January 2022

1/10 - PTO Meeting at 6:30 in the Library (face masks required)

1/10 - SIT Meeting at 4:00 in the Library (face masks required)

1/12 - COVID PCR Screening Event

1/12 - Early Release Day (no PM PreK)

1/17 - No School

1/19 - COVID PCR Screening Event

1/26 - COVID PCR Screening Event

Hope everyone had a nice day of learning and some fun in the snow. If you haven't yet, please complete the 1/7/22 attendance form link below for each child you have at school.

https://forms.gle/X5z61hGCr6w1yeHP9

Dear Chariho Community,

Yesterday afternoon, the Rhode Island Department of Health issued updated guidelines regarding isolation and quarantine for students and staff who either test positive for Covid-19 or are identified as a close contact of a positive individual. Below are the updated guidelines, which we are putting into effect immediately.

We are hopeful that the updated RIDOH guidance will allow more students to remain in school without disruption. However, the effectiveness of these guidelines is greatly dependent on the willingness of students and families to monitor symptoms and remain home when there are signs of illness. We are asking all families to support us by following these guidelines for the good of their own children as well as the good of the entire school community. Click here to review recent changes.

Based on the updated guidance any student who was designated a school close contact who needed to quarantine as of January 4, 2022, or earlier may return to school on January 10, 2022, as long as they do not have symptoms. Moving forward you will still receive a district message when we have a positive case in the schools that have placed students/staff into quarantine. Families who have students who are designated close contacts will receive school communication via email, call or text.

Here is the link to the CDC Frequently Asked Questions document.

If you would like to see the school data across the state you can use this link and it is located on the tab Cases by Learning Style.

We will be asking all families to resubmit a Self-Attestation form that has the updated information from RIDOH. This will be done via PowerSchool. Principals will message families when the form is ready for distribution. Please reach out to your school administrator if you have any questions and thank you for your continued support of our schools.

Sincerely,

Gina Picard

Superintendent

Dear Chariho Families,

We have received notice from RIDOH that we will be hosting a vaccination clinic at Chariho Regional Middle School on Thursday, January 13, 2022, from 3-7:30 pm. The clinic will be open to anyone ages 12 and older. Please note students must be 12 on or before January 13, 2022, to get vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccines help protect against the Delta variant of COVID-19, which spreads more easily and quickly than other variants. The state is asking everyone who is eligible to be fully vaccinated.

Per the state, the registration window for this clinic will close on January 12, 2022.

Vaccination Clinic link- https://qrco.de/Chariho113

I wanted to share how you can register your child to participate in the weekly COVID testing that we conduct at school (typically on Wednesdays). Our testing company (Concentric by Ginkgo) now offers a way to register digitally. Thank you to those who have already consented. Our population of students being tested more than doubled this week. See directions on how to register below:

How do I provide consent for a child?

Please navigate to https://testcenter.concentricbyginkgo.com/minor-consent/ and complete the consent process if you wish to allow your child to participate in testing.

The access code you will need is HVES2321. If you need to provide consent for more than one child, please complete the process for each child.

Attached are additional instructions to guide you through the consent process. Click directly below for the instruction.

Does your child struggle with the organization, planning and execution of tasks? Do you find he/she lacks the attention and focus necessary to fully engage in school or other life activities? Does your child find it hard to identify and regulate his/her emotions, thoughts and/or ideas? This may be due to deficits in Executive Functioning skills. Individuals who lack these skills struggle with attention, focus, organization, and time, material and space management.

The 360 Executive Functioning Webinar series combines concepts that are at the core of these deficits: situational and intention awareness, visual future thinking, time awareness and task visualization to promote efficient and accurate completion of tasks. It also facilitates the development of 6 key skills for students: initiation, transition, planning, time management, self-regulation and meta-cognition.

Please join us in learning more about Executive Functioning skills and how to develop strategies that support deficits in these areas. These sessions will complement the educator series in order to support and strengthen the home school connection.

• October 12, 2021 6:30-7:30 Introduction to Executive Functioning
• January 11, 2022 6:30-7:30 Planning Tasks, Homework and Time
• March 29, 2022 6:30-7:30 Closing the HW Circle, Materials Management & Technology

We recommend cutting and pasting the zoom link information below to your calendars on the dates provided so that you can easily access the link on the night of the webinar.

Please reach out with any questions.

Click the link below to Join Zoom Meeting on each given date/time:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83779842918?pwd=eVFaQSt4RnVoWXRzRnRKRy9ub0dxZz09

Meeting ID: 837 7984 2918

Passcode: 1Q60di

Going forward, devices for grades 1-4 will be going back and forth from school to home in your child's backpack. A few important reminders:

1. The children are responsible for their devices and they should only be used for learning and not play. Please do not allow your child to surf the web or play games on their chromebook. Alerts to go to the technology department if a Chariho student is on an unapproved site.
   
