Dear Montessori Families,
We hope you are all well. We sure miss everyone! As you may know by now, Governor Sisolak has decided to continue distance learning for K-12 through the end of the school year, which for us is May 22nd. Therefore, we will continue to offer remote learning to Primary through 12th grade.
We know that the extended closure has put stress and hardship on many families and we have appreciated your positive comments while still describing the difficulties you are having. You are our family, and we want to continue to serve our community to the best of our ability.
For early childhood families, we are offering two options:
1. We will continue to offer remote learning for those primary students who have elected to participate.
2. We will reopen on May 4th to offer in-house care and education to those families who are struggling and desperately need our support. On March 16th, we decided it was best to close the entire school for the overall safety of our community and world. As of May 1st, that will be a total of 7 1/2 weeks. At no time during the past 7 weeks has "day care" been required to close, as it is considered an essential business for families who are still working away from home, offering other essential services to our community. Parents in our Montessori family have been requesting us to reopen, and some of them have really suffered without having our school available to them. In order to serve our Montessori family, we will reopen on May 4th for only those families with children 5 and under who need care. We sincerely ask families that do not need care to continue using remote learning as their first option. If you do need care, please email us to confirm attendance beginning May 4th, so we can get an estimated number of students. During May we will be open from 8am to 4pm only, with no extended care for this first month of reopening.
In order to be as safe as possible, we will put strict safety procedures in place in order to keep our staff and students safe when we reopen, following Health Department and CDC guidelines:
1. We require that all parents ensure that students are well before coming to school each day.
2. We require that if a family or a teacher has been exposed or knows anyone that has been exposed, that they do not come to school for at least 14 days from the date of exposure. Please notify the school immediately upon knowledge of exposure. The school will also inform families of those in attendance for any information of exposure.
3. We encourage families who have vulnerable people in their household to not attend.
3. Drop off and pick up will take place outside of the building only, and only one child or family of children will be escorted into the building by a teacher at a time. The teachers will wear a mask and gloves while gathering children from cars. During May, we will extend drop off to be between 8am and 9am and extend pick up to be between 3pm and 4pm.
4. No parents or visitors will be allowed in the building unless wearing a mask and gloves. We ask visitors to bring their own mask and gloves as it is difficult to acquire these items in bulk, though we will have a few on hand when needed.
5. Parents will be required to take the child's temperature in the presence of the teacher before the child gets out of the car using their own thermometers, or the teacher will take the child's temperature before the parent leaves and before the child comes into the building. No child or teacher may attend with a temperature of 100 or higher.
6. Each person will wash hands upon entering the building and throughout the day, especially if a cough or sneeze happens. This means that teachers will immediately help children wash hands when they arrive and throughout the day. Teachers must also wash hands upon arrival and throughout the day.
7. We anticipate that class sizes will be small based on those families who do not need care and those families that will continue remote learning. We will keep the groups of students separated at all times so that there is no commingling between classrooms, with staggered recesses and sanitizing playgrounds between groups.
8. We will not offer before care or after care so we do not commingle groups. Therefore, we will be open from 8am to 4pm daily during May.
8. Classrooms and materials will be sanitized thoroughly at the end of each day and during the day, as needed.
We do ask that all families stop by to collect your student's belongings from your child's campus sometime between 8am and 4pm daily, Monday through Friday, during the week of 5/4-8/2020, if possible. We will have them in bags in the lobby ready to go. We ask that you just remain in your car and call the campus when you arrive. A teacher wearing a mask and gloves will bring the bag to your car. We will not have the yearbooks yet, but we will have the Student Treasure books, items from cubbies and file folders, family photos, etc. Yearbooks will not be available until the end of the school year. We also ask that you return any items that belong to the school, including library books and homework books.
We are so excited to host our PTO Auction remotely for the week of 5/4-10/2020. The students and teachers have worked hard to make these beautiful items throughout the year and we know they will bring special memories to your family. Please visit our auction website for more information at https://www.32auctions.com/MVA. We will be doing all of the auction through this website, so make sure you visit and place your bids before it ends on 5/10/2020 at 6pm.
We will be enjoying Spirit Week next week with you either at school or at home and invite you to participate by having a
Remote Spirit Assembly on Friday, 5/1, (dress in school spirit green and yellow) and then dress in Spirit Week attire as follows:
Decade Monday 5/4 - dress in your favorite decade such as 80's tie dye or 50's poodle skirts
Cinco Tuesday, 5/5 - dress or do something to celebrate Cinco de Mayo
Character Wednesday 5/6 - dress in your favorite book character such as Harry Potter or Pete the Cat
Pet Thursday, 5/7 - dress like an animal or spend time with your pet or stuffed animal today
Pajama Friday, 5/8 - wear pajamas today (so dress like you usually do during COVID-19 :)
If you are at school during Spirit Week, please remember to have closed toed shoes and socks daily in order to enjoy recess.
During Spirit Week 5/4-8, we also invite you to participate in Teacher Appreciation Week by sending a note, or making a picture, or doing something to show your teachers that you appreciate them. We are so very proud of our teachers and how hard they have worked this year. We are also amazed and grateful for their proactive move to remote learning.
We do plan on offering Summer Camp, which will begin on 5/26/2020, with a full Spanish Immersion option. We will have the above safety protocols in place during Summer to continue staying safe, though the extended care may resume and the extended drop off time may be limited.
We look forward to seeing you all back again for the new school year. Make sure you have re-registered for the 2020/21 year by sending an email to confirm and paying the registration fee. The discounted fee of $175 will continue through May 31st.
We look forward to the time when we can all be together again. In the meantime, we wish you health and safety!