Dear EVCS Families,

This afternoon you should have received your child’s midyear report, emailed to you directly by their teacher. These reports provide a comprehensive overview of your child’s progress and performance so far this school year in all subject areas. Our kids have worked hard this year and made real progress, despite significant challenges. I hope you find these reports helpful and affirming, and that they provide a good starting point for the conversations that we will have at our upcoming parent teacher conferences, where we will set goals and chart a course for the second half of the year.

I hope everyone has a restful and lovely break this next week. I know that many of us may have less planned for this week than we ordinarily might, so if the kids start to get a little stir crazy and you’re looking for some wholesome content to keep them entertained, please invite them to check out my archive of the read alouds I did last spring, as well as last year’s remote School-Wide Morning Meetings. You can find it all in my Google Classroom. And in case you missed it, here’s the most recent School-Wide Morning Meeting. I would love for our next SWMM to have more contributions from students and their families! If you’re interested in putting something together you can find the lyrics and chords to most of the songs in our repertoire in the EVCS SWMM Songbook. You can submit videos to me directly by email.

Happy Lunar New Year to all! Here’s to better days ahead in the Year of the Ox. Have a wonderful and safe week.

Yours,
Bradley

Dear EVCS Families,

If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, please take a moment to fill out our survey on remote learning at EVCS. We are planning professional learning for all of our staff to further develop our remote teaching practices together, so it is important for us to hear from you about how things are going, what is working well for your child and what needs to be improved. There are separate pathways in the survey for blended learning students and fully remote students, and though it’s an anonymous survey we ask that you identify your child’s grade level so we can understand the survey data as it relates to each group of students and their unique experiences. If you have more than one student at EVCS please fill out a survey for each of them separately, but please fill out only one survey for each student in the family. Thanks so much for your feedback and support. The survey will close on Friday afternoon.

A note about the daily emails from the Situation Room – These emails are automatically generated and scheduled to go out every day to all parents who have signed up for a MyStudent account whenever there is a confirmed case within our community. I know that the emails are confusing and redundant. Please know that whenever there is a confirmed case and/or a classroom or building closure I will also email directly to all families to explain in direct terms what is happening and what to expect, and if anything is ever unclear or confusing you can contact me any time for more information. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Cohort D families – tomorrow is Wednesday, which means the lending library will be open from 11:30 – 1:00. Come get leveled books for your kids to read independently, or books to read together. We will also have extra materials to refresh your child’s supply kit, including crayons, markers, pencils, notebooks, etc. If your schedule allows please bring your kids with you. It’s so great to see our Cohort D students who we miss so much, and I think it’s helpful for them to get to visit school, albeit briefly and outside. We’ll be set up outside on the sidewalk in front of the schoolyard gate.

An update on classroom air quality and climate control – We received the air purifiers we requested from the DOE, so every classroom now as at least one air purifier in it! This is great news as it now allows us to open the windows slightly less-wide and still have more than adequate ventilation and good quality air in the classrooms. And our wonderful Parents Association purchased oil-filled space heaters for every classroom at EVCS, so that will be a big help in making our rooms a more comfortable temperature for our students and staff to work in each day. It’s still a good idea to send your child in with layers, but we’re making progress. Thanks to the PA for that generous donation.

I hope everyone is staying healthy and sane. Hang in there folks!

Yours,
Bradley