2. Chromebooks should be fully charged for the school day. Please ensure your child has their chromebook charged every night.
3. Devices will need to be used if there is a snow day. Please see information regarding DL days for inclement weather days here. The emergency plan used as last resort is linked here as well). In case of a DL day I will be sure to inform parents like I did for today's DL day.

Dismissal Issues - Parent pick up for students in K-4 are arriving while prek dismissal is happening. PLEASE be mindful of our pre-school population and do not arrive prior to 3:10. The entire dismissal process for K-4 takes roughly 10-12 min. We have some amazing staff getting our students out quickly and safely.

Peanut & Tree Nut Free School - We continue to be a nut free school which means no peanut butter and no tree nuts including Nutella.

Cold Weather Alert - With the cold weather, we are noticing a lot of children coming to school underdressed for recess weather. As an fyi...I will be sending children out for recess even if the temperature drops slightly below freezing. My belief is that children need to be outside to socialize and release their energy. Please ensure your children are dressed in coats, hats, and gloves. When I make the decisions for outside recess, I consider the air temperature and wind chill. All the Chariho elementary schools use a specific chart/table to determine if it is safe to go outside. I value your children's safety and would never jeopardize that.

TOYS - Please make sure that your children do not take any toys from home to school. We continue to see an uptick in this and it is causing problems at school.

Identification - PLEASE be sure parents who are picking up children early from school have proper identification with them when they come to the front door. Ms. Donna is not always the one in the office and we must verify who is picking up the children. Thank you for your undivided attention to this request.

Parking at HVES - Parking in the parking lot is for staff ONLY. We are having issues with parents dropping off children in the morning and taking up a staff parking spot which is causing staff members to be late which is becoming problematic. Also, some staff end up getting blocked since we have double parking at the end of the day. If parents need to come to the building, PLEASE either park in front of the school or at Langworthy Field and walk up the stairs to the main front door.

Celebrations Outside of School - Throughout the district, there have been some inquiries regarding passing out birthday invitations. With the concerns with COVID, schools will not be passing out personal invitations or non-district events at this time unless it’s an approved organization event that is required to follow COVID protocols. We are sorry for this inconvenience.

Hope Valley School 4th graders will participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) on Thursday, February 17th, 2022. NAEP is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what students know and can do in various subjects. NAEP is different from our state assessments because it is a common measure of achievement across the country. Your child will take ONE assessment, either in the area of reading or mathematics. The assessment takes approximately 2 hours for most students, which includes transition time, directions, and completion of survey questions.There is no need to study in preparation for NAEP, but please encourage your child to do their best. More information will follow.

I strongly encourage you to sign up for this texting feature that Chariho has initiated. The purpose of this texting feature is strictly for any emergency notification. In order to participate in this service, you must first opt in by sending a text message of Y or Yes to our school's short code number at 67587. Individuals who DO NOT opt in will NOT receive text messages. You can always opt out at any time by texting STOP to the messages. I recommend signing up to this texting feature right now so you don't forget and miss any notifications. Thank you!

Here is the link to access Superintendent Picard's newsletter (January).

A link to past issues of the newsletter can be found here as well:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1grxKQ2ZjeBENC4UTdO1b8SwStqKmFqPL?usp=sharing

Here are the PTO meeting dates for the rest of the year. All parents are welcome to attend any of the PTO meetings. Hope to see you there!

January 10th at 6:30pm

February 7th at 6:30pm

March 7th at 6:30pm

April 4th at 6:30pm

May 9th at 6:30pm

PTO Members

Co-President: Kristin Clarke > kristinc49@aol.com

Co-President: Leah Sousa > leah.sousa@hotmail.com

Treasurer: Stephanie DaPonte > sdaponte14@gmail.com

Secretary: Chloe Morgan > cmako28@yahoo.com

Communication: Chelsea Vandeveer> chelseabaker101@yahoo.com

School Contact Information

School Principal: Giuseppe Gencarelli – Giuseppe.Gencarelli@chariho.k12.ri.us

School Secretary: Donna Sunderland – Donna.Sunderland@chariho.k12.ri.us

School Webpage: https://hopevalley.chariho.k12.ri.us/

School Contact Info: Phone - 401-539-2321 Fax - 401-633-7099

Mission Statement:

The mission of the Hope Valley Elementary School is to work in partnership with our colleagues, students and families. We are committed to creating a learning environment where children are expected to achieve their full potential.

Email: ggen@chariho.k12.ri.us
Website: hopevalley.chariho.k12.ri.us
Location: 15 Thelma Drive, Hope Valley, RI, United States
Phone: 401-539-2321
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mr.Gencarelli/?ref=br_rs
Twitter: @MrG_HVES