Lucille M. Nixon School
from the principal
October 8, 2020
Dear Nixon Families,
The final push is underway to get kindergartners and first graders whose families have chosen the hybrid option into classrooms for part of each week. I have received a number of emails and messages from families of 2nd and 3rd graders who are struggling with the decision of whether to choose the hybrid option or continue distance learning for their children. Most often, the request is for advice about how to ensure that the child will remain with their present teacher or at least be able to continue at Nixon. My advice is to choose the option which best fits your family’s needs. I can’t guarantee that your child will stay with their present teacher, nor can I guarantee that all students will remain within Nixon. As I explained in last week’s newsletter, Superintendent Austin made clear to all elementary principals that the priority of keeping students within their home schools was to guide us in our work to place students in the distance and hybrid formats. I am hopeful, but not certain that we will be able to accomplish this for our 2nd through 5th graders. Our grade level teams at Nixon have been working closely together since school began, so the flow of your child’s learning will not be interrupted, even if they have to change their teacher. We will continue this practice of strong collaboration within the grade level teams.
As we have prepared for the arrival of kindergartners and first graders, we have made plans for arriving at school , distancing within classrooms, playing within cohorts at recess, eating lunch while remaining distanced, handwashing and sanitizing. We will be trying all these plans over the next two weeks and making an needed adjustments before the next set of students (2nd and 3rd graders) return to classrooms.
Meeting for Parents of Kindergartners and First Graders
Parents of kinders and 1st graders received an email from me letting them know of a parent meeting this evening, Thursday, October 8 at 6:00 pm to share information and answer questions about our transition beginning on October 12.
Zoom link for Parent Meeting: https://pausd.zoom.us/j/97972411976
Daily Health Screening: Welcome to ParentSquare!
In accordance with recommendations from Santa Clara County Health Dept., parents will complete a daily health screener for each child on each day that they attend school in person. The daily health screening process for students returning to campus will be completed in a system called ParentSquare. Parents can access the daily screener by logging into the ID Portal (https://id.pausd.org) and clicking on the ParentSquare icon. Detailed instructions will be pushed out at the end of this week for students returning to campuses on Monday.
In case you have forgotten how to access your parent login for the PAUSD portal, directions can be found here: https://www.pausd.org/school-life/educational-technology/parent-account-claim You will need to access this portal each morning, click on the ParentSquare logo and complete the screener for your child. Please plan for a few extra minutes in your morning schedule to complete this. If you forget to do this, we will be required to ask your child the screening questions and these may be confusing for very young children.
Lunch for Hybrid Students
Under a new federal program, PAUSD is able to offer a lunch, free of charge, to all students through December 31. The lunch will be prepackaged, contain a vegetarian entree, and white milk. There will be no need to order ahead of time, but parents can view the lunch offerings for the month on the district website to help you decide if you want to send a lunch with your child or have him/her take one of the school lunches. You can also find a link to the district lunch menu on our Nixon website - lmnixon.org under "School Life."
Need for Noon Supervisors
We are in need of more adults to supervise at lunch than we have needed in previous years, but we cannot accept volunteers on school campus (Santa Clara County Health Dept. guidelines). I am hoping to find four adults willing to be hired by the school district to serve as noon supervisors for first through 5th grades between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm. Parents who might be willing to help with this could work at school only on the days of the week that their child(ren) is(are) attending in person. Please email me if you might be interested. If you know of a young adult, perhaps a college student, who could work for an hour during lunch time, please encourage that person to email me -moconnell@pausd.org.
It is going to be a big step to welcome some of our kindergartners and first graders back to school next week. We have been working long hours in preparation, and hope to open as smoothly as possible. The precautions that will be in place to keep everyone safe will make school feel quite different from the way we functioned last March. We need your patience and good will as we do our very best to make this work. The situation is evolving and we are thinking of the academic and social needs of all of our students. Thanks for your words of encouragement and appreciation to our teachers and staff. We will continue to think about how to improve.
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