Principal June Year End Message

Dear Mount Hope Parent(s)/Guardian(s), 

As we approach the final days to end this school year under very different and atypical circumstances, we wanted to extend our appreciation to our families who worked closely and partnered with our staff to provide our students with opportunities to continue their distance learning in the comfort and safety of their homes. We truly could not have accomplished our tasks without the support and dedication of our parents!  Our students have been exposed to many unique learning opportunities and our hope is  that distance learning has instilled the importance of valuing learning wherever it takes place in life.  Learning is a lifelong skill that takes place in any setting particularly when health and safety is what governs our daily living conditions at present.  We recognize that the structure of back to school is unknown for September however the government and Public Health will be providing guidelines for what back to school will look like for us at Mount Hope in the fall.  

We encourage all of our families to listen to the media for updates, follow our board website messaging and subscribe to our school website by clicking on the subscribe button on our main page.  This will provide you with current and up to date messaging on how HWDSB will proceed with school re-opening in the fall.  We appreciate your patience and understanding as the decision making and protocols will focus on the safety and well being of student access to schools based on Public Health & Ministry guidelines.  

During the month of June our students and families were exposed to our Virtual Jump Rope for heart fundraiser to promote heart health and healthy active living. We hope our families had an opportunity to join the live stream on June 19th and we thank you for your donations to such a worthy foundation.  Encouraging a healthy active lifestyle is important for both physical and mental well being over the summer months when the weather is in our favour to be active and enjoying the outdoors.  

With the end of the year approaching, we have news to share with regards to our staffing changes.  We congratulate Mrs. Farah on her retirement in June.  We thank her for her years of service to the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board supporting Mount Hope and the various schools throughout her career.  We also will be saying farewell to Mrs. DiFalco &  Mdm. Ducharme who will be moving on to a new assignment to support the system full time in September.  We will also have our occasional staff leaving us at the end of the year.  Thank you to Mrs. Marshall for dedicating her time to support FDK and our school community this past year.  Ms. Prevost our Educational assistant will also be moving on to support the system in a full time position. On behalf of the Mount Hope staff we would like to take this opportunity to thank our departing staff members for their dedication to our staff, students &  our school community. Our updated 2020-21 school team will be posted on our school website in September.  

We are fortunate to have such a dedicated staff that takes pride in celebrating milestones in our student’s lives. As our Senior Kindergarten students transition from a play based learning model to a Grade 1 classroom, our FDK team wanted to celebrate this transition and will provide our FDK families with a Kinder Grad Presentation by class for our parents and families to enjoy online.   The time, effort and planning that went into celebrating this milestone with our students will be remembered. We thank our Kindergarten team for their creativity and drive to provide our Kindergarten families with a memorable video clip to cherish!

Our graduating class of 2020 will be honoured and recognized through Mount Hope’s Graduation Presentation that has been prepared digitally for our Gr. 8 families. Thank you to our Graduation committee for all their efforts to recognize our graduates and honour their skills and success through the virtual presentation that includes speeches and award recognitions.

Term 2 Reports cards will be sent home electronically by the board.  The board will send your child’s report card via School messenger once the system is prepared to  send them off to families.  In order to access your child’s report card via email you will require your child’s OEN Number and a functioning email address that is in our board database. Your child’s OEN number can be found on their Progress Report sent out in the fall of this year or any prior reports they have received. You will find the number located at the top of page one of the report.      

To end the year, our in-school team engaged in the process of class building for next year. Many factors must be considered by our classroom teachers and learning teams when placing students in their classes for next year. To honour the integrity of the class building process, our students were placed into their next grade class by their current grade teachers. As educators, this is a very important task – one that requires much insight, professionalism and knowledge about our students as learners in order to create an effective classroom learning environment. Recognizing this, our teachers are solely responsible for the class building process given they know your child’s learning needs best.   As a result, parental requests are not a part of the class building process. We thank you for respecting the integrity of this process and trusting your child’s teacher and our in-school team in placing & communicating your child’s next grade teacher in June.  Class placement has been recorded on your child’s report card.  Thank you for honouring the professionalism of our school staff. 

As we come to the end of this school year, we recognize and reflect upon the success, achievement and required flexibility and patience that our staff, parents & students have had to rely on collectively.   As a collaborative team we value the importance of building strong relationships with home and school and we appreciate the support that we have received from our Mount Hope families as we embarked on a new journey of distance learning!

We hope you enjoy the remainder of the month of June and wish you a wonderful summer holiday to look forward to, keeping health & safety in mind. Take care and we look forward to the opportunity to be together again when schools reopen. 

Sincerely,   Ms. Radojevic   

Principal – Mount Hope School