February 2012

Dear SEMS Parents and Families,

It's a new year, and school is churning with all kinds of activities.  As you are probably aware, we send home monthly Newsletters written by Ms Gentry.  We have now put those on-line for your convenience.  Here is the direct link to February's Newsletter, and we will keep an archive on the Parent Page linked off of our SEMS Web page, click on the "Parent tab" at the top then Newsletter archives on the left.

In Other news, spread the word about our rising 6th grade open house on Thursday, February 16th from 6:00 PM until 7:30 PM.  This will be a great opportunity for parents of current 5th graders to see all the great things happening at SEMS.

Here's a note from our Builders club:  

The annual fund raiser for the Builder’s Club is happening now at school.  All the money goes to our Red Cross penny campaign.  Teachers are selling pencils in homerooms for 25 cents.  Also,  a change container is being passed around in the cafeteria after lunch.  Monies collected will be counted and reported at the builder's club March meeting. Thank you very much for supporting our campaign.  Many of our students (and some teachers) have benefited from the Red Cross and we feel this is a great cause!  Sincerely, The Builder’s Club.

Here's an important notice:  Teacher email will be unavailable starting Friday, February 17th and will not return until Tuesday, February 21st.  This means teachers will not have any access to their school email during that time. So, please consider this if you are communicating with teachers via e-mail around that time.    The school district is transitioning to a new e-mail platform, and this down time is necessary during that transition.  The new platform should be much improved, and should result in better communication for all parties involved! 

Our media coordinator Lisa Turner was reminding me of a resource available to all students called Learn 360.  Learn 360 is an educational site that our district has paid for and provides access for our students to a wide array of video, audio and pictures.  Students can even log-in at home with the following user name and PW:

user:  wsfcsstudent#  for example (wsfcs123456)
PW:  student # , for example (123456) 

So, if a teacher were to show a video from Learn 360 in class and a student would like to watch it again, show a parent, etc. they have the ability to do that with any computer with Internet access.  Students who are absent on a day a video is shown could also take advantage of this access!

Finally,  speaking of on-line access,  I have come across a very good manual for parents trying to navigate the world of Face-book with their children:  http://www.connectsafely.org/Safety-Advice-Articles/facebook-for-parents.html

It's more important than ever for parents to understand social media since students are increasingly making themselves accessible on-line!

Thanks!  and have a great month,

John Downs, Technology Facilitator