Attendance, Exemptions and Transitions
Hello Rockton families,
I hope that you are all holding up well under these difficult circumstances. I would like to give you some important updates:
ATTENDANCE:
ll of our office staff is currently working remotely. We are monitoring our voicemail system throughout the day but for faster service reach out to the office by email at [email protected]. Even though we are working online we are operating within the same daily timetable. Students are expected to be online daily for attendance at 9:00am and 1:40pm. Logging on after 9:00am and 1:40pm may result in being marked as an Unexplained Absence for the entire morning or afternoon and could result in an annoying automated call. If you log on after 9:00am or 1:40pm you are considered late. If your child will be absent, please enter their absence in Safe Arrival or email us at [email protected].
If your Kindergarten child is working on the Learning Package provided by your teacher, you are still asked to connect with the teacher daily to confirm this. This will allow the teacher to mark them as “Present”. If you prefer not to make daily contact, please complete the Exemption Form to advise the teacher of this. If you need to contact your child’s teacher directly it is probably best to email them and feel free to cc it to myself as well ([email protected]).
EXEMPTION
We know that this learning environment is not ideal for many of our students. Students need to log in twice daily for attendance purposes if you would like to have them marked as “Present”. If the teacher knows of an occasional absence it can be marked as “Excused”. If the teacher is unaware of the reason for the absence they are to mark it as “Unexplained” and this will trigger an automated call. If you would like to have your child exempted for any portion of the learning time while we are learning remotely, you will need to complete the Exemption Form in the link below. This form will allow us to mark the child as being away without it being a true absence (also known as a Grant day). Please note that teachers are still asked to post learning opportunities for all students and that their ability to report on a child’s progress towards learning the curriculum for their grade level may be impacted. We understand that this cannot be helped given the school closure and we will do our best to get all students caught up as soon as we return. Please complete the form below and email back to the homeroom teacher and a copy to me (Mr. Clemens). Thank you!
TRANSITION BETWEEN REMOTE AND IN-PERSON LEARNING
Please note that the Parent Portal is open until this Sunday (Jan. 24th) for any parents who wish to make a change to their child’s location for learning next month. If you are presently learning in-person but wish to switch to remote learning at the next transition on Feb. 25th then you will need to let the Board know through the Parent Portal (and this is also true if you know someone who is remote that may want to return to school – please tell them as they likely will not receive this email). If you need assistance with the Parent Portal, please contact Mrs Taylor through email at [email protected].
STEAM LEARNING CLUB
If your child is looking for more screen time or has a passion for Science, Technology & Math, there is a program being offered through a private company. There is a cost for this but you can open the link below for more information.
As always, please feel free to connect with me through email with anything you have questions or concerns about.
Paul
Updated on Thursday, January 21, 2021.