Larchmont Fairfax Weekly Update | 9.12.20
IMPORTANT DATES
September 14 - LCS Fairfax Monday Morning Message/Video
September 16 - Wednesday Morning Sing | 9:15 am | Instagram Live
September 16 - Grab n Go Lunches | 12 - 3 pm | FFX Campus
September 21 - Community Group Activity | Peace Day | 9 am
September 25 - Larchmont FFX Parent Coffee | 9 am
September 28 - NO SCHOOL (Yom Kippur)
September 29 - Finance Committee Meeting | 7 - 9 pm
October 2 - Fairfax LOOP (Larchmont Org of Parents) Meeting | 9 am
October 6 - LCS Board Meeting | 6:30 pm
November 4 - NO SCHOOL (Staff Dvpt. Day)
November 11 - NO SCHOOL (Veteran's Day)
You can also subscribe to iCal HERE and have dates imported to your iCal. ALL DATES are available on LARCHMONT SCHOOL ONLINE CALENDAR
FROM YOUR SCHOOL LEADER
Dear Larchmont Fairfax Families:
As you can see, now that our NEW Larchmont website is LIVE, we're upgrading our weekly blast format as well! This new format should be more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly. Additionally, no more having to look back in your email to find old blasts for information. All of these blasts (old and new) will be housed in the website under the Fairfax campus page on our website. Please be sure to look over the website which now houses: teacher websites, bios, the weekly blast, contact information for all staff, lunch menus, important forms, academic information, and more!
It was so nice to see everyone at Back to School Night this week. We hope you found the evening informative and helpful in better understanding your child's classroom as well as larger school issues. We're in a nice groove as we head deeper into our first month of school. Parents, brace yourselves -- it's going to fly by more quickly than you ever could have imagined.
We talked a bit in our back to school orientations and presentations by teachers about how to support students on this distance learning journey. Please click on the link for this new deck of information! Top suggestions from our one of our school psychologists include: (a) making a schedule the night before, (b) using a timer to keep students on track, (c) making a list of strategies to use when kids feel stressed, (d) taking exercise/movement breaks, (e) refocusing by thinking about how they've overcome problems in the past, (f) practicing mindfulness before a tough Zoom class, (g) incorporating lots of play out in nature if possible, and finally, (h) working on growth mindset - overcoming being 'stuck' and then getting 'unstuck' from bad feelings and knowing that they're temporary.
We thought it would be helpful and fun to use these ideas as well as some of your own to make a Recipe for Success for these times and invite you all to do the same so that we can share ideas amongst each other in future weeks. Here's a recipe that we developed in keeping with our Edible Schoolyard Program:
Take a few minutes as a family to come up with your recipe for success and drop it in this Recipe file! We'll share the ideas in the coming week's blasts to help each other!
We hope you're all staying safe and sound in the midst of the fires, and we look forward to seeing everyone on Zoom this coming week.
Larchmont Proud,
Mersedeh, Andi & The Larchmont FFX Team
PE UPDATE
As mentioned in our communication earlier this week, Coach Alan is taking a temporary leave of absence due to childcare issues. Though we are searching as we speak for a more permanent solution for the duration of Alan's absence, we have some great news to share!
Steven Ho, Larchmont FFX parent, renowned martial artist, stunt coordinator, and fitness guru, has very generously offered to help teach PE until Alan's replacement is secured so our students don't lose valuable PE time. As you can tell by his resume´, we could not have asked for a more qualified candidate.
We will need to modify PE times for the time being to accommodate this change.
NEW PE TIMES:
All students will log on at 1 pm on Wednesday. TK/K will stay on for 20 min; grades 1-2 will stay on longer until 1:30 pm, and grades 3-4 will stay on the full time until 1:40 pm. If any of our younger students wish to stay on longer, they are welcome to do so!
TK/K: Wednesday 1-1:20 pm | Zoom link will be shared by teachers
Grades 1-2: Wednesday 1-1:30 pm | Zoom link will be shared by teachers
Grades 3-4: Wednesday 1-1:40 pm | Zoom link will be shared by teachers
We appreciate your flexibility with our temporary schedule change in order to keep PE going and will keep you updated on developments with hiring for PE.
COMMUNITY GROUPS (PEACE DAY)
We'll have our first community group activity of the year on September 21st at 9 am! Our wonderful Community Group Coordinator, Jamia, has planned a great event. A community group is a group of about 10 students from various grade levels and a teacher other than the student's own teacher. The purpose is to help students get to know a broad range of adults and children in our school community so they always have someone to go to.
This will be our first time trying community groups on Zoom so it'll be a little different than our standard community group protocol during brick and mortar schooling.
All 244 students will log on to Zoom at 9 am on Sept 21 (Zoom link will be shared prior to this time). We'll all share in a special Peace Day discussion and then we'll divide up into breakout community groups for a special peace activity. We're really excited to celebrate Peace Day with the whole school!
SITE COUNCIL
A reminder to please submit your Site Council form to us by Monday! We already have several submissions, but would love to augment our group even more.
Site Council reps meet with Andi and I once per month and they help give input on a whole range of school issues (i.e. budget, facilities, school performance, etc). They also reach out to share information with their respective classes or grade levels. Please consider this great opportunity to lend your voice to some really important topics!
ATTENDANCE REMINDERS
Teachers will be taking attendance every day in their live Zoom classes, including each Wednesday. If your child is going to be absent (both synchronously and asynchronously) for any reason, please email the teacher and ffxattendance@larchmontcharter.org. To receive credit for attending asynchronously (not live/zoom) students/parents must both:
Log into Seesaw or view the teacher's assignments via their websites to access and complete assignments AND
Complete the Distance Learning Attendance Certification Form.
Notify your teacher & email ffxattendance@larchmontcharter.org as you normally would via email by 8:15am if your student cannot attend synchronously or asynchronously.
Questions about attendance? Email our office manager, Tess Trillo, at maritess.trillo@larchmontcharter.org.
INTERVENTION/ACADEMY CLASSES
As you know, beginning of year assessments are now underway in all classes. We are beginning to formulate our intervention/academy classes and will be notifying parents of recommendations for intervention in the next week should it be necessary. Students are selected for Academy based on academic data in the subjects of Reading and Math. Early intervention is a key Larchmont commitment for the success of our students and we look forward to launching our first round of intervention shortly.
ELD CLASSES (English Language Development)
English Language Development classes for students identified as English Language Learners are being scheduled with teachers as we speak. Students classified as ELLs (English Language Learners) based on the home language survey and English learner assessment will receive additional designated small group support to aid in the acquisition of English. We're able to offer this additional support because we have an extra credentialed teacher known as an Academic Specialist/ELD Coordinator, Tatiana Ignatenko. Teaching second-language learners to understand, speak, read, and write in English is a key aspect of instruction for Larchmont. A strong ELD program is absolutely essential to each school’s effort to close the achievement gap because it equips students with the English language skills they need to fully participate in content learning. Families of students to whom this applies will receive notification of the child's ELD class schedule over the course of the next two weeks.
TIK TOK WARNING
We'd like to encourage families to closely monitor any Tik Tok usage by our Larchmont Fairfax students. This past week, there were graphic and violent images that were being shared with young children on Tik Tok. Please exercise close supervision should your child use the app. Ideally, our hope would be that our elementary-aged students not access this app until they are older.