Dear MES Families,
Thursday, October 31st we will be starting our day with a Fall Festival where the students will be participating in 5 different stations throughout the morning. They will be playing fall themed games, making crafts, and making a special snack. I want to give a special thanks to the Mason School Club for planning and running this fun event.
Thursday afternoon will be our annual Halloween parties and parade. Families are invited to attend the parade which will start at 2:30. Please meet us on the playground where we will gather. The children will parade around in their costumes for all to see and then they will walk around the downtown collecting goodies. Please remember that costumes need to be school appropriate and not too scary. If the costume has a mask, make sure your child can easily see as we do a lot of walking. Children should not come to school in their costumes, but bring them in a bag to change into for the parade. No guns or knives please. Younger siblings or family members are welcome to join in on the parade. Please make sure there is an adult supervising siblings as the MES staff is not able to provide supervision. Morning preschool students will parade around the building during their school day to collect treats. Morning preschool families are welcome to come back in the afternoon for the 2:30 parade.
November 5th is election day here at the school so there is no school for students. Voting is from 8am – 7pm in the multipurpose room. The 11th there is no school in celebration of Veterans Day. November 26th is parent/teacher conference day so there is no school for students. The 27th -29th is Thanksgiving vacation. Before we know it it will be snowing and we will be preparing for Christmas!
Talking about snow … I just want to review snow days and delays. Calling snow days and delayed openings are the one thing I dislike most about my job (besides dealing with pandemics). The stress it causes me is ridiculous! When deciding to delay or cancel school the conversations start very early and include the road agent and Mr. Aho. We have to consider the current road conditions as well as what is being predicted for the remainder of the day. We try to make the decision about cancellation or delays by 5:30 am. At that time I will send out an ALMA alert notifying you of the plan. I will also notify WMUR and WBZ (you can check their websites or watch the bottom of the TV screen). Miss Heidi also changes the answering machine at the school as well as sends out an email. We do our best to get the word out. We have had a couple of times that the alerting system call and text didn’t go out so it is important to check the other sources if you are questioning if there is school. If we have a two hour delay the students arrive at 10:50. The buses will pick up 2 hours later than the normal pick up time. There is no morning preschool on delayed opening days. We do have extra hours built into our year so that we do not have to make up snow days so long as we don’t have too many! Please know that we make the decision about school with the information we have at the time. Sometimes we cancel and we didn’t need to because it wasn’t as bad as predicted and other times the weather changes quickly and we regret not delaying or canceling. As a parent you always have the right to keep your child home in inclement weather. Milford Middle and High School do not always delay/cancel when we do because Mason roads may be different from Milford roads. If Mason cancels school due to inclement weather, that means Mason roads are not safe for travel and that includes the buses for the middle and high school. Middle and high school will have an excused absence if Mason buses are not running.
We have seen lots of illness the past couple of weeks ranging from viruses to pneumonia. Please remember to keep your children home for 24 hours after having a fever, vomiting and/or diarrhea. This is the season for head lice as well. Remind kids not to share hats and clothes. Nurse Fisher will be doing head checks throughout the year.
Don’t forget about the Panera Bread fundraiser tonight. Please see attached flyer for more information.
Here is the link to the survey that the before and after school program has put out to gauge interest in having child care services during vacations and summers. Please fill out the survey if this is something you might be interested in https://www.surveymonkey.com/
I hope everyone is enjoying this warm weather as we all know what is coming! Have a wonderful weekend!
Kristen