Tiger Talk

Moovin and Groovin

We had a great second week jumping back into our routines. If you've check our Facebook page you've seen pictures of all the fun and learning taking place!

We begin our back to school testing this week and jump into our normal curriculum.

ALL. THE. INFORMATION! Week 2 Repeat!

Morning drop off: Our doors open at 7:20 to the foyer and 7:25 to enter the building. If your child is a car rider (or walker) that eats breakfast I encourage you to drop them off at the time the doors open. This ensures they have time to eat and aren't tardy to class.

Car drop off and pick up: Please remain in the car rider line until you are directed to exit, do not cut line. When dropping off please ensure your child has their belongings and is ready to exit the vehicle. Have your child's name plate in the dash for pick up. If you did not receive a name plate let us know. The name plate aids in efficiency. We know pick up is a bit slow right now, but we assure you it does get faster.

Walkers: All elementary walkers that do not have a 7th-12th grade sibling will exit the elementary doors under the supervision of elementary staff. If an elementary student has an older sibling in 7th-12th grade they are walking or riding with they need to come pick them up from the locker hallway outside of the title classrooms once they are dismissed. This ensures all of our students are being supervised by an elementary staff members and eliminates our younger students being in the big kid dismissal mix.

Daily transportation changes:

We strongly encourage you to establish a typical end of day routine and aim to adhere to that! Consistency is not only good for our students, but also to our end of day processes. It cuts down on confusion and contributes to everyone getting where they need to go safely. We know things come up and schedules change, but hope we can work together to eliminate the excessive number of daily transportation changes.

In the event you need to make a change to your child's end of day routine please do so before 2:30 and through the elementary office. If you email your child's teacher you must include our elementary secretary, Ms. Lynette at beydlerl@smithton.k12.mo.us. We will also have an elementary office "room" in which you can communicate with Ms. Lynette (more information to come).

While there are a lot of rules to our drop off and pick up procedures please know all of this is in place to keep your child safe. We need to ensure every child is supervised and gets to their location safely. We promise our goal is not to make anyone's life more difficult but we are heavily out numbered and getting 300 little people to the accurate location can be quite the job. We ask that you respect and abide by the procedures we've put in place.

Rooms: Your child's teacher should be communicating with you how to get set up in our texting platform which is known as "rooms." Please reach out if you struggle with this, as it is the BEST way to stay connected with your child's teacher and up to date on what is happening in your child's classroom. Below you will see information on Nurse Heather's room and Ms. Dana and Ms. Warren will have a room as well.

Beanstack: We are building readers and establishing a love of reading here at Smithton. You should have gotten information on how to download the Beanstack app at home so your child can track their at home reading. We will have small monthly incentives to motivate our readers. We will also have quarterly goals. If students reach their personalized goals quarterly they will earn a token to get a book out of Mrs. Bryan's book vending machine (yes its a real thing). Be on the look out for specifics about all of this!

Friday Folders: On Fridays your child will bring home a black folder. This folder will have important notes, fundraisers, newsletters, and graded work for you to see. Please return the folder on Tuesday. We will do our best to ensure the majority of communications happen via the Friday folders to streamline communication. As we work to save money on paper copies this year, newsletters, menus, and order forms will likely be communicated digitally, but for the paper copies expect to see those in the Friday folder.

Toys: I understand some students attend Boys and Girls Club after school hours and may be allowed to bring toys/items from home. Please remind your child those items are to stay put away in back packs until that time of day. Fidgets are acceptable as expectations are pre taught within the classroom, beyond that we want to minimize distractions.

Vending Machines: The vending machine is for use by 7th-12th grade students. Elementary students are not permitted to make purchases from it during school hours (7:25-3:20). Again, after school practices, boys and girls club, extra curricular events are the exception.