Dear RMS Parents and Families,
It sure has been a rainy and yucky week outside, but it’s been wonderful inside as we saw the return of students in the building. Some of the updates below are repeated from last week because we have our next cohort of students coming on Monday. We are looking forward to seeing Cohort 3 on Monday. Please be sure to scroll down past item #6 for important new information.
1. Plan B Returning to School: We are looking forward to seeing our cohorts on the weeks listed below. These dates will take us up until we track out at the end of March. Students may not attend school outside of their assigned cohort.
a. Cohort 3 / C: Weeks of February 22nd and March 15th
b. Cohort 1 / A: Weeks of March 1st and March 22nd
c. Cohort 2 / B: Week of March 8th
2. Arrival:
a. Carpool: Please pull as far forward as possible in the carpool lane. Students should wait in their vehicle until a staff member comes to complete the required health screening, which includes a temperature check. Please remember to turn your heat off prior to arriving to school. If your child registers a temperature of 100.4 or higher, they will need to wait a few minutes to be re-screened before they may enter the building.
b. Bus: Students will exit the bus at the direction of staff members outside monitoring bus arrival. Each student will go through the required health screening, including a temperate check.
3. Updates to Carpool Dismissal: Please share this information with your child if they will go home through carpool in the afternoon. 7th and 8th grade students will come down the center stairwell and out the front doors. This is a change from going down the pod stairwells and then down the center hall. This is the only time the center stairs should be used for "downstairs movement". 6th grade students will dismiss from electives so they should come down the center hallway and outthe front doors.
4. Carpool Names: Because of the need for a controlled dismissal of students to ensure social distancing we have been calling students by name this year. To make this process more efficient we now have carpool tags. We will be handing these out each afternoon as we rotate through cohorts. Please hang these from your mirror at dismissal so we can send names inside to be announced.
5. Updated Eating & Drinking Guidelines: The district has provided new guidance around eating and drinking during the school day to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Please review this information closely with your child this weekend.
Cafeteria
a. All students must keep their mask on until all students are seated. They will be directed as to when they can take their mask off to begin eating. While waiting for everyone to sit they can take their items out and prepare to eat.
b. Students may not socialize while their mask is off and they're eating.
c. Their mask must be put back on as soon as they are done eating.
d. Once they are done eating and masks are back on they may socialize with those to their right or left (Tables are set up to allow for the 6 feet of distance between students).
e. They may not turn to talk around to talk to students who are sitting behind them.
Water breaks in the classroom:
Students may no longer individually take their mask off to drink water. Teachers will be scheduling brief water breaks 2-3 times during each class.
6. Laptops: For students who do not have a school-issued or personal device, they may borrow one each day at school. The process for students who need a laptop will be the same as it was in the first semester. They will pick it up each morning on their way to class at the Media Center and will drop it off in the afternoon.
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7. Talent Show: The Arts Department is proud to announce that we will be having a school talent show, which will take place March 25, online. It will be shared through Google Meet's livestream function. Submissions can be vocal or instrumental music, dance, poetry, theatrical monologues/skits, etc. We will also share visual art contributions.
Auditions will take place via flipgrid between March 1 and 14 and must be submitted through Flipgrid. The link to do this is: https://flipgrid.com/53d1a561. Visual art submissions should be sent to Ms. Rogers directly.
8. Athletics: We have had several students sign up for sports, which begins next week. However, many students are missing one or more of the required documents needed to be able to attend. All documents should be sent via email to the athletics email address found in the flyer. You can check out the RMS 2020 – 2021 Athletics Flyer for more information.
Next week, Cohort 3 students and VA students who have been assigned to Cohort 3 for sports are the only students who may attend. VA students should be dropped off out front at 3:25. Please do not leave until your child has gone through the health screening and paperwork and cohort have been confirmed. They flyer also includes important information about picking students up at 5:00 pm, as well as activity bus routes that can be utilized.
9. High School on the Horizon: Attention parents of 8th grade students - Please check under the parents tab on our homepage to view our virtual High School on the Horizon parent presentation. If you still have questions after the presentation, you can sign up for one of our live FAQ sessions hosted by the counselors.
10. Next Wednesday: Please note that next Wednesday, February 24th is a district-identified Remote Learning (RL) day. Remember that on these dates Plan B students do not report to school and all work is asynchronous (no live classes).
11. Additional Remote Learning Days: At the school board meeting last week,three additional RL days were added to the calendar. These dates are:
a. March 3rd
b. April 21st
c. May 19th
12. Single Subject Acceleration (SSA): SSA is the practice of assigning a student to a higher grade level course for the purpose of providing access to appropriately challenging learning opportunities in either math or ELA. An online parent information meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 23rd, at 6:00 with Mrs. Warren. Please contact Mrs. Warren with any questions: lwarren@wcpss.net
Meeting Link: https://meet.google.com/gfs-eens-jvh
Sincerely,
Thaddeus Sherman
Principal
Rolesville Middle School
