Dear DGS Families,
We’re looking forward to connecting with you virtually tomorrow evening and Friday morning to talk about your adolescent’s progress, growth and achievement at school since September. A School Messenger with a Microsoft Teams Meeting link will be sent out today from the teachers that you have made a conference booking with. We can’t stress enough that while this is one scheduled opportunity for conversation, teachers are always happy to connect with you outside of their instructional times to talk about how your child is doing at school. Please do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s teachers should you have any questions or want to check-in. Student progress is also updated bi-weekly in all core Subject Areas in PowerSchool.
Digital Citizenship and Social Media
Students are becoming more and more aware of issues that can arise on social media. On some occasions an issue may occur outside of school hours on social media which then can spill over into the school and affect the day-to-day interactions of our students. One area of difficulty is student’s participation in Group Chats on platforms like Snapchat. Students can be invited into conversations which they don’t necessarily want to participate in. We would encourage parents to check in with their children around their social media use. Another great resource is our digital citizenship presentation which can help guide a conversation around digital citizenship.
Book Fair
Our book fair is up and running this week in our Learning Commons. Many students have had the opportunity to explore the fair. Parents are welcome to visit in person between 3:00pm and 4:00pm on Wednesday Nov 23. You can shop from hundreds of items either in-person or online through our Virtual Book Fair extension. Your purchases will help to earn new resources for our school. Classes will have scheduled times during the day for the students to visit the Book Fair and make purchases.
Volunteers are needed to run this event, sign up here!
Cold Weather Preparation
With the onset of this cold weather, we want to make sure everyone has the same information around soft entry, lunchtime, etc. Soft Entry starts at 8:00. We do not open the doors before this time. As of 8:00, teachers are on supervision inside and outside of the building. At lunch, all students are expected to be outside for half of their lunchtime unless the temperature with windchill is colder than -20 degrees Celsius. Please ensure your child is dressed for the weather. We do provide outdoor supervision at lunchtime for students who are committed to being polar bears.
Keeping Sick Students Home
We continue to deal with a higher than is typical absence rate due to illness. We ask that if your child is sick, please keep them home from school, as we want to see all of our community make it through cold and flu season safely. Please continue to phone or email the school each day that your child will be absent, with the reason for the absence (examples: illness, medical appointment, etc.). Teachers will continue to post assignment basics in Google Classroom by 4:00 each day for students to access.
Got Lunch?
We remain a closed campus at lunchtime. We want to remind families that students need to bring their lunch or have it ordered through Healthy Hunger for distribution through the servery. We do have a variety of lower cost items for purchase at the server including Cheese Buns, Ham and Cheeses Buns, and Chocolate Chip Buns from Glamorgan Bakery. Hot water is available for soup through the servery. We are not able to provide access to microwaves for student use. As a reminder, we are not able to receive Skip the Dishes, Door Dash, Uber Eats, etc. in the main office. The driver will be asked to return the delivery to the restaurant.
Course Fees and Lunch Supervision Registration
We have received notice that the courses that have fees associated with them have been added to your account; fees are due when assigned. Also please note: all grade 6 students that stay at school for lunch should be registered to do so.
Fees and registration can be found on your MyCBE account.
Upcoming Dates:
November 22 – 28 (revised)
November 23
November 24
November 25
November 29
December 15
December 22
January 9
As always, please feel free to contact me at csmalette@cbe.ab.ca OR 403 817 3556.
Chantal Malette
Principal, Dr. George Stanley School
