April 2. 2008

From The Principal

Dare I mention April showers with all the snow we had this past winter? Ok, let’s just skip to the May flowers, and I’ll wish you all a happy spring.

Recently, you should have received your child’s progress report. Our teachers work diligently to keep you informed of your child’s progress toward the end of the year benchmarks. This is an exciting time to see how much they have learned over the year. It is also a time that helps us guide individual student learning for the last trimester. Our Response To Intervention (RTI) program runs until the end of the year.
Students not meeting the benchmarks are assisted by the classroom teachers and by our reading specialists.

Thank you for your assistance with having your children say goodbye to you in the morning at the office door. I continue to see smiling faces as they confidently walk themselves to their classrooms. We are also asking all parents to wait outside to meet their children in the afternoon. This also has been a normal procedure, but we have become lax in enforcing it.

As you may or may not know, the office is quite busy the last half hour of the school day. Mrs. Tweedie and Mrs. Quirk are wonderful at keeping level headed, however, more and more parents have been calling in at the last minute to change their child’s after school plans. In order to ensure a smooth dismissal time and guarantee students make it to the right place, we will no longer be able to make last minute arrangements after 2:30 p.m. unless it is an emergency. Please plan accordingly.

South Portland will continue to grant waivers on an individual basis. Waivers can be found at each school and at Central Office. The waivers are due by Thursday, April 17th at noon.
The Committee will consider requests based on the following criteria:
* enrollment in requested school / grade
* educational program needs
* social / emotional needs
* child care needs
* unusual, compelling circumstances... Read entire letter