Welcome Back!
From Mr. Nichols
Wow – the summer went really fast! I hope you and your family had time to get away and relax. But despite the kids’ best efforts, the first day back to school is almost here. I thought I’d take this time to help refresh your memory on a few things that will make the school year start off smoothly.
- University will be changing to a three-lane road (one lane each direction and a turn lane in the middle) with buffers on the sides.
- Our west parking lot was drastically affected and now traffic will flow the opposite direction.
- Traffic will need to line up going south on 59th Street, west on Dagle, then enter the parking lot.
- Traffic will exit on to University.
- Please try not to use Cummins Parkway, then east on Dagle. That will cause a possible backlog for the entire street and at the parking lot’s point of entry.
- Parents who wish to use St. Theresa’s parking lot may still do so. (A special thank you to St. Theresa’s!) Students will cross over University at the stoplight that has now been installed in front of the building. A crossing guard will be posted by the City of Des Moines during drop-off and pick-up times.
- I’m not sure if 59th Street will be able to be used as a drop-off/pick-up area anymore. It really will depend on how many cars line up around the building. It might work better to just assume that it’s not available as an option right now until everyone becomes more familiar with the new patterns.
- The doors will open at 7:15 if your student arrives between 7:15 and 7:30, they will go to the gym.
- Students in the gym, and any students arriving between 7:30 and 7:45 will go directly to their classrooms. They will have the opportunity to pass through the star area and take a free breakfast if they wish.
- The tardy bell will ring at 7:45. All students arriving after that time will need to enter through the office.
- Any parents wishing to enter the building must check in at the office to get a visitor’s pass.
- School will dismiss at 2:40 every day – no more early out Wednesdays.
We had a couple of staffing changes over the summer, so here is the updated list.
- Kindergarten – Ms. Byriel, Ms. Edwards, Ms. Kair
- 1st grade – Ms. Cowman, Ms. Tran (formerly Ms. Gero), Ms. Olson
- 2nd grade – Ms. Hoffman, Ms. Mitchell, Ms. Smith
- 3rd grade – Ms. Leahy, Ms. Roth
- 4th grade – Ms. Bolte, Ms. Rodriguez
- 5th grade – Ms. Merical, Ms. Nichol, Ms. Zimmerman
- Art – Ms. Warren
- Music – Mr. Harmsen
- PE – Ms. Dyer
- Guidance – Ms. Doeden
- Special Education – Ms. Dorrell, Ms Heddinger, Ms. Powers
- ELL – Ms. Metelman
- Interventionist – Ms. Gostomski
- Instructional Coaches – Mr. Ballard, Ms. Bowen
- Library – Ms. Fatino
Windsor is a Community Eligible building again this year, which means that all students will receive free breakfast and lunch.
We will once more be participating in Breakfast in the Classroom. When students enter the building, they will have the opportunity to take a breakfast sack with them to the classroom. The breakfast menu is available at https://dmschools.nutrislice.com/menu/windsor They may choose not to take one and go directly to the classroom, but many families find it to be a convenient option.
If your student will be late, absent, or leave early, please call the office by 8:15 at 515-242-8440. If we do not hear from you, we will call to try to determine where the student is. If you are arriving late or leaving early, there is a clipboard on our front desk to sign and we will call for your son or daughter to come to the office.
Please have your doctor and dentist offices print a school excuse if your students visits them during school hours. By bringing those to school, you can help alleviate any difficulties that could occur regarding the DMPS attendance policy. If your student has issues with repeated violations of the attendance policy, we will contact you via phone and then letter. Continued violations can result in mediation and possible referral to truancy court. https://www.dmschools.org/departments/office-of-schools/school-services/learning-services/attendance-and-attendance-officers/
If your student is going to be going home by a different route than normal (i.e. getting picked up by an aunt, going to a friend’s house, etc…), you need to contact the office or the teacher and let us know. If we do not hear from the parent/guardian we will send them home via their normal routine. WE DO NOT TAKE THE WORD OF THE STUDENTS, no matter how trustworthy they are.
At Windsor, we take the safety of our students very seriously. If you are coming to Windsor, you must enter through the office by coming through the right-most door on the north side of the building. That will let you into the building. But to enter, you will need to ring the doorbell by pushing the white keypad that is to the right of the office door. That will ring a doorbell and Ms. Casey or I will let you in.
- Once you are in, you will be required to provide us with a driver’s license that we will process through our identification system that checks the abuse registries. If there is no issues with the background check, a nametag will be printed for you to wear while you are in the building. When you are ready to leave, simple check out of the building by scanning the barcode on your nametag in the scanner at the front desk.
- If you are a parent, you will only need to have your license ‘dipped’ yearly. You will be given a code that you can type directly into the system and print your own tags. Non-parent visitors need to go through the process every time.
During the course of the year, we will be participating in different types of safety drills – tornado, fire, and lockdown. We do these to try to make responses (both student and staff) automatic and thereby ensuring student safety. We let the students know the first few times as we teach them the proper way to respond to each scenario, but we eventually wean them from that and the become more of a ‘surprise’. We won’t publicize when we are doing them, but don’t be stunned if your student comes home and talks about them.
If school would be canceled for any reason, most people hear it on the news or the radio. However, DMPS has a great app for your smartphone that will send out notifications for weather events. It also has many other great features such as lunch menus, event schedules, and so on. https://www.dmschools.org/news-and-information/mobile-app/
Again, I would like to thank everyone for supporting Windsor and helping keep all of our students safe and excited for their learning. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at robert.nichols@dmschools.org or call 515-242-8440.
Thanks!
Mr. Nichols
Principal Nichols
Email: robert.nichols@dmschools.org
Location: 5912 University Ave, Des Moines, IA, USA
Phone: 515-242-8440