O'Maley Family Focus

February 7, 2022

Dear O’Maley Families,

Happy Monday! I hope you all enjoyed the unexpected long weekend. Although we all make the most of snow day cancellations when they occur, I also know that, come June, we will wish we were at the beach!

I have just a few quick updates for you this week:

Early Release: Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 8th is an early release for staff professional development. All students will be dismissed at 11:00 a.m. and there will be no after school activities.

COVID-19 Update:

As of Friday, February 4th we had just 3 active cases at O’Maley. There were 6 new cases reported last week, and since the start of school our total is 198.

Currently our student vaccination rates are as follows:

6th 62.9.%

7th 72.1%

8th 68.3%

Term 2 Grade Reports: As a reminder, Term 2 ended last week, and grades were posted to the Schoolbrains Community Portal at 3:00 p.m. on February 3rd. If you are rusty, please see information below on logging into Schoolbrains and viewing report cards. As always, if you have questions about your child's performance, don't hesitate to reach out to their teachers.

PTO Virtual Meeting Thursday, February 10th 6:00-7:00 p.m.

Please follow @omaleyprincipal on Twitter or Instagram.

Have a wonderful week!

Best,

Principal Lynne Beattie

Topics in this issue of Family Focus:

Upcoming Events
COVID-19 Updates & Testing Sign-Up
Planning Ahead? ...MCAS Schedule
Schoolbrains Community Portal

Upcoming Events

February 8 - Early Release at 11:00 a.m. for staff professional development
February 10 - Virtual PTO Meeting 6:00-7:00 p.m.

Google Meet joining info: https://meet.google.com/wbw-nksm-fyg

February 21-25 - No School Winter recess

COVID At-Home Testing

We will be adding an additional opportunity for COVID testing each week, beginning this week for staff, and next week for students who sign up. Superintendent Lummis sent out the following information on take-home Covid tests last week:

To Participate in our At-Home Rapid COVID Testing Program and get a free antigen test every week, please opt-in by completing this form. If you opt-in by Monday, January 31, you will get your first tests next week. You will be able to continue to sign up after January 31.
How Do I Test Twice per Week for Free? If you also participate in our In-School Weekly COVID Safety Testing each week, you will be able to test twice every week for COVID, giving you the assurance every few days of knowing whether you are COVID negative or not. If you’re not already participating in our In-School Weekly Testing, please register here.
Do I have to participate in both the At Home Testing and the Weekly In School COVID Safety Testing? No, each one is separate, and they are optional. However I strongly encourage participation in both.
Update on Contact Tracing and Test & Stay As part of this shift in the program, we will discontinue our Test & Stay program and contact tracing for in-school close contacts. This means that if a staff member or a student is a potential close contact in school, they may continue to come to school and do not have to quarantine out of school.

The expectation is that the tests will arrive Wednesday afternoons, be available/distributed on Thursdays, and individuals should test at home Friday mornings.

Student tests will be organized by homeroom and homeroom teachers will distribute them to students during homeroom that day. If you are signed up for the program, please be on the lookout for the first test packets to be brought home on Thursday, February 10th.

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COVID-19 Updates & Weekly Testing Sign-Up

COVID-19 at O'Maley: We had 6 new case of COVID-19 reported at O'Maley since January 28th and have just 3 active cases as of Friday, February 4th. All close contacts have been contacted. Since we started school August 31st there have been a total of 198 cases reported among the O'Maley community. See the new GPS COVID Dashboard for updated data each week: https://backtogether.gloucesterschools.com/updates/dashboard-covid-cases

Currently our student vaccination rates are as follows:

6th 62.9.%

7th 72.1%

8th 68.3%

To sign up for weekly testing: Link here: https://www.cic-health.com/consent/ma?district=Gloucester.

Weekly Testing: Testing will continue each Monday at O'Maley. It is not too late to sign up. This week once again all tests were negative.If you have tested positive in the past 90 days, do not participate in weekly testing, as you may yield a false positive for your pool.

Masks & Distancing: Per the Massachusetts DESE and the Gloucester School Committee, all students and staff will be masked in GPS buildings until at least February 28th except at lunch or mask break when they are socially distanced at 3 feet or more. Masks are not required outdoors. For details on our health and safety protocols district wide, please visit the GPS COVID Guidance and Updates website at https://backtogether.gloucesterschools.com/.

Students must bring their own masks to school each day. While we all wish we did not have to wear them, masks continue to be required indoors at school. Thank you!

Schoolbrains Community Portal

To conserve paper, and to ensure that families have access to student performance information, report cards are not printed or sent home as a hard copy. Report cards for Term 2 will be accessible in the Schoolbrains Community Portal at approximately 3:00 p.m. on February 2, 2022.

Our Portal is open for all students and families, and parents/guardians who are new to the portal should have received an email containing your login information. If you did not receive an email, or already had one and have forgotten it, please email Mr. Hurley, dhurley@gloucesterschools.com and he will send it to you.

Information about the portal, what you will find there, and how to login is below.

Parent Letter re. Schoolbrains Community Portal

Link to the Schoolbrains Community Portal Login

Student/Guardian How-to

Planning Ahead? Here's the Spring MCAS Schedule

While April seems very far away, to assist families who often write asking for spring MCAS dates, the schedule below provides all of the details. Testing will occur at O'Maley from April 5 - May 12, with additional dates for makeups. More information will be communicated as we get closer to the dates.