Preserving the Learning Environment

You probably have heard that a neighboring school system has decided to ban visitors to the main office of its district’s schools. Whether or not one agrees with how the district is responding to its concerns, the issue is a real one.

All of our kids forget things from time to time, and I have also been known to drop off something my child needed at school. But there are parents who come to school often to take their kids out for appointments or activities or to bring a forgotten item. Some parents come to school every day to deliver lunch.

When you have over 1,150 students in a school, even if only 10% of the parents come in with a lunch, instrument, homework, dress clothing for a concert, project, or for early dismissal, our office staff has to accommodate over a hundred visitors. Our secretaries tracked visitors for a couple of days in June and discovered that the doorbell rang more than 175 times in one day. The point is that we can do better.

Please help your son or daughter with the organizational pieces at home in terms of planning ahead for what they need and helping them to get it together the night before. Lunch should also be a part of the planning for kids to learn how to take care of themselves, including a contingency plan if they forget to bring lunch.

Of greatest importance to me is that we preserve the learning environment in our school. We will not interrupt classes by either using the public address system or calling individual classrooms. While I understand that it is sometimes necessary to take children out of school for various appointments, it should be avoided if possible.

If it is necessary, please inform your child of the time he or she needs to be picked up and tell him or her to be in the office at that time. To facilitate this process, give your child a note to be brought to the attendance secretary before school starts on the morning of the appointment. The secretary will record the information, initial the note and return it to your child who will use it as a pass with the classroom teacher. 

We want the classroom learning environment unmarred by interruptions over the public address system, and we aim to encourage students to take more responsibility for where they should be. 

We will not interrupt classes to call students to the office for any reason. These calls, if necessary, will only be made during the change of classes.