April 9, 2021

April 9, 2021

Dear Families,

The extra days this past weekend felt like a gift. I hope you were able to spend them as a family and enjoy your time together. With the nicer weather and flowers starting to bloom, spring is truly here! We are truly thrilled to have our in-person learners return full-time next week. There is no better feeling than to walk the halls of our school and see the incredible faces and “smiling eyes” of our students! 

Dates of Note:

  • April 12: All In-Person Students A-Z Report 
  • April 12: Students return with PE Bag, Art Bag, and Keyboard
  • April 13: Students may begin bringing back literacy materials
  • April 22: Breakfast with Your Buddy - 7:15am - 8:00am (See PTO Blog for more information)
  • April 30: 1/2 Day 8:30am-11:45am Asynchronous (Do Not Report to School)

As always, our school team is here to support your family. If your child is struggling with the transition, please don’t hesitate to reach out and we will partner together to ensure a smooth welcome back to school. For our students that are remaining “zoomies” for the remainder of the year, we are here for you, too! 

Let’s make these last eight weeks of school the best yet!

Warmly, 

Principal Hanrahan


*NEW* Parent Input for 2021-2022 Class Placement Survey

Creating balanced class lists that meet the needs of all students is a tremendously difficult job that takes many hours of thoughtful dialogue between classroom teachers, administrators, and specialists. We take this process very seriously. The process for class list creation is as follows:

Teachers think about the social and academic needs of each of their current students while recording pertinent information to assist in the decision-making process.

Grade level teachers, principals, specials area teachers, and specialists meet together to form class lists that are balanced in terms of academic, social, and emotional needs as well as considering friendships. This is no easy task and often takes several meetings. This team of educators considers each child’s personality, academic needs, friendship patterns, etc. as they make a match for each individual child.

This team of educators creates a draft set of class lists taking into consideration parent input.  

Class lists are then revised in August with summer changes for students who move in or out of the district.

Class rosters are never final until they are released to families in August.

This process happens for grades 2-5. Willow Grove creates the class lists for our incoming 1st graders.  Our 5th-grade team actively works with Twin Groves to provide data and input related to placement decisions at the middle school level.

We strongly believe that this detailed and collaborative process creates learning environments that benefit all students. It is a delicate balancing act that takes much consideration and thought by professionals who know and care about your children. Our goal is to create balanced class lists that promote the success of each child. Please know that your child is placed in a classroom for very specific reasons. The process benefits all students.  Because of the input and thought given by teachers, specialists, parents, and the principal, we are very reluctant to make changes once this process occurs, as removing or moving one child can disrupt the balance of an entire class, impacting all students.

I welcome any insight you wish to share about your child’s strengths, needs, and learning style. I will take into consideration pertinent information received on or before FRIDAY, APRIL 30th. Please remember, while we welcome your input, specific teacher or friend placement requests will not be honored.

I cannot express enough how important it is that your thoughts are provided through the SURVEY HERE.  As you can imagine, we receive a lot of parent input, and verbal information is impossible to track.  The information you provide in the survey will remain confidential between you and me.

*NEW* Spring Assessments

The standardized assessment window is quickly approaching. Because many of the required assessments must be taken in-person, families who selected remote learning for the rest of the year received a survey earlier today to outline their options and determine if their children will come to the buildings to take the assessments. Students who are in-person will take the assessments with one of their teachers. 

Remote and in-person students will be kept separate during the administration of the assessments. Specific dates for each assessment will be determined once the results of the survey are collected, but you can find general time frames below.

NWEA MAP: Students at all grades participate in one assessment for English language arts and one assessment for math over two days.  The data we receive from the MAP assessments provides valuable information regarding intervention and acceleration needs. The window for the NWEA MAP assessment is May 3 - May 14 with more specific dates within the window to come. 

ACCESS: Students that are identified as not yet English proficient participate in four assessments in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The Illinois State Board of Education requires ACCESS to be administered in-person. Students who are in-person are being scheduled by building-level personnel.

Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR): Students in grades 3-8 participate in assessments for both literacy and math over three days. The Illinois State Board of Education requires IAR to be administered in-person. The window for the IAR is May 17 - May 28 with more specific dates within the window to come. 

Illinois Science Assessment (ISA): Students in grades 5 and 8 participate in three assessments in science. The Illinois State Board of Education requires ISA to be administered in-person. ISA will be administered on Friday, June 11 for those families who wish to participate. We will be sending out a separate survey to fifth and eighth-grade families later in May to find out who would like to participate in ISA.

*NEW* Return to Full In-Person Learning

As many of our students return to in-person learning five days a week, there may be an adjustment period for students. A few helpful hints are listed below to consider discussing with your child. 

Review expectations regarding mask-wearing and social distancing with your child before he/she returns on Monday. 

