The GMA Gazette

9/4 - Labor Day, no school

9/7 - Middle School Meet the Teacher event, 5:30-6:30 pm

9/15 - First Day of Hispanic Heritage Month

9/27 - GMA Board of Directors Meeting, 5:30 pm in the Birch Room

9/27 - PTO Meeting, 6:30 pm in the Birch Room

10/4 - Parent/Teacher Conferences, 4-7 pm

10/5 - Early Release Day - All Pre-K dismiss at 11:30 am - All K-8 dismiss at 12:00 pm

10/5 - Parent/Teacher Conferences, 12:30-5 pm

10/6 - Early Release Day - All Pre-K dismiss at 11:30 am - All K-8 dismiss at 12:00 pm

10/9-13 - Fall Break - no school

10/20 - End of Quarter One

10/27 - Q1 Progress reports shared electronically with families

Each year the Board of Directors approves the Student-Family Handbook to include any updates that have been made from the previous year. The handbook is posted on our school website under the Parents tab.

A few items that should be noted as they will be enforced at school:

1. Please review the section on the School & Family Partnership beginning on page 13.
2. Take a moment to review and understand the dress code with your child. This can be found starting on page 33 of the handbook. Please note that costumes of any kind are not appropriate school attire unless there is a dress-up day as a part of spirit week or another approved event. Headbands with ears, pom-poms, hats, bandanas, etc., or tails of any kind are not appropriate school attire. Pajamas may only be worn on our schoolwide PJ Day, which is the last day of school before Winter Break.
3. Rips in pants must not expose skin above the length of the fingertip when the arm is extended to the student's side.
4. Parents will be called to bring a change of clothes to school for their child. If the parent cannot be reached, the student will be required to change into clothes that may be available in the clinic.

Please be sure to notify the school if your child will be absent. Families should call the front office at (317) 813-4626 and select option 1 from the menu to reach the attendance line.

Our office staff makes daily attendance calls to families at 10:00 am after classroom teachers have submitted their attendance for the day. We want to make sure our students are safe and healthy when they are not here at school with us. Thank you for your help in reporting attendance in a timely manner.

We use OneCall Now as our mass communication system to send out alerts, updates, and school-wide communication such as The GMA Gazette. Most communications are sent through email, with a text alert to notify you that something has been sent from GMA.

When school is closed or delayed due to inclement weather, especially in the unpredictable Indiana winters, it is important that families receive the notification quickly and easily. The best way to ensure that you don't miss an announcement from GMA is to sign up for text alerts!

It's simple to sign up. Just text the word alert to 22300. That's it!

Please contact Ms. Beth at blarock@gma.k12.in.us if you have questions or need to add an additional phone number or email address to our OneCall Now system.

You may have heard that the Indiana Legislature passed a new state law (IC 20-33-7.5) that requires schools to notify parents of requests made by students to change the student's name or pronouns. For example, it is fairly common for a student named Madelyn to go by the name Maddie at school.

To ensure compliance with the new law, we are asking that parents/guardians please update their student's preferred name in PowerSchool prior to the first day of school. Parents/guardians should login to PowerSchool and navigate to the "Forms" page. From there, please select "Form A" and be sure to complete the fields labeled "Legal First Name," "Legal Last Name," and "Preferred First Name."

Making sure that these forms are up to date in your child's PowerSchool profile will help us as we work to make the first day of school fantastic for everyone.

Thank you for taking care of this important update.

GMA is excited to announce new opportunities for students to participate in clubs and enrichments this year! Our dedicated teachers and staff are committed to offering these extracurricular offerings throughout the year for all students at GMA. In order to provide these opportunities, families will be asked to pay a participation fee to cover the costs of the activities their child(ren) participate(s) in.

Be on the lookout for information on new opportunities in the coming weeks as some clubs and enrichments will run for shorter spans of time and some will be offered at various points in the year.

The first two opportunities are starting soon! See below for information.

Our new Music Teacher will be starting a choir for students in grades 5-8 this year! Ms. Meg will be holding a call-out meeting on Wednesday, September 13 from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm. If your student is interested in choir, please plan for them to stay after school that day. Parents are also encouraged and welcome to come!! If your student or yourself will be attending this meeting do Ms. Meg a favor and fill out this Google Form https://forms.gle/A5c63m88JCnpse8t5 so she knows how many students to expect with me after school! We are so excited about this opportunity and thrilled to have Ms. Meg bring this musical experience to GMA!

The first PTO meeting of the year was held on Wednesday evening. The turnout was great, with many new parents coming out to get involved. The secret to a strong school community for all of our students and families is parents who get involved and become active members of that community.

Click below to find out more information about how you can be a part of this year's PTO at GMA.

In partnership with CIRTA, GMA is once again offering the School Pool system for families interested in arranging a carpool to/from school.

All families are automatically included in this database system unless you elect to opt-out. If you would like to opt out of this system, please email Ms. Susan immediately at szachary@gma.k12.in.us.

Information is not stored in this database from year to year. Therefore, it is important that you elect to opt-out each school year if you do not wish to be included in this optional system.

All questions relating to the School Pool should be directed to Ms. Susan Zachary at szachary@gma.k12.in.us.

Did you know that Geist Montessori Academy is one of the five Hancock County Public School members of the Hancock County Promise? The Promise program is a program for Kindergarten students and has been a part of Hancock County since 2017. This year the program has a slightly new look (logo) and with the new look, the steering committee has decided to offer a “catch-up” opportunity for any child that has been a part of the kindergarten cohorts since 2017. So, if your child is currently in grades K-6 (class of 2030, 2031, 2032, 2033, 2034, 2035, and 2036) this year and missed their previous opportunity as a kindergartener to sign-up for the Hancock County Promise this year is for you!

What is the Promise program you ask? The Hancock County Promise GIVES you FREE MONEY for your child!!! Yes, that is correct FREE MONEY for your child!!! I know, you are thinking there is a catch....NO!!! There is NO catch!! If you sign-up, you get a FREE CollegeChoice 529 Direct Account for your child and we will deposit a one-time deposit of $25 of community-donated money into the account!!! Do NOT delay, sign-up Today!

1. Please visit our webpage here and click the “how it works” page also found HERE. There are only 8 short steps to sign up!
2. Already have a CollegeChoice 529 Direct Account for your child? Complete The Hancock County Promise form HERE (include your Ugift code) and your child will be part of our program and eligible for all our incentives. Note, you must have a “Direct Account” we cannot link an “Advisor Account”.
3. If you signed up your child previously for the Hancock County Promise you don’t need to do anything as your child is still a part of the program.

The steering committee is also offering eight (8) random drawing scholarships for $250 each!! More information will be shared soon about this scholarship opportunity.

If you have questions please email or call HCP chairperson Dr. Scott Shipley at scott.shipley@mvcsc.k12.in.us 317-485-3100.