September 10th, 2020
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Southridge staff would like to welcome you back to a most unusual start to the 2020-2021 school year. Please know that the entire school staff has been working diligently to get the school and classrooms ready for your children. We have put in place many plans to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19 here in our building such as limiting classes to specific wings in the school, limiting students entering and exiting the building to one class at a time. We have designated outdoor learning areas where students may go to learn when the weather is nice as well as designated line-ups for children to stand at when they arrive at school. When your child is in school, classrooms have been arranged to maximize the space for students to move and hallways have been labelled so students travel through with minimum contact with other classes. And of course, we will be washing our hands A LOT and wearing masks.
There are many other details about school that are important to note. Please refer to this start up letter to understand some of the things that will be different in this year. This letter will also be included as a hard copy in your startup packages from your classroom.
One of the things that is different is that we are asking parents not to come onto school property at pick up and drop off time to avoid congestion on the playground. As always, safety must come first, and so children in Kindergarten will still need to be escorted by an adult until class time. However, we are asking that parents allow their children to come onto school property alone as much as possible. We have increased our supervision in the mornings, and teachers will be at the Buttonwood entrance to the school to assist students in finding their line up locations. The attached map indicates where students should line up before school. We are asking that students arrive at school close to the start time of 8:55AM as they will need to remain in the area assigned to their class.
As always, we remind parents that the parking lots are reserved for staff and parents should not use the parking lots for student drop off as it is not possible to exit the parking lot without reversing and this is a significant safety concern.
Thanks,
Geoff Suderman-Gladwell, Principal