Nuts & Bolts

Week of January 22, 2018

Schedule Tweaking

I had a fantastic day on the slopes yesterday and enjoyed seeing people and students I knew. I hope that you all did something this weekend to fill your bucket.

Beginning today, the schedule for some of our special education SWAT teams has been updated. These changes were necessary to accommodate the changing needs of our students. If the SWAT team that services your students was affected, you have already been notified via email from Dana. I would like to thank your SWAT team leaders - Dana, Karen, Nikki, Kat, and Lynette - for their hard work and brain power last week in creating this new schedule. This team does difficult "behind the scenes" work and I am so thankful to have them at MMA. I would also like to thank the special education assistants for their excellent attitudes and willingness to step up to help out where needed.

Thank you to each of you for your understanding and flexibility. I realize that change is difficult, especially when it involves our students with special needs. I appreciate your dedication to do what is best for all of our students. If you ever have questions or concerns, please contact Dana or myself.

Have an excellent week!

Construction Update

I can tell students are enjoying their new playground. Status update - we will need more bark for the north playground pit. The bark is supposed to be delivered between 12-1pm today. We will need to move children off the playground and have an adult supervise that area - like we did in the past when the structure was being built.

Thank you all!!

Track it Forward

It was my goal for MMA staff to work with MAPA to have all of our volunteer opportunities and event information in one place, so parents can be efficient in signing up to volunteer. To achieve this goal, MAPA researched many options and started using an excellent new online program called Track it Forward. Using Track it Forward will streamline our volunteer process and allow volunteers who contribute so much to our school to be recognized.

MAPA and I would appreciate it if you would all sign up for Track it Forward encourage all of your parents and other volunteers to sign up as well.

Beginning NOW please use Track it Forward, instead of WeJoin, to organize volunteers, post all sign-ups and events.

Sign up at the website https://www.trackitforward.com/site/mapa. When teachers sign-up, you will be given coordinator status, which means that you can create and manage events on the calendar. If you have technical difficulties, email mapa@mariamontessoriacademy.org.

Lockdown Drill - Great Job!

Thank you all for doing a fantastic job with the lockdown drill! To follow-up and answer a few questions after this drill - If students are in a student bathroom or the hall during a lockdown, they should go to the nearest classroom. If students are in the large bathrooms near the front office, they should stay in the locked bathroom. If students are outside during a lockdown drill, they should find the nearest hiding and shelter.

As a reminder, outside of lockdown drills, all door handles should be in the locked position. You can pull the magnetic strip at the door jam to block the door from actually locking and keeping people out. Structured this way, during an emergency, you would only have to move the strip and not fumble with the door handle.

Classroom Safety Kits

The MAPA Safety Committee came around to classrooms last week to check out your safety bags. We then discussed the most common emergencies that are possible and decided to change a few things in your kits. We feel that the most important things in your safety bags in the classroom will be for entertainment. The items that will be in your bags next week will include: playing cards, inflatable beach ball, fruit snacks, tissues, books, hand sanitizer, and emergency blankets. MAPA will provide two gallons of water per classroom that will stay in the classroom. If, in the event of going outside of the classroom, have your students grab their personal water bottles. If we are stuck outside for a long period of time with a real emergency, we should have access to water through the fire station and North Shore. Please remind your parents how important it is that their children come to school with a water bottle. Thanks so much for your patience,

~MAPA