Coming back to school after spring break always signifies the final stretch of the school year. That means that while staff and students are looking forward to summer, we still have lots of work to do. We will continue to follow the code orange response protocol as outlined in the province of Manitoba's pandemic response. In code orange we work towards maintaining a two metre distance to the best of our ability. To accomplish this we will continue with our overflow model in which small groups of students from each class learn in an alternate space with a learning support teacher or an educational assistant for the day. This model has been working well since January and while we are looking forward to the day when we no longer have Covid restrictions, we are thankful that our students get to come to school and we get to teach them in person.

Before spring break, report cards were available on the Parent Portal. Parents and teachers set up appointments to meet (virtually or telephone) to discuss student learning and progress. If you did not have the opportunity to meet with your child's teacher, I strongly encourage you to do so. Parental involvement in their child's education is an important indicator in school success. We value the relationships that we have with our families and this partnership is very important to the success of our students.

As we start to look ahead to the end of the school year and planning for next year, we will be working on welcoming our new Kindergarten students to school and saying goodbye to our grade fours who will be moving on to middle school. As soon as the details of these transitions are finalized we will communicate them with our families.

On a final note, I would like to thank our PAC and all of the families who contributed to staff appreciation week. The treats in the staffroom really did make us feel appreciated. Also, a big thank you goes out to Royal Lepage who treated all of the staff to lunch on the last day before spring break. Thank you!

Karen Fraser

I hope everyone was able to enjoy Spring Break and take time to relax. I spent as much time as I could getting outside and enjoying the fresh air. I am waiting patiently to have the pandemic behind us, but I am also noticing some positive things that hopefully can stay on past the restrictions. I have noticed an increase in people going for walks. With restrictions put on gathering sizes and places to go, many people have taken to enjoying nature. Nature has so much to offer us and it is encouraging to see so many people taking advantage of getting outside.

March seemed to go by so quickly, but I wanted to take time to give a big thank-you to Santa Lucia. They were able to meet all of the necessary steps to provide us with a fantastic pancake breakfast on the last day before Spring Break!

Tara Reimer

We expect the playground to be wet and muddy for a few weeks with the snow melting.

Parents and guardians please send extra socks and dry clothes with your child in case theirs get wet/muddy.

With warmer weather, kids are starting to ride their bikes to school. Please remind your child to place their bike in the bicycle cage that we have in our playground, as well as sending a lock with them to lock up their bikes.

A friendly reminder, if your child will be away from school or will be late or will not be returning to school after lunch please ensure you enter your child's absence in Parent Portal, call the school at 204-326-6110 before 9:00 am or email woodlawn@hsd.ca to let us know. For your convenience, you may also leave a voicemail message before 8:00 am or after 4:30 pm. If you know ahead of time that your child will be absent you can also enter that in the Parent Portal ahead of time or write a note in their agenda. When the school is not advised of an absence or late arrival, the office begins a call back procedure to parents and emergency contacts. Many of these calls can be avoided if parents let the office know of the absence.