Dear Parents and Guardians,

Thank you to all who attended last night's Open House. It was great to welcome you to the building and I hope you left feeling included in your child's Ravinia School experience!

The safety and welfare of students and staff are the highest priority at Ravinia. We regularly practice safety drills to prepare students and staff for real emergencies. We want you to know that we are well prepared in case an emergency should occur during the school day. Our safety protocols are continuously reviewed and updated. Next week we will participate in Safety Week.

Please review our upcoming safety drills schedule:

• Fire Drill 9/11/23 @10:30am

• Severe Weather Drill 9/12/23 through the day by grade

• Fire Drill with the Fire Department 9/14/23 @9:15am

• Bus Evacuation All Day during PE classes on 9/15/23

You can prepare your student with the following information:

• Drills help us practice so that we know what to do and what to expect if there is an emergency
• The most important thing to do during a drill is to remain quiet and follow your teacher's directions
• They will hear the fire alarm and an alarm from their teacher's iPad to indicate the drill has started
• I will remind all students of the drills during morning announcements

Thank you for your ongoing support and trust in the staff at Ravinia!

Warmly,

Courtney Gilkison, Principal

September 15 - Early Release at 1:40 PM

September 15 - MAP and IAR scores home in backpacks

September 25 - Yom Kippur - No Student Attendance

We want to be certain dismissal runs smoothly everyday. In order to ensure your student gets dismissed to the appropriate location, please fill out this form ASAP.

Please Note:

• If your student is being picked up by someone other than his/her/their parent/guardian regularly, please note that in the last question.
• On days when your student is getting home a different way than usual, please send a note with them.
• Any last minute changes (something that is changing once the school day has already started) should be communicated by calling the main office (224-765-3700). Due to a variety of factors, there is no guarantee that a teacher will see an email from you between 8:40 and 3:17.
  
• If anything changes with your student's dismissal as the year goes on, please let your teacher know.
• Students are not permitted to ride the bus home with friends or get off at alternate stops on their existing routes. Please plan accordingly.

Absence requests can easily be made on the Infinite Campus Parent Portal. Parents and guardians can use the Absence Request tool to submit a request that informs the office in advance when their student is not going to be in school. After the request is processed, Campus creates an attendance record for the student.

• Absences can be reported 24/7 for ONLY future absences.

• Current day absences can be reported prior to the end of the school day.

• Parents can report more than one child absent at the same time.

• Absences reported through the Parent Portal do not require a phone call to the school office.

For step-by-step instruction on how to submit an absence online, see the link below. If you need help creating your Parent Portal login or resetting your password, contact Parent Tech Support.

Please join us at Northwood Middle School at 7:00 pm for the following events:

• September 26, 2023 - How to support your second language learning student

• November 7, 2023 - How to understand your student’s progress and performance, including questions to ask your child’s teacher

• February 20, 2024 - Literacy Night

• April 23, 2024 - Multilingual Learner Month Celebration

More information about each event will be provided closer to the date.

Robotics sign-up begins today! If your child is interested in potentially participating in the 23-24 robotics program, please read over the following document and complete the Google Form by Friday, September 15th at 3:00 p.m.

This year, we have adopted a new Social Emotional Learning Curriculum called Suite360. Suite360 lessons will be taught weekly for 20 minutes starting the week of September 18th. Every lesson comes with an accompanying Family Resources document that will be included in the Dean Avenue Digest starting 9/15.

During the week of September 11th your student will be asked to complete a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) pre-test. Similar to a math pre-test, the purpose of the SEL pre-test is to inform classroom teachers about what students in their classroom know, understand and are able to do in relation to social emotional learning. The results of this pre-test will be used to inform weekly SEL lessons.

At Ravinia, we are also piloting a mindfulness program called Knowtice. Experts will be visiting classrooms for the next six weeks for 20 minute lessons to teach students about the connection between their own brains/bodies and the positive effects of mindfulness practices.