August 14, 2024
Greetings Mountaineer Parents/Guardians:
It has been a very exciting and successful start of the school year, and I wish to thank everyone who has helped make it such a huge success. It was a pleasure to see many of you at our registration. I invite you to attend the school’s Open House Social/Family Night, Tuesday, August 27 3:30 - 5:30 PM to celebrate the wonderful learning experiences taking place in our classrooms each day. It is an honor and a privilege to work with such an amazing team of professionals and so many families dedicated to excellence in education.
Our school theme this year is “One School, One Team, Making a World of Difference” and it ties in with our school’s mission of stewardship. It is the school’s belief that the instruction of each child must be the shared responsibility of the student, school, family, caregivers, and community. I appreciate your support as you ensure that your child arrives each morning on time and has good attendance the rest of this school year, having a minimum of 8 hours of sleep the night before. We have a school wide goal to have a 95% attendance rate and lower the school’s chronic absenteeism rate by 2%. Chronic absenteeism is defined by the State of Tennessee of any student that misses 15 days of school or more, excused or unexcused. With your assistance in getting your child to school on time every day, we are sure that we can make our mark in the community and State with our high attendance rate. The school has several individual and class incentives/rewards for students that have perfect/good attendance rates.
UPDATED SEVIER COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM ATTENDANCE POLICY: The school must have a parent note or doctor's note within 2 days of the student’s absence. Any note turned in after the deadline will not be accepted and the absence will be marked unexcused. Please refer to the student handbook with regards to the Attendance Policy.
Our parent surveys help us see areas the school is doing well and areas we need to improve. Parent survey results indicated parents need better communication about school events and school closure:
For school closure, the Sevier County Director of Schools makes the decision to close school, delay arrival times, or dismiss early. Our staff finds out like parents, via the phone call from the central office. If you do not receive the phone call, please let our office staff know so that they can be sure to turn in your correct number for school closure notices. Closures are also announced on 105.5 radio station, posted on the District and School website, as well as on local news channels. We will do our best to push this out once we become aware ourselves, using Parent Square, class dojo, and the school’s social media accounts, and we appreciate your understanding.
UPDATED CONTACT INFORMATION: Please communicate to the office staff and your child’s teacher if you have a change of address or phone number. The phone number on your child’s emergency card is the one that will be utilized to contact you during school closures, delays, or early dismissals.
For upcoming school events, field trip updates, and grade level happenings, and other school related topics are on the school website, announced in Parent Square, and posted in the six weeks newsletter.
Each teacher has an email account you can access off the school website. Please keep in mind, your best source for information is your child’s classroom teacher.
EARLY CHECKOUTS AND RELATING MESSAGES. Please be aware that we discourage checking out your child between 2-3:00 PM. We attempt to teach close to the dismissal time. When students are checked out early, it is very disruptive to instruction. Also, the secretaries are unable to give messages to students during the school day. Please be sure that you review your information and expectations with your child before your child comes to school in the morning. Be sure you communicate any transportation changes in writing to your child’s teacher. We cannot ensure late afternoon transportation changes can be fulfilled as the buses load and leave quickly.
Here are important upcoming dates for your awareness:
August 27: 3:30 - 5:30 Open House 3:30 - 5:30 PM
August 27: Beta Club Induction 4:00 PM
August 30 - September 3: No School Labor Day Holiday
September 9-10 and September 12-13: 6th Grade Environmental Center Field Trip; more forthcoming information
September 17: 5th Grade Parks as Classroom field trip; more forthcoming information
September 18: End of Six Weeks
September 19: Parent/Teacher Conferences 3:30 - 5:30 PM
September 19: 2nd Grade Parks as Classroom field trip; more information forthcoming
September 20: Picture Day, Individual School Pictures; more information forthcoming
September 25: 6th Grade Parks as Classroom field trip; more information forthcoming
September 26: Grade Card Day
September 27: Kindergarten Parks as Classroom; more information forthcoming
In closing, I look forward to working with you this school year as Together We Are, One School, One Team, Making a World of Differnece.
Carey Woods, Principal
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