You might have noticed that we did not have a newsletter last week, we were busy preparing for all of our middle school and high school students to start back full time next week and wanted to make sure we had all of the details of any and all changes ready for our families in a format that is not overwhelming or confusing. And with us housing multiple programs in our building and all grade levels, it is complicated and quite the puzzle!

We hope that the information below is clear and concise, and we also want to encourage you to reach out to your student's teacher with any questions. Please remember that we are here to support you. Our office number is 541-923-4868 and if you leave a message, we will get back to you as soon as we can. You can also email you classroom teacher, or you can email me directly at karen.mitchell@redmondschools.org.

Also, as you know the cases of COVID in Deschutes County have risen dramatically over the past few weeks. We continue to be extremely grateful that our families and students for continuing to ensure that students stay home if they are sick or if they have been around someone that has been sick. We are excited that all students are now able to return to school every day, and it is only through this continued partnership that we are able to do what we do. Please continue to encourage your child to properly wear their mask. As an additional reminder, we have many mask options available at StepUP for students if they need to try something different. Please also encourage your student to socially distance and wash their hands when they are out in the community. Our continued vigilance will allow our students to stay in school full time.

Thank you for all you to do support our students and our school, we could not do what we do without you!

Karen Mitchell

Principal

StepUP

We are lifting up families, educators and students of color as we all continue to witness fatal police shootings—this time in Minneapolis, Chicago and Honolulu—and as video circulates of police violence against a Black and Latinx man in Virginia. Please take time to care for yourself as best you can.

We've had an amazing week in the 7up Classroom full of celebrations. On Tuesday we made a delicious quiche in our cooking class. On Wednesday, the whole teacher team had the opportunity to go support our 8th graders at their high school forecasting event. It was so great to see them interacting with their classmates from their home campus, and to see them get excited about the classes they'll be able to take in high school. Our students have grown so much this year, and we are excited to watch our 8th graders move forward into high school. We also said goodbye to some of our students, who have met their goals and no longer need our support. We will always be here if our exited students want to check in, and we will miss them in our classroom. We are also very happy that they can have a full schedule over at their home campuses starting next week!.