Welcome to the 2020-2021 school year! We are excited for what this year holds and look forward to working with your students and for the start of the school year on August 17.

As a reminder, we send a weekly message on Sundays via text and email. This is one of the few voice messages you will receive this year. If you are not receiving this message through email and/or text, please go to WCPSS.net and navigate to the “Parent” page and then to “School Communication (School Messenger)”. There you will find instructions for updating your preferences. You will want to be certain to select text and/or email as a way to receive messages. You can also find all our weekly messages on our school website under “Mustang News”.

I know many of you are still thinking through registering for Virtual Academy and may have some questions. The window closes at 5pm on Monday. I am including the Virtual Academy Website where you can find a wealth of information in addition to an FAQ and the YouTube recording of the Open House that was held last week. Additionally, we have collected some of our most frequently asked questions and have included them in the linked document. The WCPSS Return to Campus site also contains a wealth of information, including health and safety precautions, learning environments and social emotional learning. I encourage each of you to spend some time, if you have not already, exploring the site.

Our staff is working hard on planning orientations and open house for the new year. We know that they will look different than it has in previous years as we work within the health and safety guidelines provided. Once we have finalized the plans, we will share the details with each of you.

Attention all 7^th grade families: 7^th grade students are required to have a Tdap booster and the meningococcal vaccine. Once you have received the booster and vaccine, please provide the school with a copy of the vaccination as we are required to have it on file.

As I said earlier, we recognize that many of you are still weighing the option of Virtual Academy or attending school in person. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at mmondora@wcpss.net, Dorothy Harrington at dharrington@wcpss.net, Veronica Thompson at vthompson@wcpss.net, or Jeff Kimbro at jkimbro@wcpss.net. We will do our best to answer any questions you might have about Virtual Academy or what the year will look like at Martin.

Have wonderful evening.