Happy Friday!

Thank you to everyone that completed our Winter Family survey. The data, discussed in this newsletter, is essential for us to tweak our processes to ensure we are providing a safe, positive and enriching environment for all students.

Please keep up on your emails and social media if possible as these are the first methods of communication with parents.

Stay safe and healthy and enjoy the weekend!

Lani Rounds

Principal

We are tracking ALL COVID positive cases and at-home exposures as reported to us by parents, staff and the health department.. These are the numbers of reported COVID positive staff and students over the past 7 days. PLEASE remember the mask status may change based on information received from staff, parents and the health department over the weekend. As of this newsletter there are no classes that need to wear masks next week.

COVID + Students = 5

COVID + Staff = 0

At present, no grade levels are required to wear a mask next week because of COVID exposure.

We received new information regarding COVID protocols and will be addressing this with the Board at our Tuesday Board meeting. Once the Board has reviewed the new protocols we will update the website and send information to parents.

You can find more information about BASE on our website at:

https://www.bridgecharter.org/b-a-s-e

We host only ONE formal PTC each year. However, three times a year your child's teacher (grades 1-6) invite you to attend the student's Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) meeting. Also, each and every teacher is open to meeting with you as needed, simply send them an email requesting a meeting and the reason for the meeting.

The USBE Prevention Team is pleased to announce the first in a series of Webinars for Parents to support Programs for Youth Protection: Parent Seminars. For our first webinar, we will be addressing the topic of Internet Safety.

Fearless Digital Parenting

Guest Speaker: Carrie Rogers-Whitehead, Founder of Digital Respons-Ability

Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Time: 6:00 PM- 7:00 PM

Registration: To register, and/or to have a recording emailed to you after February 22, please register at https://usbe.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ebQEeRRAjCUnNY2

Parents should be invited at LEAST four times each school year to meet with their child's advisor and the student to review the PLP. One of these meetings is during Parent Teacher Conferences in March. If this is NOT happening please reach out to your child's teacher to schedule a time to meet regarding the PLP. During these meetings you will see the goals, progress and learn how to read and navigate the PLP.

Research suggests that student's knowing where they are academically, having a plan to reach their goal, and being able to articulate their goal has one of the HIGHEST effects on student achievement.

As always, the parking lot gets a lot of feedback. Specifically, people want us to build another parking lot in the field to the south, open the gate that aligns 3500 W and allow left turns out of the parking lot onto Midland Drive. While those are ALL great suggestions, unfortunately, there are several reasons why we cannot implement these suggestions.

Field to South for Parking - this field cost several millions of dollars to purchase and is owned by a developer hoping to build homes there. Bridge cannot buy this property because we do not have the funds and it is currently not for sale.

Open Gates on 3500 W - this is a state owned road. UDOT has plans to expand 3500 W to four lanes in the future. For this reason they did not allow the school to add curb, gutter or a driveway on the east side of the school. We are not allowed to use this gate except for emergency vehicles until the road is widened and curb, gutter and a driveway are added. The current plan shows this occurring in 2028. Once the infrastructure is in place we can evaluate how best to utilize those gates.

Turn Left out of Parking Lot - at present, with Midland Drive closed for construction, we are able to exit the parking lot turning left since there is very limited traffic heading north on the road. Once the road is opened the NO LEFT TURN sign will return. Because of the numbers of cars traveling on Midland Drive there is no safe way, during high traffic times (such as morning and afternoon) to turn left from the parking lot.

Other comments regarding "Need to Improve" include (these are areas with multiple similar parent comments):

Be More Selective with Accepting Students - several individuals commented that we need to be MORE selective on the "kind" of students we accept. Charter schools are PUBLIC schools and we do NOT get to select the students that attend. We use a lottery but that is only because we have more students that want to attend than we have spots for in the school. Just like your neighborhood school we do not get to hand pick the kids that attend Bridge and we are required to provide a free and appropriate education for all of our students regardless of their abilities, disabilities, and/or behavioral needs.

End School Before Memorial Day - last school year and earlier this school year all parents were sent a survey regarding the school calendar. We use this information to create a calendar that appeals to the majority. The majority of our parents indicated they wanted LONGER breaks and for school to end the first week of June. The calendar for 2022-2023 is on our website.

BASE Needs to Go Later than 4:30 - Bridge does not receive any additional funding to provide our after-school program. The cost to provide our after-school program, with staffing and resources (does not include the cost of dinner) is about $50,000 year. This program is much like after-school clubs that other schools provide EXCEPT ours is free and is available for all students. Approximately 67% of ur families rely on our BASE program so we plan to continue this program as long as there is a high need. Unfortunately, we currently do not have any plans to extend the BASE program beyond 4:30 pm.

Increased Lunch and Recess Monitors - Bridge provides two recess supervisors and two classroom para educators during each recess. Our protocol is the staff to student ratio during recess is a maximum of 1:30. This far exceeds the level of supervision at any school I have had experience with. During lunch, students have two para-educators to assist them as well as 3 - 5 lunchroom monitors who assist with clean up.

Improved Progress Reports - This year we added a progress report which we send home three times each year. Reporting on student progress was an area of need identified from last year's survey. The reports are sent home after the beginning (BOY), middle (MOY) and end (EOY) testing is completed. The data on the report is timely, for example, students complete the MOY testing at the beginning of January and the report is sent home the third Friday of January. Feedback from parents has indicated there has been GREAT improvement regarding reporting student progress but we will absolutely revisit the progress report system and improve this for the upcoming school year.

Eating Outside - when it warms up again we will have our tent back up so kids can eat outside. Nearly every student reports they LOVE eating outside and we love that we are able to provide them that option. Once outdoor eating begins we will have a couple of tables available inside for the few students who prefer not to eat outside in the tent. We actually had this as an option at the beginning of the school year but the students did not take utilize the indoor tables when the outdoor option was available, but we will once again offer indoor seating as a option during a grade level's outdoor eating days.

Order your yearbooks today! Yearbooks will NOT be sold at the school. They will be delivered to the school and handed to students on the last day of school. The deadline to order is fast approaching.

Bridge Elementary

Prepay Code: BridgeYB22

To order yearbooks online, CLICK HERE

You can also find this information on our website under EVENTS > SCHOOL EVENTS at:

https://www.bridgecharter.org/school-events

All siblings of current Bridge student who were enrolled in the lottery have been sent an email regarding the registration process for next school year. If you did NOT receive an email and believe your child should have been offered a spot, please contact the office ASAP. You can call (801)499-5180 or email Lwilliams@BridgeCharter.org

Our lottery for non-siblings will run on February 22. We anticipate that the next lottery will fill all currently open spots. At present we have the following spots available for the February 22 lottery:

Kindergarten = 36

1st Grade = 3

2nd Grade = 3

3rd Grade = 7

4th Grade = 9

5th Grade = 6

6th Grade = 0

ENROLL ONLINE at https://www.bridgecharter.org/enroll-today

ENTHUSIASM teaches students to "PUT THEIR WHOLE HEART INTO WHAT THEY DO".

Practice these "I WILL" statements with your student:

• Be an energy giver
• Smile
• Encourage others
• Treat every job as important
• Not be discouraged by failure

Our mission is to empower students to take ownership of their own learning. By learning, practicing and embracing these visible learning traits, students will have the skills needed to become accountable for their own lifelong learning. You can find the six Visible Learning traits on our website at Visible Learning

To get more information please visit Ready2Teach at: https://www.ready2teach.com/