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Happy New Year Auguston Family

January 8, 2021

I hope you all had a restful holiday and are ready for all that 2021 has to offer.  As we can probably determine, the beginning of the year will look very similar to the rest of the school year thus far. Our staff continue to work diligently to provide the best educational and social experience as possible.  I have included a few updates here to ensure you are well informed!

Valentines Day: Please see the district protocols around this day.

Card Exchange 

We will allow paper-based card exchanges, but students must ensure hand washing before and after taking part
We will put cards in a zip lock back or specified part of the back pack before we send home in case families have protocols for when things are sent home from school

Treats 

Students bringing in and sharing treats is not permitted even if individually wrapped.  
As a staff, we could hand out treats (if they wish), we just have to ensure:

We designate one adult to distribute sealed, pre-packaged goodies. 
Ensure hands are clean before and after handling goodies.  
We will hand out goodies in creative ways that minimize contact and maximize physical distancing.

New Playground

You will notice the district quickly acted on our request to expand the old “pre-school”  playground.  The house was also removed as this posed a safety risk at times.  The School and PAC are now researching to see what we can purchase for this new space.

Surveys and Assessments

In the next month or two, Gr. 4’s will be comping the Foundation Skill Assessment and Student Learning Survey as required by the Ministry of Education, Gr. 5’s will be involved in taking the MDI (Middle Years Development Instrument).

Safety Procedures and Protocols

We continue to adhere to the same safety protocols that were in place from September to December. 

All of these measures are in place to ensure the health and safety of our students and staff. Thank you for your continued understanding and support.

Cohorts and Schedules

We will be looking into flipping our schedule so Group A and Group B experience the “short” afternoon.  (This is due to having two lunch and recess times). This DOES NOT affect pick and drop off times.
With the flip in schedule, this may provide an opportunity to switch cohort play groups.  However, this has not been determined.  If this does occur, we will notify parents before time.  Cohorts are allowed to change semesterly, quarterly, or a specified point in the year.  Cohorts are not spending time together inside the school (unless they can physically distance).  These are essentially for play only.

Kindergarten Registration

If your child is turning 5 in 2021, registration begins on Monday, January 18, at 8:00 a.m. Please see our website for up to date K registration as this will look a little bit different this year (procedure wise).  Reminder that if you are out of catchment (even if you have students currently attending Auguston), you will have to register at your catchment school and then submit a Non-Catchment request.  Please see our website for more info. 

After Hours

During this school year, I have seen a dramatic increase in vandalism, littering, and general misbehaviour on the school grounds.  This causes many lost hours cleaning up and/or calling the school district office, etc.  If you have any information (you are here after hours and witness something), can you please inform me so I can address the situation (email: auguston [at] abbyschools.ca).  We all want our school to look fantastic all the time!  *All students should not be on school grounds prior to 3:30 pm. Please remind students that portable, container, and dug out roofs are off limits as this is an extreme safety hazard. *edit as of Jan. 11

Thank you for doing all that you can to keeping everyone safe!

Mr. Colbert
Principal