Dear Parents and Guardians,

The staff and students did a fantastic job practicing safety drills throughout the week. We practiced three fire drills at different times, a severe weather (shelter in place) drill, and bus evacuations. I was very impressed by how quickly students knew and understood the routines in our new building! Next month we will also be practicing law enforcement drills the first and second week of October. I will share more information prior to the drills.

Lastly, please be sure check your student's backpack today. Fall MAP results as well as Spring IAR results (current 4th & 5th graders only) will be sent home with students today.

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

Warmly,

Courtney Gilkison, Principal

September 25 - Yom Kippur - No Student Attendance

September 29- PTO Board Meeting

September 30 - Fun(d) Run

October Indigenous People's Day - 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.

Next Wednesday (9/20), you will receive an email from Securly Home with information about how to sign up. As a reminder, Securly Home is a free resource to help you manage and monitor your children’s use of school-issued devices outside of school hours. The goal of this tool is to promote the responsible use of technology, prevent access to inappropriate content and identify potential concerns that may require our attention.

Home-monitoring features for parents/guardians include:

• The option to lock devices or limit access to the internet

• The ability to monitor which websites students visit or searches they make on school-issued devices at home

• Weekly email reports summarizing your child’s online activity

• Real-time notifications about serious concerns like cyberbullying or self-harm-related content (this is in addition to the other tools already in place that alert school administrators)

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 TODAY at 3:00 p.m.

MAP and IAR scores coming home today! A envelope containing your student's Fall MAP scores (K-5) and Spring 2023 IAR scores (4 & 5 only) will be sent home with students today, September 15th. Please reach out to your student's teacher or me with any questions regarding your student's performance. If you have a current 6th grader, Edgewood will mail home their 5th grade IAR scores.

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. See below for more information about next week's lessons. Starting next week I will share a folder where you can access each week's lessons by grade for more information!