It's been a wonderful first week back to school. Repeatedly, our staff expressed their joy of how good it felt to have the children back in this school-family space. I'm sure many members of Team Meadow might fall asleep on the couch as they celebrate a week of connection with your children. What a blessing!

• Our remote learners successfully completed their first week of remote learning. Staff and students are growing in their skills and capacities to navigate this virtual world of school.
• I am so incredibly proud of our BME students as they repeatedly showed that they can handle our current constraints and precautions with grace. As students acclimated to the environment and expectations, the students reported that they forgot they were even wearing their masks. Reminders were few and far between.
• Thank you to families for completing the daily screeners for your child(ren). We had some confusions earlier in the week, but we made significant gains with these daily screens being completed on time. We had to make a lot of calls early in the week, but only had a couple of families needing reminders by end of week. A huge success!
• Our dismissal procedures were refined throughout the week and we continued to shave time off the process. Today, we had all buses and cars off campus by 2:45. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.
• Thank you to our generous PTO for providing some snacks & refreshments for staff this week. In addition, they treated us to lunch on Thursday! Thank you for thinking of us, and showing your tremendous support.

We look forward to everyone joining us for our Virtual Curriculum Night this coming Thursday evening. A brief overview is included below, and your child's teacher will be sending more information next week.

Enjoy your weekend!

Tom Hundley, Principal

Before your child enters the school building, you will need to complete this daily screener. This will need to be completed EVERY MORNING. The QR code and the hotlink below provides direct access.

On Monday, your child brought home copies of the QR code for you to easily access at home.

• We placed the QR code on their transportation tag. You can scan that tag each morning.
• Strategically place the QR code someplace visible at your home and make it part of your morning routine. (We sent home multiple hard copies on Monday)
• You may also want to bookmark the screener on your computer or phone.
• Copy and past the screener link into your phone calendar.

The Eagle Start Guide is located on the ZCS website at www.zcs.k12.in.us. The landing page link will update as plan changes are made. Changes related to this message will be reflected in the online guide by the end of this week. Changes will be captured separately on a tab called Plan Updates so you can easily see what has changed. We have also added an FAQ tab. Questions and answers will be updated as new questions arise.

We (our BME school community) welcomes you to the 2020-2021 school year! In July, the ZCS’s Eagle Start guide was emailed to all families by Dr. Robison, but we wanted to share how day to day will look for your Boone Meadow student.

While many things will look a little different, our commitment to providing students with a safe learning environment where they develop strong relationships and grow in all ways remains constant.

Will children and teachers be required to wear masks? Yes. Masks are required to be worn by anyone in the building throughout the day. Children will not wear masks during lunch, and may have opportunities for relaxation while outdoors and during some times when directed by the teacher. Boone Meadow has purchased lanyards with clips for all students and staff to keep mask accessible when not being worn. Extra masks will be available in the office if forgotten, broken, etc.

What is the daily screener requirement? Parents will complete a daily screener each morning before bringing the child to school. Please make this part of your routine. You can place the sheet with the link and the QR code somewhere regularly seen (bathroom mirror, garage door). Please answer questions about symptoms, fever, and exposure honestly. Please keep all children home if ill or exposed.

What social distancing measures will be encouraged at Boone Meadow? Some of the more visible changes to the building will be the set-up of classrooms. Student work spaces will be as far apart as possible and extra classroom furniture has been removed. Visuals will be placed around the building to provide students with reminders.

What enhanced cleaning techniques/products will be utilized? High touch areas and surfaces will be sanitized throughout the day. Shared materials will be infrequent and any items that may be used by more than one student (for example, chromebook or math manipulative) will be sanitized between uses. Our custodial staff will be sanitizing all learning spaces, common areas, and playground equipment on a daily basis.

Classroom Cohorts – What are those? The vast majority of the day, students will be with their classroom teacher and peers in the classroom. When in other settings, students will be interacting with their classroom peers (recess, lunch). This is part of our mitigation strategy to limit exposures to others.

How often will students wash their hands? Students will be encouraged to take frequent hygiene breaks (hand washing and/or sanitizer) throughout the school day. Suggested times include, but are not limited to:

• After arrival
• Before and after lunch
• Before and after transitions
• After restroom breaks
• After recess
• Before dismissal

Can I visit my children in their class? May I visit during my child’s lunch? At this time, ZCS has temporarily suspended nonessential visitors to our campuses. Unfortunately, this will require us to temporarily suspend the typical operation of many of our PTO events. We are so grateful for the creativity of these groups who are working to come up with alternative ways to provide fun, community building events for our families. Volunteer opportunities will be limited, but some clerical volunteer jobs may be available and will be coordinated through classroom teachers. If there is a need, the teacher will make that announcement to their families. Anyone who works in the school building will be required to have a background check on file.

What about field trips? At this time, ZCS has temporarily suspended field trips. We do encourage virtual trips, virtual guest speakers, and the use of VR (Virtual Reality)

Will we still have related arts classes? In order to minimize shared spaces and transition, all of our special teachers (Music, Art, Media, STEM, and Wellness) will be visiting the classroom during their scheduled time. We are encouraging outdoor time, and we will have designated spaces outside for related arts classes, so dress appropriately for the weather.

What will lunch be like? All Kindy and approximately half of 1st-4th students/classes will eat in their classrooms with a support staff member each day. Our cafeteria will be operating at a 50-65% capacity and there will be two or three classes from each grade level (1-4) that will be assigned a seat and will eat in the cafeteria each day. The remaining classes will eat in their classroom. We will rotate between classroom and cafeteria quarterly.

Will recess still be allowed? We are fortunate to have a campus with ample outdoor space and we will encourage outdoor time. During scheduled recess time a reduced number of sections will be outside and each class will have a designated play zone (fields, blacktop/basketball, equipment).

How will you handle the increased car ridership? We have strict guidelines to keep people, cars, and buses separate. The car rider line (drop off and pick up) will look very similar and we do anticipate longer times. We will increase the “drop off zone” on the front sidewalk. We will expect that children are ready to exit their cars when they reach the curb. Please see "arrival/dismissal procedures" information below.

We thank you for your support and cooperation as we embark on the year together. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.

August 20- Curriculum Night (Teachers will host digitally this year via ZOOM - more information to come)

• 5:30-6:00 - Kindergarten
• 6:00-6:30 - First Grade
• 6:30-7:00 - Second Grade
• 7:00-7:30 - Third Grade
• 7:30-8:00 - Fourth Grade

August 31 - PTO Meeting - Bring your own lawn chair - Weather permitting, we will meet in the front/north lawn under the trees. We will be physically distanced.

September 7 - Labor Day (no school)

September 9 - Dine for Dollars - Smoothie King (Order from Smoothie King between 4-8PM & BME PTO receives a percentage of your check)

September 23 - Dine for Dollars - Panera Bread (4-8PM)

October 12-16 - Fall Break

November 2 - Student Conferences

November 25-27- Thanksgiving Break

December 21 - January 1 - Winter Break

January 18 - MLK Jr. Day (no school)

January 19 - No School

February 15 - Presidents Day - No School

April 2 - April 9 - Spring Break

May 26 - Last day of school

May 27 - Teacher work day

May 31 - Memorial Day