Dear David Thompson families,
It was so wonderful to see students returning to school, reconnecting with friends and sharing stories of their summer adventures. In visiting classrooms today, Isabelle Korpela and I were so happy to see students enthusiastic, positive and ready for the school year. Today, students spent the morning in homeroom classes to help students to settle in and build a sense of community. In the afternoon, we followed a mini timetable to meet their teachers and familiarize them with their schedule for tomorrow.
Just as a quick note, we would like to remind parents who are dropping off and picking up students between 7:40 and 8:00am, and 2:30 and 2:45pm, to please use 5th Street at the east end of our school yard. We are trying to minimize traffic and crowding of students at our entrances by only allowing our school buses access Arbour Crescent.
We are continuing to provide healthy lunch items for students. We would like to thank Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids for their ongoing support. We are looking to restart our breakfast program. Mme. Khoo and Mrs. Strickland have generously volunteered to run this program, which provides breakfast items for students at no charge. We are currently looking for donations of shelf stable products. Items in need include: instant oatmeal, granola bars, whole grain cereal, spreads (cheese spread, jam, Wow butter), and perishable items like milk, fruit and yogurt. Items can be dropped off in the office. Thanks in advance for your support.
While we have been focussing a great deal on the physical health of students in our messaging to families, I do want to assure you that the mental health of our students continues to be a top priority. In addition to community building activities in homerooms, we have scheduled an activity day and assembly for Friday to further enhance our sense of belonging to David Thompson School, strengthen our collective identity and make a commitment to embracing diversity. After all, it takes all stripes to be a tiger!
I would like to end by thanking all our staff for their hard work and commitment in making the first day such a success, and thanking our families for helping their children to prepare for the start of the school year.