Please ensure that your child’s mask fits his or her face, covering both the mouth and nose without sliding down for long periods of time. Practice wearing a mask for longer time chunks if your child is not used to wearing a mask for the school day. 

Review possible regulation strategies such as deep breathing or asking for a break.

Have a conversation with your child about change and feelings that can accompany change. Provide opportunities for your child to ask questions. 

Consider family adjustments to schedules that may take place with full in-person learning. 

We will have support available in school for those who may need assistance. Your child’s classroom teacher will be checking in regularly with all students regularly. 

If you or your child have any questions or would like someone to speak to assist in the transition please reach out to Alexis Jarrett (Ivy Hall, Social Worker) [email protected] or Marissa Gillis (Ivy Hall, Psychologist) [email protected]

*NEW* PTO Blog

As always, please check out our PTO blog for updates. 

  • Breakfast with Your Buddy April 22, 2021, 7:15am - 8:00am
  • Ivy Hall PTO has open committees for next year. Please consider signing up via the PTO toolkit.
  • Papa John's Mondy, April 12, 2021 Fundraiser
  • Breakfast with your buddy, April 22, 2021
  • Culvers April 30, 2021 Fundraiser

*NEW* Variety Show 

Our Virtual Variety Show has only received a few submissions so far! Please watch the video below for more information! Virtual Variety Show

*NEW* SOME Specials Materials Please Bring to School (Beginning April 12, 2021)

I would like to thank all families for graciously addressing the challenge of transporting materials back and forth on in-person days under our hybrid model. With the shift to a 5-Day per week, in-person, students can BEGIN to bring materials back to school, beginning on Monday, April 12, 2021. We will begin to try to get as many materials back to school as possible to ease the burden of transporting items back and forth daily or semi-weekly. That being said, do the best that you can to send your student to school with the materials below.

These materials can remain at school. We will be doing this in a phased-in approach. We have distributed more materials than we can reasonably collect all at one time. We will have to do this in increments. So next week, we will have students bring back PE materials, Art materials, and their keyboards. Please continue to refer to the IVY HALL MATERIALS SHEET to see which materials your child will need for (music, literacy, math, science, and social studies). This will be necessary because we will not be able to get all the material back at once. If you have any questions, please contact your child’s homeroom teacher. I am including pictures of the items we would love to see come back on Monday below.

Physical Education Bag (with materials inside)

Art Supplies Bag (with remaining materials inside)

Technology Items (Keyboard)

*NEW* Collection of literacy materials

Over the course of the year, we have been sending home materials with students, so that they can have the classroom texts in their hands. At this time we are going to begin collecting these materials on or after Tuesday, April 13, 2021, for in-person students. We are not beginning LITERACY MATERIAL COLLECTION on Monday, April 12, 2021, because we are already requesting many items be returned for PE, ART, and your child’s assigned keyboard.

Here is what we are asking of you:

  • Please see the attached list of materials for each of your students by grade level. 
  • If your student is in-person learning: Gather and bag these materials and send them back with your student to give to their teacher. 

If your student is remote learning: Gather the materials from the checklist below (materials that are still being used are noted in the checklist, and those can stay at home for now) and bring them to the Ivy Hall Front office. Ring the bell to the office to let them know you are dropping off materials. Please bag your materials in one of the bags provided in the vestibule. Find your student’s label and put it on the front of the bag. Ivy Hall School office hours 7:30-4 Monday through Friday, and you may begin dropping off materials on April 19th. 

  • April 13: In-person students may return literacy materials by bringing them back to school
  • April 19: Remote literacy materials may be returned to the front office M-F on school days 7:30am-4pm

Materials lists

We will continue to collect other subject's materials, but we want to do this in a manageable fashion. Additional information for those collections will be coming at a later date. Thank you for your understanding and your cooperation. If you have any other questions, please reach out to your student’s teacher. 

*NEW* Ivy Hall Celebrates Diversity in a Virtual World 

Throughout the month of April, Ivy Hall Elementary School, students, staff, and families will participate in a virtual experience to celebrate the diversity and culture in our school community. Each Friday in the principal’s message we will have multiple topics related to culture and we are asking families to submit a short video or picture using the FlipGrid platform so we can all learn about our unique differences. Take the time this week to submit at least one video to any of the following topics using the links below. Also, take the time to view your Ivy Hall friends’ videos too! 

If you’d like to learn more about FlipGrid please check out this link

*NEW* SchoolMessenger Messages

What in the world is a SchoolMessenger message? You can learn more about this platform by visiting schoolmessenger.com. When you receive a mass communication alert from District 96, that is typically our automated communication distribution messaging system, SchoolMessenger. The SchoolMessenger system allows us to send communication via phone, SMS text message, and email.

Many families have been receiving reminder messages already. If your family’s contact information is correct in our database, on Monday, April 12, 2021, we will attempt to send you a daily reminder message (both SMS text message and email) to self-certify your student(s) via TeacherEase. This must be done daily. If you are not able to do this, please contact the office so we can make arrangements to support you or to find another solution.

