Month at a glance

FROM THE PRINCIPALS

Blaine Primary and Elementary School Families,

This April edition of this newsletter includes all P-5 families, as we hope to keep everyone connected to school routines at both Blaine Primary and Elementary Schools. In addition to other updates and announcements from the Blaine School District, we’ll continue to publish a monthly newsletter for P-5 students and families. We know that not being in school for the past three weeks is not normal, but our intention is to provide some consistency for families as we are away from our school family. With the governor’s announcement of school closures for the remainder of the current year, we feel this communication is more important than ever.

First of all, please know that we can safely speak for all staff across our schools and share that we truly miss our students and families! Education is so much about relationships and when we aren’t able to engage in those daily interactions with our students and families, it’s like being a fish out of water. We’ve entered the unknown in so many ways, but when these types of events happen it only increases our awareness of how important schools and our community organizations are. We’re all adapting to a strange reality and the pace at which change is occurring could give someone whiplash. We can all take comfort that even in the absence of being in a common space together, we are still a family. Not unlike many families that are separated from their loved ones right now, we will work together to weather this storm and come out stronger on the other side with a deeper appreciation for what we have. 

As we move into April we want you to be aware of planning and programs that will be coming your way. We can’t possibly update you on everything or answer all the questions that families are wondering about, but we’ll start here and plan to continue to respond to your needs through future newsletters and other P-5 and Blaine School District communications. Here are a few updates:

  • Continuous learning opportunities – Next week will mark the launch of continuous learning materials coming to families. We’ve begun by distributing these learning materials in packet (paper) form, which will be mailed to your home. We are starting with packets as we are still working to establish technology access for all families and set up online platforms (Google Classroom), so that students and families can work online to complete continuous learning opportunities. Please note the instructions for “joining a Google Classroom” are included with this newsletter. Google Classroom will be the main online platform used by staff moving forward.

  • Kindergarten Registration/Orientation and Class Placement for the 2020-21 school year.

    We are still in the process of setting these systems up, but please be assured that we will publish information later this month about both of these topics. All families will have an opportunity to provide input as part of the classroom placement process. All students in current grade levels will be promoted to the next grade level as would typically happen in a normal school year. We will set up opportunities for students moving from primary to elementary (2nd to 3rd grade) and elementary to middle (5th to 6th grade) to engage in orientation/transition events.

  • Acquiring Student/Family personal items at school. In the coming months we will make a plan for families to access their child’s items left in the school/classroom. Please stay tuned for more information about this at a later date.

  • Technology Access – If you are in need of internet services or technology access, please be sure to let your child’s teacher know. We’ve begun distributing some devices this week to those families that are in need of technology access.

  • Address or Phone Number Updates– At this time it’s really important that we have up to date contact information for families. If you have any updates for us please contact:

    Blaine Primary School
    Dawn Corcorran (dcorcorran@blainesd.org)
    Sheila Giffen (sgiffen@blainesd.org)
     
    Blaine Elementary School
    Denise Magnusson (dmagnusson@blainesd.org)
    Kim Ellis (kellis@blainesd.org)

    In spite of all the challenges in our world, we wish you a happy April and look forward to serving all of our families in the coming months! 

    Craig Baldwin               Lindsay Nowakowski                 Michelle Mckeown
     P-5 Principal               P-5 Assistant Principal             P-5 Assistant Principal 

    Please click here to download the rest of the Final newsletter, including information from the Counselors and other important resources.