1708.
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!
Happy Friday! I hope your child has had a great start to school! During media, students build, create, design, and engineer projects and challenges while engaging with high quality literature. Unfortunately, many of the materials we usually use are shared, so we can’t use them right now. I am positive that we can work creatively to preserve students’ media experience. This is where you come in! By tweaking activities to use consumable materials we can keep students doing what they love. Many of these supplies may be in your house already! They do not need to be new. If you have partial packages or just a few of something we would still LOVE to have it! Simply place it in your child’s backpack and we’ll take it from there!
Your grateful Media Specialist,
Mrs. Kolde
We are happy with ANYTHING you are willing to donate. It does NOT need to come from a list. If you are looking for examples of useful materials please CLICK HERE.
PTO
PTO Membership
On behalf of the Blue Ash Elementary PTO we welcome you to the 2020-2021 school year!
The PTO (Parent-Teacher Organization) is made up of parents, guardians, teachers and staff members, and it is open to anyone wishing to improve the school environment and student experience at Blue Ash Elementary. We are an active group which funds and supports student clubs, programs, educational assemblies, staff appreciation, winter dance, family fun night, author visits, and staff requests. Last year, the PTO gifted about $12,000 for student learning items, updating all of the classroom libraries, flexible seating for various classrooms, ESOL books and games, replacing older musical instruments, and PT, OT, and speech therapy equipment. Due to the circumstances faced by the entire district this school year, the PTO will not be organizing any formal fundraising activities during the first semester, but we will still be working hard to support all of our students, staff and families. If you would like to make a voluntary contribution at this time, you may do so after filling out the PTO membership form (click on link). We thank you in advance for your membership and your support! https://tinyurl.com/ycoxnwh4
District Information
IMPORTANT! - Free and Reduced Forms for Virtual Families and P-BET
All families that qualify for free and reduced-price meals or feel like they might qualify this year need to fill out their application ASAP. Ohio Department of Education in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services is running another round of Pandemic-EBT cards, but ONLY for families who have children learning virtually 5 days a week.
The P-EBT program provides families eligible for free or reduced-price meals with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as food stamps, in the amount of $5.86 (the federal reimbursement rate for breakfast and lunch) for each day a school has remote learning provided for the month of September. All children eligible for free and reduced-price meals are eligible for these benefits, including children who were approved through Direct Certification and children approved based on a free or reduced-price student meal application, as long as the student has remote learning periods lasting at least five consecutive days.
IF you want to be included on this list that will be sent to ODJFS early next week, you need to have your free and reduced applications for the 2020-21 school year turned in by 8:00 am on Monday morning either online OR o the Child Nutrition Office - 5959 Hagewa Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45242. We encourage whoever is able to do their application online to do so by visiting www.payschoolscentral.com. Online applications will have an automatic response. Find more information on filling out a free and reduced meal form by visiting https://www.sycamoreschools.org/Page/2292.
Seeking New Members
Are you interested in having an impact on the future of your local school district? The Sycamore Community Schools Advisory Commission is seeking at-large members. Any resident of the school district is welcome to apply.
Individuals interested in joining the Sycamore Advisory Commission should complete and return a Sycamore Advisory Commission application. New members are appointed and approved by the Board of Education on an annual basis. SAC officers are elected and approved annually each spring.
An application to become a member-at-large can also be obtained by visiting the Sycamore Board of Education Office at 5959 Hagewa Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45242, or by calling the school district at 513-686-1700.
Victoria Margroum
Blue Ash Elementary PTO President
Warrior Run!
Sycamore High School’s speak up AVES student group invites you to join our team for the annual 1N5 Warrior Run. This year’s event is a virtual “choose your own path” event that encourages participants to complete a 5K - YOUR WAY! The challenge runs from September 26 through October 10. Registration proceeds support the work of 1N5, our community partner, committed to mental health education across the state, city and our district. Sponsorship funds raised come directly back to Sycamore Schools to support mental health programming. Additionally, if Sycamore High School can win the high school challenge, they earn additional funds and opportunities to support mental health at Sycamore High School, and most of all, bragging rights! Visit our team page for more information and register or donate today!