Lucille M. Nixon School
from the principal
April 23, 2021
Dear Nixon Hybrid Families,
This newsletter is specifically for our hybrid families in order to review plans for next week. Our in-person groups of students will expand to include all of our kinder through 5th graders five days per week for the full school day. We are excited and happy for this to happen, but we need your help to manage arrival and dismissal. Please read carefully.
Nixon schedule for all students (change in time for kinders only)
8:00 am to 1:35 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
8:00 am to 1:25 pm Wednesdays.
Morning recess for 1st – 5th graders is from 10:00 am to 10:20 am. Kinder recess varies a bit from this as determined by the teacher.
Lunch and a second recess occur between 11:35 am and 12:35 pm.
School Arrival Procedures
Arrival at 8:00 am will be somewhat more congested with the larger number of students.
Please, please, please complete the online health screener before 7:30 am. We must create a list each day of the students whose health screener is not submitted. This takes time, so Mrs. Taylor begins at 7:30 in order to have lists ready when arrival begins. Many of you are very consistent with this task and we thank you. Ask yourself whether you are in this group or not. If not, please try to develop a routine that helps you to complete the screener before 7:30 am.
Students who arrive by bus will be let off in the bus circle and should check in through the Health screener station on the Stanford Ave side of the school.
Kinder, 1st and 2nd graders, along with their older siblings, not arriving by bus, should enter school through the Tolman gate. 3rd, 4th and 5th graders who do not have younger siblings should enter school from the Stanford Avenue side of school. This is the same as it has been since we opened the campus last October. We will let students in through the Tolman gate beginning five minutes earlier at 7:45 am
School Dismissal Procedures
Please bring a clearly printed sign with your child’s first and last name and classroom number. We distributed these when students first returned to campus, but you can make your own or ask your child’s teacher to give you another. Please hold up the sign if you walk up to meet your child at the Tolman gate. Please make it visible in your car window or on your dash or attach it with rubber bands to the passenger side sun visor so it can be easily read as you drive in to pick up your child.
Students who leave school by bus will board in the bus circle.
Kinder and 1st Graders, along with their older siblings, who do not take a bus, will dismiss from the Tolman gate. By reducing to only two grade levels we keep the numbers leaving on this side to fewer than 80 students.
Students who walk towards Peter Coutts, University Terrace, and the nearby neighborhood will dismiss from the Tolman Gate. Similarly, students who walk or ride a bike towards Stanford Ave or Mears Court will dismiss from the Stanford Ave. side of campus. We have asked all parents whose children walk or ride a bike by themselves or in a group to please notify us in an email. Most of you have done this. If you have not, and your child will be leaving school alone or in a group of students, please let us know this.
2nd Graders who do not have younger siblings and who do not walk or ride home (as described above) and do not ride a bus, will now dismiss from the Stanford Avenue side of school. We are asking 2nd grade families to be the most flexible in this new plan and we are grateful for your support. (Arriving in the morning on the Tolman side of campus assures us that a parent is with the student to complete the Health Screener if this was not completed by 7:30 am. I feel it is too much to ask a 2nd grader to fill out the Health Screener on his/her own. This is what we often need to do with 3rd-5th graders whose families have forgotten on the Stanford Ave. drop-off zone.) We expect that it will be too crowded at the Tolman gate to dismiss three grade levels, so
3rd, 4th and 5th graders who do not have younger siblings in kinder or 1st grade, and are not leaving on their own will wait to be picked up in the drive-through on the Stanford Ave. side of school. This is exactly the same as they have been doing since we re-opened in October. Now, however, there will be many more students.
It was suggested that we have different dismissal times for each grade level. This would require different arrival times so the total instructional minutes were met. In non-Covid times the instructional minutes are different for kindergarten, primary and upper grades. But for this year the instructional minute requirements are different for kindergarten, but not the other grade levels. If needed, we can adjust the dismissal time for kindergarten. I am trying to avoid that because I know that many families have children in different grade levels and having a single pick-up time is helpful.
Thank you for following these procedures. We want to be as efficient as possible to save time for everyone. What a year of changes and adjustments it has been! We have never been more flexible, have we? As always, I sincerely appreciate the incredible level of support that we enjoy from you, our community.
Take care,
Mary Pat
Lucille M. Nixon School
Email: moconnell@pausd.org
Website: lmnixon.org
Location: 1711 Stanford Avenue, Stanford, CA, USA
Phone: 650-856-1622