Dear OHS Families,
We have no school on Monday for Yom Kippur. Wishing a Good Yuntif and easy fast to all those observing Yom Kippur this weekend.
We have two big new software applications going into effect next Monday and it is important that you are set up in both systems this week. Please take a few minutes this week to make sure you are all set up in both systems, School Dismissal Manager and ParentSquare.
School Dismissal Manager- 1 Week before implementation!
School Dismissal Manager (SDM) is our new system for informing your child’s teacher and the school of how your child will be dismissed, both in general as the default plan and for changes on particular days (called “exceptions” in SDM). You need to make any changes to dismissal plans in SDM by 2:30 pm on the day of the dismissal. At 2:35 all dismissal plans are shared with the appropriate staff. Here is the SDM welcome letter you should have received on 9/20/23 with your login information. If you did not receive the information directly from SDM this week, please check your junk/spam folders. If you do not find it there, please reach out and we will check your info in the system. We will begin using SDM for all dismissal plans next Monday, October 2nd, so please make sure you are able to use the system by then.
ParentSquare
ParentSquare officially goes into full use as our school communication application on Monday, October 2nd, but it seems that we are already there with full implementation. Hopefully, you have been able to login and setup your account options as you want them. One reminder, you can set alerts to come immediately or be saved as a digest with all reports for the day in one email at 6:00 pm. The communications are sent to your primary email address in Infinite Campus, so if you have not been receiving updates or they are going to an email address you do not want to use, please update your primary email in IC. We can help you if you need support with this.
Diversity Week is Here
This week is Diversity Week at OHS. We will be celebrating and building understanding about the aspects, seen and unseen, that make each individual unique and special. The Diversity Week Committee of Alexis Macilvain, Priya Mohan, Taisa Skubiak, Joanne Fredericks, and Christine Rollo have planned out a great week of daily lessons in classrooms in all grades. The week culminates with Diversity Day stations for grades 3 and 5 and a special presenter for grades 4 and 5. Ryan Martin from the Ryan Martin Foundation will be our guest speaker for the day. Thank you to everyone who is volunteering to help with the stations and to the Diversity Week Committee for all their work and organization.
Author Visit Thank You
It was such a treat to welcome author Kelly Bennett to OHS on Thursday. She read her books Not Norman to our K-1 students and The House that Ruth Built to grades 2-5. She also gifted many of her books to our library, so students can check them out. Big thanks to the Cummings family for sharing their grandmother with us and to Kate Fierman for organizing the event for the PTA. Thank you to Kelly Bennett for sharing her work and experiences with our students.
Lockdown Drill
We will be having our first lockdown drill of the year at some point on Tuesday, 9/26. We speak about the drills in as appropriate a way as possible for the students. We talk about the drill being a way to account for everyone in the building in a quick fashion, just as we account for everyone outside with a fire drill. At times, students may bring up what might cause a lockdown to be required and a student may talk about a dangerous person being near the school. In these instances, we say how there are all sorts of instances where a lockdown can be the right approach, including if there is a skunk or wild animal on the property or if there is a power line down just outside the school and so on. The staff take these drills very seriously and, though they are not comfortable for any of us, we understand that they serve an important purpose. I will send out a quick message once the lockdown drill is complete to let you know how it goes.
Have a great start to Fall!
David
