Welcome to the inaugural electronic Thursday folder including my weekly letter. I am very excited about the resources that we will be saving at every step of the production chain. It will take me some time, though, for me to be re-trained as my letter now will need to be completed prior to 9:00 Wednesday morning. It doesn’t seem like such a big thing, but I have become quite used to the rhythm of writing it Wednesday all the way into Thursday morning when we have a Wednesday event. Ah-h-h, change. 

 

The rhythm thing is big to me. My internal clock is not only set to the earth rotation and revolution, but also to the September through June calendar. The first year I moved to Wisconsin from Beaver Island, I did not teach full time and the first days of September filled me with longing and a sense of being quite unsettled. Only later did I finally realize it was because I was not readying a classroom and greeting a new class of children.  

 

Thanks for coming to Open House last week. Seeing the children’s faces as they show off their ‘during the day life’ to you is priceless. We have such terrific staff members to show off as well. I really like seeing your extended families in the school, too. Did you know that we have many many parents who are graduates of Cumberland? There is deep pride in the experiences that children have at Cumberland and I am thrilled to be a part of it. 

 

I wrote recently about the procedures we follow for Fire and Severe Weather drills. This year, we are adding a Lock Down drill to the procedures we practice. Each school in the district will hold a practice on Wednesday, October 8^th. Working closely with the WFB Police Department as well as in consultation with specialists in the field, we have developed a basic structure that we are starting with.   Teachers will be talking with students ahead of time about the drill, in age appropriate terms, and practicing the steps of the procedure. To aid you in talking with your child about the drill, our procedure for October 8^th will be:

·        I will make an announcement that we need to go into our lock down safe locations. Students will move to the specified place in the classroom.

·        Teachers will lock and close their classroom doors

·        Once we are confident that all students and staff are in their designated locations, I will make an all-clear announcement.

There will be two WFB Police Officers and Gary Siegman, the WFB Director of Buildings and Grounds, on site to help evaluate our procedures and note any additional steps we will need to take. If you do talk with your child ahead of time or afterwards, I encourage you to take a very low-key matter-of-fact approach and keep this in the same framework as the other drills we practice. While we hope not to need these procedures in an actual event, the students’ practice of the Sever Weather Drill really paid off last June. And, if you have ever been at school during a Fire Drill, you have seen how efficiently we are able to evacuate the building.  If you do happen to be in the building during the drill, it will be most helpful if you follow the same procedure of entering the closest classroom and remaining there quietly until the drill is over. 

 

With the real arrival of fall, please encourage your child to dress warmly enough to be outside for a twenty-five minute recess daily. Labeling your child’s coat is a good idea in the event that it is left outside.