On Tuesdays, 1st and 2nd-grade families will receive a slightly different reminder to collect and bring population saliva screener samples for processing.

Communication Reminder Schedule

  • Monday: Self-Certification Grades 1-5
  • Tuesday: Saliva Screening Sample reminder Grades 1-2 & Self-Certification Grades 1-5
  • Wednesday: Self-Certification Grades 1-5
  • Thursday: Self-Certification Grades 1-5
  • Friday: Self-Certification Grades 1-5

*REPEAT* Language Literacy Resources

Are you or your students looking for books in different languages? Here are two sources you that may like to review and/or use:

REPEAT *Returning to In-Person Learning Information*

We are very excited to have additional students joining us in-person after spring break. Below is some information you need to know for a successful transition from remote to in-person learning.

MEDICATIONS

If your child needs to take medication at school please bring the medication to the school nurse’s office in its original container along with this MEDICATION AUTHORIZATION FORM

MATERIALS

Please remember to check the IVY HALL MATERIALS SHEET to see which materials your child will need for class.  If you have any questions, please contact the appropriate teacher.

ARRIVAL & DISMISSAL PROCEDURES 

Please arrive no earlier than 8:10 am as this is when staff is on duty to supervise students.  If your child is tardy you must enter the building to sign him/her in.

CHANGE IN AFTER SCHOOL PICK-UP FOR YOUR CHILD

If your child will not be taking the bus home after school, please send a handwritten note or call the office to let us know.  Please DO NOT send emails of this nature, as we cannot guarantee that an email will be seen prior to school dismissal

ADDITIONAL ROUTINE ITEMS OF NOTE

It is still chilly!  We may go outside for short breaks so please ensure that your child has the proper outerwear. 

Children will be bringing iPads and Logitech iPad "crayons" between home and school daily.  Please develop a routine of charging both every night and putting them in their backpack each morning.  A helpful tip is to post a sign at child eye level on the door where your child will exit in the morning.  You can make a picture checklist of this and anything else to support your child to develop independence with morning routines.

Children may bring individual water bottles to school.  They should not be glass and should have a spill-proof top.  Please label your child's water bottle with his/her name.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

Parents must do the DAILY self-certification for their child.  Parents must submit a daily self-certification prior to their student being allowed to attend in person. Parents will need to download the TeacherEase app if they haven't already in order to access the daily self-certification form.  Please see this video for further instruction: (Dist 96: In-Person Parent Video Instruction).

COMMITMENT TO PARTNERSHIP

We are confident that the District 96 community will rise to the occasion and partner with us to ensure the safety and success of our hybrid learning plan. Please think carefully about your commitment to our partnership before sending your child to school.  Please review our In-Person Learning Protocols

MASKS FOR IN-PERSON LEARNERS

Send your student to school with a comfortable mask that complies with CDC/ISBE guidelines, ensuring that the face-covering fully covers the mouth and nose and that the covering fits snugly against the sides of the face with no gaps.

IN-PERSON PREORDERING INFO

Parents of in-person learners only, please check for an email sent this afternoon with Subject Line: Fr Sch Dist 96: Preordering In-Person Lunches.

The email includes the required student ID # and directions to create an account and preorder in-person lunches for the week following Spring Break by the deadline of 6 PM on Mar. 28. Questions? Contact the public info coordinator [email protected]

REPEAT *Safety Drills* 

All schools are required to hold fire/evacuation, severe weather, and lockdown drills.  We recognize some content could potentially be frightening for students.  Please be assured that presentations to students are developmentally appropriate.  Teachers and support staff are attentive to students’ emotions during instruction and drills.  Specific drill dates are not shared with parents.  At school, we conduct drills at unknown times so that students and staff can respond authentically as would be needed in an actual emergency.  You can expect lockdown education to be provided to your child when we come back from break followed shortly after by a drill.  We will maintain our social distancing requirements throughout all drills.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

REPEAT: *2021–22 Registration Emails Were Sent Thurs., Mar. 4*

Please check for registration email(s) for the 2021–22 school year, sent Thurs., Mar. 4.
Each registration email includes a link and a unique “snapcode” needed for access to register your returning student for 2021–22. EVERY student returning to District 96 for the school year ahead must be registered.

Information you provided previously will appear in your student’s online registration record. Please check that information carefully and update it if it is not accurate.

Completing and submitting online registration and making payment no later than Apr. 15, 2021, will save families $20 in registration cost per student. Fees increase after Apr. 15.

Questions? Please send an email to [email protected] or call 847.459.4260, ext. 8022.

REPEAT: *Ordering Photos*

If you wish to review and purchase photos, you can do so by visiting our new photography companies website. That website can be found HERE. If you have issues please contact Jodi Zachara in the office at 847-459-0022.

Online Order Code: 51298H