Symmes Elementary School
Newsletter
October 30, 2020
Mark your Calendar!
- November 5 from 7:00 pm- 8:00 pm: MAP Information Online Seminar
- November 6: End of First Quarter
- November 9: NO SCHOOL- Teacher Work Day
- November 11 at 10:00 am: Symmes Ambassadors Online Gathering
- November 17: Picture Retake Day
- November 19: Evening Parent Teacher Conferences
- November 20: NO SCHOOL- Parent/Teacher Conferences
- November 25, 26, and 27: NO SCHOOL- Thanksgiving Break
School Pictures
Picture retakes will be on November 17 during the school day for face to face students and after school until 5:00 pm for virtual classroom students.
Symmes Construction Update
We are excited to announce that construction is beginning on the renovation plans for Symmes Elementary! The first phase of construction is slated to begin in November/December.
On October 14, two large tractor trailers were placed on our property in preparation for work to begin. In the coming weeks, our extra furniture and materials will be loaded onto these tractor trailers for short-term storage on the soccer fields.
Our front fields will be fenced off and utilized for construction equipment and parking for construction crews. In order to minimize the impact to arrival and dismissal, construction traffic will be restricted to a new access road on the east side of the fields. This access road will cause the front parking lot to be slightly modified.
How this will impact you:
We do not anticipate any major impact to our school day or to arrival and dismissal time. However, the modification to the front parking lot will slightly shorten our driveway where pickup and drop off occur and could cause short delays. As stated above, our fields will also be inaccessible.
We thank you for your patience and invite you to join in our excitement as we start our work!
Parent/Teacher Conferences
ALL conferences will be held virtually, for both Virtual Classroom and Face-to Face students. Parents will receive details via email from your child's teacher about scheduling their conferences on Monday, November 2. Dates are as follows:
Nov. 19 (Thursday) Evening Conferences (K-6)
Nov. 20 (Friday) Daytime conferences (No School-K-8 only)
Nov. 23 (Monday) Evening Conferences (K-4 and 7-8)
Reporting Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Incidence
In an ongoing effort to provide a safe learning environment, Sycamore is requesting parents, students, and staff to inform administration (or whoever) of any perceived incidences of harassment, intimidation, or bullying.
Per the Sycamore Board of Education policy JFCF, harassment, intimidation, and bullying are defined as any provoked and intentional written, verbal, electronic or physical act that a student has exhibited toward another particular student more than once and the behavior both:
causes mental or physical harm to the other student; and
is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for the other student.
To view the complete policy, visit www.sycamoreschools.org, under the Board of Education tab, scroll down to “Policies”, search for policy “JFCF” and “JFCG-P”.
Sycamore will do everything possible to address any complaints of harassment, intimidation, and bullying. We encourage students, staff, parents, and community members to report this type of behavior to the district if help is needed to solve a problem.
To report an incident of harassment, intimidation, and bullying,
Go to the district’s website, www.sycamoreschools.org or on the individual school’s website under “Bullying Prevention” to find the form.
Fill the form on-line and submit it electronically.
Hard copies of this form are available in each of the schools.
Complete the hard copy of the report form and turn it into the building principal.
The building principal or designee will promptly investigate all reported incidents.
It is difficult to investigate reported incidences that are anonymously submitted. However, every effort will be made to maintain the confidentiality of the reporter. Deliberate false reporting of harassment, intimidation, and bullying is prohibited.
For your information:
Vision and Hearing screenings will start October 28th
We are screening face to face students individually in the nursing clinic this year so we will screen a few each day. Please make sure your child is wearing their glasses daily if they have them! The Ohio Department of Health mandates screenings for all Kindergarten, 1st, 3rd and new students in 2nd and 4th grade. If your child fails a screening we will call you and send referral paperwork in the backpack for further evaluation. If you do not hear from us then your child passed the vision and hearing screenings. We hope to have most screenings completed before Thanksgiving but have until the end of January to complete. Please let Julie Ferron RN or Alex McManus RN know if you have any questions!
Welcome, Callan (Cal) Roberts, ESOL Teacher!
Cal will be joining the Symmes ESOL team every afternoon starting, Monday, November 2nd. Cal currently teaches ESOL at Montgomery Elementary and he will continue to be at Montgomery each morning. Before Montgomery, he taught Social Studies at E.H. Greene Intermediate. Please welcome Cal to Symmes!
LOST and Found
We are accumulating a number of lost and found items. As a reminder, please clearly label all belongings with your child’s last name. To minimize risks due to COVID-19 while attempting to reunite items with their owners, we are going to follow the following process.
Every Friday in our building newsletter we will include a picture of current lost and found items.
If you see an item that belongs to your child, please remind them to claim that item in the cafeteria during their lunch. They can notify any staff member in the cafeteria that they need to claim their item.
If your child forgets, you can email their teacher to ask for help reminding the student.
Your child will have1 week to claim the item.
After 1 week, all items accumulated in the Lost and Found will be removed from the building.
Here are this weeks' lost and found items:
Virtual Picnic
Here are the dates for upcoming lunches:
November 3 from 11:35 am -12:05 pm
November 5 from 12:00 pm -12:30 pm
*Please only have your child attend their grade level meet so we can more easily manage our numbers.
This is optional for students, and is an additional time for us to stay connected.
We know that there will be some months that we will not be able to get together, but we look forward to seeing you all as often as possible!
Virtual Meal Curbside Pick Up
The pick-up location for all families for virtual meals is no longer at the High School. You instead will pick up at your student’s assigned school location. IF you have multiple students that attend different buildings, meals for all of your children will be available for pick up at the OLDEST child’s school. You do not need to visit multiple schools.
Pickup time for Symmes will be Wednesdays from 10:00 am to 11:00 am.
If you have not already signed up and would like to do so, please sign up here. Please note, the cutoff each week to sign up is Sunday at Midnight.
TECHNOLOGY HELP FOR VIRTUAL CLASSROOM STUDENTS
Need help?
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Click here to be connected with Symmes Ambassadors:
https://www.sycamoreschools.org/domain/909
Click here if you want to help other families: