South Row's Home Link
Week of: September 6th, 2021
Message from Mrs. Gilbert, Principal
It has been a treat welcoming your students back to school. I look forward to getting to know all of them over the course of the year. Teachers classrooms are up and running and students have shown great Lion's Pride over this first week. Please take a look at our announcements and links below to stay connected and informed!
Respectfully,
Terri
Week at a Glance
MONDAY 9/6
- No School, Labor Day
TUESDAY 9/7
- School Resumes (K-4)
Looking ahead...
Kindness Day: September 13th. Students and staff are encouraged to wear "Be Kind" shirts (if you have them), or shirts with kind messages on them. If your child does not have kindness wear, encourage them to do something kind for an adult or peer. We will have a school wide kindness day once a month. Kindness day is OPTIONAL!
Curriculum Night: September 14th
- Grades K,1,2: 5pm – 6:15pm
Specialists, special educators & support staff will be available in classrooms for all parents from 6:15 – 7pm
Grades 3 and 4: 7pm – 8:15pm
Early Release Day: September 22nd. Students are dismissed at 11:45am for teacher professional development.
Ice Cream Social/ Truck: Will be held on Tuesday, September 28 from 4:30-7. Rain date September 29. Please see more information below in the PTO corner.
Reminders/ Updates for the Week
Hold in Place: On Thursday September 2nd we had a hold/stay in place at South Row. A hold or stay in place happens when we want to increase the safety and privacy for the person with a medical or other type of situation and make sure the hallways are open and clear. During a hold in place staff and students can be asked to avoid certain common areas in order to allow us to assess and respond to the situation and potentially transport the person. Today, students and staff were asked to avoid the main hallway for a period of time.
Arrival and Dismissal: Thank you to all families for your support and flexibility with arrival and dismissal. The first few days of school can be a bit slow as we are getting our students and staff into a routine. We appreciate your understanding. We did want to share a few reminders.
Bus:
- Please review your bus number with your child
- Please remind your child to stay seated on the bus and be wearing their masks at all times
- Continue to allow 10-15 minutes to your designated route time
Car:
- Please practice your car number with your child.
- Please clearly have it displayed on your car. Some families have put it on a hanger and that has been helpful.
- Please remind your child(ren) to stay in the car at an arrival until an adult signals you to get out of the car.
- At arrival, cars enter off of Mill Rd if you are dropping off your child. Please form two lines before entering the loop. At 8:45am a staff member will come down to move the cones that are blocking the loop. At that point, cars merge from 2 lines to 1 as you enter the loop. Please be mindful of this.
- Please remember to stay in park at dismissal time and do not leave the loop until prompted by a staff member
- Please be prepared to give Mr. Ramalho (or another staff member) a thumbs up at dismissal when your child(ren) are in the car. It is also helpful that you take the number off the window or you hanger when your child(ren) are in the car.
- Please keep in mind the dismissal process begins at approximately 3:10pm in the building but we will start letting cars in the loop a little before that time.
Walkers/Scooters/Bike Riders:
- Please meet your child in the front of the basketball court grassed area.
- Please bring your car number and/or be prepared to show ID.
- Walkers MUST be accompanied by an adult unless approval by administration.
- In the morning, walkers are welcome to enter either the front doors, POD door, or back doors depending on what direction you are coming from.
Change in Dismissal Plans: As a reminder, if there is a CHANGE to your child's dismissal on a given day, please EMAIL the classroom teacher, Mrs. O'Neill, and Mrs. Sepe. We do ask that families try to be as consistent as possible with dismissal.
****Please contact the school as early as possible for dismissal changes (before 2:00) so we can make sure your student gets where they need to go at the end of the day!!
Lunch: At this time students will not be able to get a second lunch. We will let you know if/when this changes. Also, please look at the lunch menu with your students so they understand their options for the week.
Pool Testing/Test and Stay: If you are interested in opting into either of these testing protocols please click on this link to complete the consent form: LINK
Main Office Contact Information: Please view the main office teams contact information, should you need it throughout the year.
- Mrs. Terri Gilbert, Principal, gilbertt@chelmsford.k12.ma.us, 978-251-5177 ext. 4
- Mr. Jayson Ramalho, Assistant Principal, ramalhoj@chelmsford.k12.ma.us, 978-251-5177 ext. 3
- Mrs. Shannon Vandevoordt, School Nurse, vandevoordts@chelmsford.k12.ma.us, 978-251-5177, ext.2
- Mrs. Debbie O'Neill, Secretary, oneilld@chelmsford.k12.ma.us, 978-251-5177, ext. 0
- Mrs. Kim Sepe, School Clerk, sepek@chelmsford.k12.ma.us, 978-251-5177, ext.0
- Absentee Line: 978-251-5177 ext. 1
**Please note: In the absence of Mrs. Gilbert and Mr. Ramalho, Ms. Michelle Ruhmann (Special Education Teacher) is our Principal Designee and would assume our role if we are BOTH out of the building.
Photos on Social Media/Website: We try to take lots of pictures throughout the year and include them on our home link, website, facebook, and twitter account. If you would like to OPT your child out of being in pictures, please email Terri Gilbert (gilbertt@chelmsford.k12.ma.us) and Jayson Ramalho (ramalhoj@chelmsford.k12.ma.us) by September 24th, 2021.
Nurses Corner
Dear South Row Families,
Hooray for a successful first week back to school! It was so great to see our students back in the building this week! Here are a few health and safety reminders.
Masks:
Masks are required while in the school building. Gaiters or masks that have exhalation valves are not allowed. If you need reusable masks for your student, please reach out to me!! I have some donations coming through for students in need. My email is vandevoordts@chelmsford.k12.ma.us
Pending Covid Results:
If a member of your household is sick and awaiting covid test results or planning covid testing, please thoughtfully consider keeping your student home until the test results have returned.
