Sangster. Bottle Drive. flyer. Jan 15

January 7^th, 2022

Dear Sangster Elementary Families,

We are looking forward to welcoming students back on Monday, January 10^th.  This past week, our District and staff team revisited our COVID 19 Health and Safety protocols and planned for continuity of learning, in the event we need to shift to at home learning. Please see the district email that was sent out by our superintendent earlier today for more information regarding these potential closures.  In the near future, each classroom teacher will be reaching out to their families regarding what Temporary-At-Home-Learning could look like for their class of students.

In preparation for Monday:

• Please make sure you do a daily health check for your child each day and if they have any symptoms, including cold and flu symptoms, that they are kept home until the symptoms are resolved. If children are at school and become sick, we will be calling home and requesting a pick-up. Click here for the BC K-12 Health Check App.
• Please send your child with a 3-layer mask to school and remind them to wear it properly, including sealing around the nose and mouth.
• Pick-up and drop-off areas have changed for some of our classes:
  • Grade 5s will enter the building from the fire lane side of the building. Please drop your child off and pick your child up from this area.
  • Walker’s class will be dismissed to the back of the building to reduce congestion at the front of the building.
  • The undercover area often gets congested during dismissal time, so we encourage parents who are picking up their children from the back of the school to walk around the gym and use the fire lane to exit our back area.
• When picking up and dropping off your child, please wear a mask on school grounds and avoid congregating in groups.  Please drop your child off as close to the bell as possible, and then we ask parents and family members to leave the school grounds.  At this time, our playground is still open before and after school for children to play, however we ask that only Sangster students use the playground during the school day.
• Please do not go to the back of the building to pick-up your child until 2:45pm in order to allow our classes to use this area up until our 2:53pm dismissal time. Thank-you.
• If your child is late arriving to school, please take them to the front of the building and call the school to let us know that they are here. Please wait until they are let into the school.

Enhanced Safety Protocols During School

We continue to review and revise our in-school safety measures including:

• Reminding students to always wear their masks indoors, including when they enter the building from outside play time. It would be helpful if your child has a lanyard or clean pocket/container they can put their mask in when they go out to play.  We will be reviewing how to properly wear and then remove masks.
• Reviewing handwashing and hand sanitizing processes
• Reducing student traffic in the hallways, and entering and exiting the building by individual classes and not in groups.
• Reminding students to keep their hands to themselves when playing and not to touch other students.
• Postponing some clubs and activities, such as Nature Club and intramural sports
• Postponing Hot Lunch due to the possibility of school closures. We will revisit Hot Lunch in mid-January to determine if we will have our February lunches.

Although this is not the start to 2022 that we had planned, we are excited and ready to welcome our 252 students back to Sangster on Monday! Please let me know if you have any questions in preparation for next week.

Sincerely,

Camille McFarlane

Principal

Sangster Elementary

cmcfarlane@sd62.bc.ca

Nature Kindergarten Registration begins next week.  All interested families are invited to attend a mandatory virtual information sessions this week.  Please click on the links below to join the sessions.

If you are having problems with the link, please click here.

We hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween weekend!

Snow White, the Evil Witch, and the Seven Dwarves made an appearance at Sangster today.  Unfortunately, Bashful was sick and had to stay home, so only six dwarves could make it to school today!

Our school is holding our Walk & Wheel to School event next week. We will be celebrating and encouraging active travel at our school all week!  We know that our neighbourhood and parking lot is busy at drop-off and pick-up time. We also know that the most of our students live within walking or biking distance to school.  We would like to really encourage families to try to walk, wheel, or drive to five next week.  Each day we will be doing a “hands-up” survey in class to see how many students have walked or wheeled to school.
Here are some ways your family can participate:

•  Plan, Prepare and Practice walking and wheeling to school by planning the route your child will take to school
•  Prepare your child with the right gear, skills, and knowledge
• Talk to your child about potential hazards and caution points
• If driving, skip the drop off loop and park at a ‘Walk & Wheel for 5’ location or “Kiss and Go” allowing your child to walk independently to school OR
  o “Park and Stroll” with your child, potentially helping other students not walk alone
• Help us promote walking and wheeling through social media #CRDWalkWheel
  For more information about the campaign visit www.crd.bc.ca/walkwheel

For parents interested in volunteering during our Walk and Wheel to School week, either before or after school for short periods of time, please contact Ms. McFarlane at cmcfarlane@sd62.bc.ca