News from the Office - April 2012

Important Safety Reminders

Yard Supervision

Yard Supervision for Grades JK to 6 begins at 8:35 AM and ends at 3:45 PM. Afternoon Kindergarten supervision begins at 12:45 PM. Parents are responsible for their children’s safety and conduct in the yard before and after these times.

Visitor Sign-In Book

Visitors are requested to sign in at the main office and wear a ‘visitor sticker’. This is a safety measure to ensure that visiting adults are recognized and encouraged to feel welcome in our school. Thank You!

Kiss N' Ride

Do not use the Avenue Road driveway as this is the school bus pick up and drop off area for our students. Please pick up and drop of fyour children at the Kiss N’ Ride designated area on Poplar Plains.

Community Issue

Our neighbours have recently been concerned about cars blocking their driveways during drop off and pickup times. Please ensure that you are not parking in front of anyone's driveway, as they need to be able to get in and out of their own driveway safely and promptly.

There is one-hour parking on Balmoral in the event that you have to come into the school. We do everything we can to cooperate with our neighbours and would appreciate this is taken into consideration.

Safe Arrival Program

The Safe Arrival program is used by parents/guardians and schools to account for any student’s unexplained failure to arrive at school. Please call the school safe arrival number 416-393-1557 before 8:55 AM or 12:30 PM (for an afternoon absence) if your child will not be attending school or plans to be late. This line is available 24 hours a day with voice mail. If your child is absent and we have not heard from you, we will make every effort to contact you using the information provided on the Emergency Form. The name and telephone number of an emergency contact is absolutely essential.

Principal’s Message from the Office of G. Christakis & S. Litner

We are into the final stretch of the school year and as always, it is one of the busiest times of the year!

We continue to encourage our students to wear appropriate clothing to school based on the weather forecast.  We ask students to have their shoes on when outside in the school yard to prevent any accidents or infections. During the warmer days in March, we had many students enjoying recess barefooted.

We would like to say thank you to Gage Love, our Child Youth Worker who has been doing his placement in Mr. Macdonald’s class for the past few months and Emily Wright, our Early Childhood Education student who has been doing her placement in Ms. Warden’s class. Gage and Emily have become an integral part of our team and community at Brown Public School and we wish them well in their future endeavours. They will be missed by our students and staff.

Letters will be going home soon discussing classroom placement for the September 2012-2013 year. We will be working on staffing models in April and May and should have a model ready in June when it is finalized.

Moving?

If you are moving before September, please let the main office know as soon as possible.  As we start planning for school organization for next year, we need to have enrolment data that is as accurate as possible since it affects staffing and class organization.

Heads Up: EQAO Assessments for Grades 3 & 6, May 23 to June 6

The Ministry of Education conducts a province-wide assessment of all students in Grade 3 and Grade 6.  Students are assessed in the areas of math, reading and writing. The assessments will take place during the period from May 23 to June 6. Please make every effort not to book appointments for your children in these grades during the testing days. Thank you and more information will come home to the parents of students in these grades as we move closer to the testing dates.

This month’s Character Education Trait is Co-operation.

Thank you to all for your continued support!
Gina Christakis, Principal & Sonja Litner, Vice Principal