Coleman Elementary School

Words directly from an elementary parent. We're so thankful for you, too! https://www.facebook.com/1265340039/posts/10223494058440682/

Good Afternoon, This is Coleman Community Schools' Superintendent, Jen McCormack.  Happy Labor Day Weekend! Thank you all for a great start to the school year with in-person and online students participating and signing in on time, connecting with us and following the rules for safety. We've been really impressed and let's keep that up this coming week. The students and staff faired far better than our tents placed at the two buildings for outdoor lessons, but we are working to resolve that issue, too. We really appreciate having you back.  I wanted to share with you a couple pieces of great news that you may have already heard a little bit about. This past Wednesday, the USDA announced an extension of federal food and nutrition waivers through December 31, or when funding runs out, whichever comes first. While our Elementary students were already receiving FREE breakfast and lunch through our qualified CEP program, Jr./Sr. High students were only receiving a free breakfast. Due to this extension, ALL K-12 students, both online and in-person will be provided with a FREE breakfast AND lunch during this extension. Online students need to sign up at the link already provided to parents. It will be HIGHLY important that all families fill out the Household Report/Free &Reduced Application. When we do revert back to our regular school lunch program, your students Free and Reduced status based on these forms, will be in effect again. The Title funding the school receives from the applications are very important. Title provides funding for paraprofessionals, classroom books, training, tech devices, tech support,field trips, homeless student support and more on an annual basis. If you have not yet sent in your application/household report, please do so now. We want to ensure that your student is being charged accordingly when we go back to our regular program and that we continue to receive as much Title funding as possible to support our students and their programs. With regard to Athletics, on Friday, Executive Order 2020-176 was released late in the day allowing competition to begin immediately, allowing volleyball to begin indoors and football to begin starting this coming week. All football teams will be placed in the first round of playoffs per MHSAA. With this announcement, strict guidelines for spectators and safety are in place. Only two (2) spectators will be allowed per participant and Coleman Schools will be requiring participants list those people prior to events, both home and away. Social distancing will be expected as well as masks when spectators are in close contact (within 6 ft.) and indoors. Scheduling and other details are in progress as area Athletic Directors meet and will be released as we have them. This is exciting news for our student athletes and the community! We are working to determine if rules will be relaxed and we are able to Livestream the games to you. More to come on that.  While football will resume, we are postponing Homecoming at this time due to the fact that all Homecoming activities would not likely be able to happen at this time under the orders. Also, in order to ensure cleanliness and emphasize safety for our district and visiting student athletes, district athletic facilities will still remain closed to outside organizations.  Please watch for more detail on the rules we will need to follow in order to continue athletics for our students and thanks in advance for your working with us on this.  Finally, for those who are transported on district buses, please keep in mind that student drop-off/pick-up is limited to only custodial/guardian stops that you have established for your child with the Transportation Department and Mr. Cowell. Students are only allowed to ride to custodial/guardian stops and not to  friends' homes. This is especially important this year as we are reducing the co-mingling of students on buses during the pandemic and ensuring we can contact trace should there be an issue. Thank you for assisting with this.  I hope you are have a relaxing weekend with family and friends. See you on Tuesday!

For Elementary In-Person First Day Beginning and End of Day information, please go to https://drive.google.com/file/... For "A Day in the Life" for K-6 this year, including when students can arrive on school grounds, breakfast and more, you can find it at https://drive.google.com/file/... Online Learning Academy parents will receive an email later today as well.