Gator Gazette
Volume 4: October 9, 2020
Principal's Update
We have shifted our focus to our Return to School Plan for our GFE children enrolled in the On-Campus Continuum option. This week, we begin to bring back our 4th and 5th graders through a hybrid model. This model was selected to help ensure that we can implement our Health Mitigation Plan with fidelity to help keep our children and staff healthy.
As we transition children back to campus, we need to remind our families of our Health Mitigation Plan and ask for your help and support. Below are a few of the strategies that are included in our plans to keep our Gators healthy and safe:
- Completing a Daily Health Screening form for each child in ParentVue is required.
- All staff and students must wear face masks when physical distancing can not be maintained including when riding the bus.
- Increasing the space between students to a minimum of 3 feet apart
- Enhancing facility cleaning. High-touch surfaces will be cleaned throughout the day.
- Integrating a robust schedule for hand hygiene.
- Keeping children with his/her class for the entire school day to minimize mixing student groups.
- Limiting sharing of supplies to the greatest extent possible. This will require that each student is responsible for providing all of his/her own school supplies.
- Eating lunch with classmates. Lastly, it appears that it will be necessary for at least a portion of each class to eat lunch in the classroom. This may mean that some foods such as nut products may not be allowed in classrooms if there are allergy concerns.
It is critical that our entire school family does their part to help us maintain a safe, healthy school that stays open for learning. Please note that the division's policy requires children to be placed in Chesapeake Online classes if they repeatedly refuse to wear a mask (unless approved for a mask exception). It is imperative that we all make sure we are following the protocol, including keeping children at home if they have two or more symptoms associated with COVID-19.
5 Things to Check to Ensure that You Receive the Daily Digital Health Screening
1. Make sure you can login to ParentVue. If you have never activated your ParentVue account, you can call your child's school to get a new activation code. If you have forgotten your password, there is a link on the ParentVue website that says "I forgot my password" so you can reset it.
2. After you login to ParentVue, you need to make sure you have read and accepted the "Student Code of Conduct" for this school year. The Daily Health Screening will not appear until you have done that step. This step is very important to do before your child returns to school.
3. You will not be able to see the Daily Health Screening until the morning of your student's return to school. The screening must be completed every morning before your child comes to school. This cannot be done the night before as the screening only appears once for each school day. Only 1 parent (or older student) needs to do this each day.
4. For the blended instruction schedule, you will need to do the health screening every school day - not only on the days your child is coming to school. That way we can monitor your child's status daily as they are coming and going into the school building.
5. You can do the health screening on a computer or the ParentVue mobile app. Just make sure your app has been updated to the latest version.
**For our Spanish-speaking families, if you select Spanish as the language on the ParentVue login page, you will get the health screening in Spanish!
Thank you for your assistance to ensure that every student is healthy before coming into our schools!
Medications
On October 13, 2020, Chesapeake Public Schools will continue phasing-In (In Person) learning for students in 4th and 5th grades through the Hybrid model on the On-Campus Continuum. We are excited to welcome our students back on campus. Please use the Sign Up Genius link below or call to set an appointment to bring any medications (with doctor’s prescription order) to the nurse that your child may require during the school day. We want to ensure all medications are received in a timely fashion and in a safe manner.
We appreciate your support and cooperation,
Nurse Ami
Transportation Needs
As a result of our request for parents to provide transportation if at all possible, we are anticipating a significantly higher volume of cars for both morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up. To help reduce the impact on traffic, we are asking families with last names from A - L to drop off in the morning between 7:15 and 7:25 and pick up from 2:04 and 2:15. Families with last names from M-Z are requested to drop off between 7:25 - 7:35 and pick up from 2:15 - 2:30 if at all possible.
Lastly, all families who are picking up their children on a regular basis must register for our Parent Parade. https://forms.gle/8BPvPXZ5Wcw8nVGU6
Please note families only need to register for Parent Parade one time as all children in a family are included in one survey. Any families who's youngest children are in 4th and 5th grade should pick up the Parent Parade cards from the School Office on Monday between 7:30AM and 3:15PM.
We ask for everyone's patience and understanding as we anticipate this process taking considerably longer than previously as children will be coming directly from the classrooms to minimize mixing of children.
GFE Bus Routes
Meal Distributions
As you may recall, Chesapeake Public Schools was notified that children will be able to eat for free through the end of December. Families that may be eligible for meal benefits are asked to be go ahead and complete the application for meal benefits to assist with other needs - https://cpschools.com/school-nutrition-services/free-and-reduced-meal-application/
School breakfast and lunch will be served daily, at no cost to children who have transitioned back to campus through a traditional schedule.
COVIDWISE App
COVIDWISE is a platform for VDH to easily and effectively notify people who have tested covid positive that may be around you anonymously.
How? Well once you add the covid wise app on your phone, you can then select if you are covid positive based on your results and it only uses your phones location (not your name or the name of your phone) just like a little dot (which is your phone location) and when it’s near another covid wise app user (if you have the notifications turned on) notifies you that you have just been in close proximity of a positive covid person and should begin quarantine and call the department of health.
It’s completely unaware of who you are and you don’t have to put in any personal information.
Nurse Ami added it to help save lives and so can you.
Don't Forget to Join the PTA Today!
Grassfield Elementary
Email: gfegators@cpschools.com
Website: www.cpschools.com/gfe
Location: 2248 Averill Drive, Chesapeake, VA, USA
Phone: (757)558-8923
Facebook: facebook.com/GrassfieldElementary
Twitter: @GFE_Gators