School Forms:
Please continue to send in updated physicals, emergency forms, and immunization information. If there has been a change to your students medication or health please feel free to reach out to me by phone 978-251-5177 or email.
Please feel free to reach out to me with questions or concerns.
Have a wonderful long weekend!
Warmly,
Nurse V.
PTO Corner
Hello, South Row families!
Welcome back to another year at South Row, or welcome if you are new to our awesome school! I wanted to remind you of some of the things we do as the PTO and how to stay up to date with what we have going on throughout the year.
Ongoing Fundraisers
We have three ongoing fundraisers that you can easily participate in that earn money for the PTO through purchases you are already making, at no additional cost to you!
* Amazon Smile - a portion of your purchases from Amazon come back to the PTO. See how to turn on Smile your Amazon app here, or access Amazon through smile.amazon.com every time you shop.
* Mabel's Labels - Mention South Row PTO in the comments of your order
* Box Tops for Education - Download the Box Tops app and scan receipts in seconds. View a tutorial here.
Stay Connected
Find our website at www.southrowpto.com.
Follow us on social media:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SouthRowPTO
Twitter - https://twitter.com/southrowpto
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/southrowpto/
Text SRPTO to 66599 to receive occasional event reminders by text.
Join us!
We will be continuing to hold our meetings virtually for the time being. Join us for our meetings on the following dates at 7PM:
September 13
October 4
November 1
January 10
February 7
March 7
April 4
May 2 - elections
Meeting links will be published on our website, on social media, and in the South Row Homelink.
Student and Business Directories
The PTO will once again be having two online school directories. You can sign up for either or both directories in one form, which can be found at tinyurl.com/srdirectory21-22. Please fill out the form by Monday, September 20.
The student directory will be available for families only on a password-protected page of our website. The password will be shared with all families when the directory goes live in a few weeks. In order for your child to be included in the directory, you must opt in by filling out the directory form.
We will also offer a service to the entrepreneurs in our school community. If any parent has a business that they would like to list, you can also enter that information on the directory form. The business directory will be available on our website without password protection. We encourage everyone to look here when in need of a service so that you can help out other South Row families.
Ice Cream Social
Mark your calendars - the Ice Cream Social is back!!! We will be doing it a bit differently this year, and holding it outside. We will have an ice cream truck in the back parking lot by the playground on Tuesday, September 28 from 4:30-7. Drop by any time in that timeframe to buy an ice cream from the truck and play on the playground with your friends. Rain date September 29.
We look forward to seeing you soon at some of our events that we are looking forward to bringing back in the most complete way that we can safely! Have a great year!
Johanna Shaw
PTO President
Food Services
Counselor's Corner
SEPTEMBER
Counselor’s Corner
Dr. Linda Rich EdD
• Welcome back South Row students, parents, and caregivers! After the challenges of last year, it feels so nice to all be back together in the South Row building!
• In the next Home Link, I’ll describe the group and individual counseling as well as class lessons that I will be providing this school year.
• I am attaching a link to an article about helping your child adjust to going back to school this Fall that you may find helpful.
A Letter from Shannon Bishoff our New SEL Coordinator
Social Emotional Learning
Welcome back to all of our students and families. We hope that you enjoyed a restful and safe summer vacation. My name is Shannon Bischoff and I am new to the district as the Coordinator of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Counseling Services. I have had the opportunity to partner with all of the schools throughout the summer weeks to learn about the resources and supports in place in our schools and in our surrounding community to respond to student’s social emotional well-being. What I have learned is that there is an amazing framework of dedicated families, students, teachers, counselors, psychologists and administrators that prioritize your student’s social-emotional needs and well-being.
This year all elementary and middle schools in the district will implement a new digital curriculum called Second Step which you will hear about from your students and their teachers. This wonderful new curriculum has a community and family component which will allow you to engage in meaningful conversations at home around the topic of social-emotional learning. If you would like to learn more about this curriculum I welcome you to visit their website where they have several free and user friendly resources for you to access.
Throughout the year I plan to partner with our school psychologists and counselors to provide you with resources and information to support your student’s growth and learning in the area of SEL and respond to their social-emotional needs.
I welcome you to email or call me to introduce yourself and your child, to share ideas and insights, and help me better get to know the Chelmsford community.
As our students, families and staff return from the summer vacation, I look forward to getting to know each of you. We can’t wait to see your child grow this year and look forward to joining you in celebrating their successes.
With warm regards,
Shannon Bischoff
Coordinator of SEL and Counseling Services PreK-12
bischoffs@chelmsford.k12.ma.edu
(978) 251-5199 ext. 5601
Resources:
Interface Referral Services: Helpline (888) 244-6843 https://interface.williamjames.edu/
Second Step:https: //www.secondstep.org/
What is SEL Video: What is SEL?
SOUTH ROW'S PHOTOS OF THE WEEK
Please send photos to Mr. Ramalho (ramalhoj@chelmsford.k12.ma.us) to be featured in our Home Link newsletter!
Learning all about music!
Building in kindergarten!
Learning all about art!
Recess fun!
Contact the South Row Administrative Team!
Principal
Mr. Jayson Ramalho, M.Ed.
Assistant Principal
Email: gilbertt@chelmsford.k12.ma.us
Website: https://www.chelmsford.k12.ma.us/Domain/15
Location: 250 Boston Road, Chelmsford, MA, USA
Phone: 978-251-5177
Facebook: facebook.com/SouthRowElementary
Twitter: @CPSSouthRow