O'Maley Family Focus

January 31, 2022

Dear O’Maley Families,

Happy Monday! I hope you all weathered the storm and didn't have too much of an issue with power outages. At my home my family and I spent a good deal of time worrying about all of the birds out in the very windy, cold, and snowy weather. I know they are native to the area and are built for it, but it seems awfully tough on them. They got plenty of food from us to help them through!

If you are wondering about the unusual photo in this week's header, the students pictured are using buckets to test sound as the build speakers in Investigative Science. Students build individual speakers, and use a variety of methods to test how sound echos and changes based on space and materials. It's amazing what you can hear when you have a bucket on your head!

Speaking of photos, we are hoping to increase O'Maley's presence on social media and give the community more opportunities to see what our students actually do all day. I will be posting more frequently on both Instagram and Twitter. Please follow

@omaleyprincipal on either platform to keep up with what's going on here.

As a reminder, Term 2 ended last week, and grades will be 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.

I have a positive report about COVID-19 this week. As of Friday, January 28th we had 15 active cases, less than half of our total for each of the past few weeks. The decline is welcome! There were 25 new cases identified since the report on 1/21, and our total case number now stands at 190 since the start of this school year. We are implementing a new at-home testing program that will enable a second test for those of you enrolled in weekly testing. Please see below for more information.

If you have a current fifth grader, we will be holding our annual fifth grade family night this Thursday evening remotely. I will be sending out the link very soon.

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

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 25 new case of COVID-19 reported at O'Maley since January 14th and have just15 active cases as of today. All close contacts have been contacted. Since we started school August 31st there have been a total of 190 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

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.

MCAS Schedule 2022

docs.google.com

Contact Information

Email: lbeattie@gloucesterschools.com
Website: http://omaley.gloucesterschools.com/
Location: 32 Cherry Street, Gloucester, MA, USA
Phone: 978-281-9850
Twitter: @omaleyprincipal