Adena Local Schools

A message for all parents of last year's kindergarten students. We would love to have some closure with our Kindergarten students from last year, now first graders. I know they would love to say a proper good-bye to their teachers. We are inviting only parents and the student to come to school on Thursday, September 3rd, according to the following schedule: Mrs. Bluck - 9:00am, Mrs. Bakenhaster 10:30 am, Mrs. Bush 12:30 pm. and Miss Frankel 2:00 pm. Please park in the front of the building and we will recognize our students and present them with another diploma under the white tent that is in the front. Parents and students will need to observe 6 feet spacing as they line up and all must wear a mask. Punch and cookies will be served. Parents may take pictures after the students receive their diplomas. Please call the school if you have questions.

Here are the 2020-2021 bus routes. This sheet gives you the general overview of what buses run which roadways in our district. You might not be planning to use buses this year, but if you are, look over this sheet to find out which bus serves your road. If you have questions give us a call at 740-998-6157. Thank you! https://docs.google.com/document/d/18ilYKCrKTzs_xy8FT3ujRYh_uPkVH6LRwemonH6gDds/edit?usp=sharing

Below is a great opportunity to obtain a digital library card from the Chillicothe and Ross County Public Library!! https://www.crcpl.org/about/get-a-library-card/

To parents/guardians of all Kindergarten students. All documents must be turned into Final Forms for in-person as well as online students. These documents must be received before students will be permitted to start school. Kindergarten teachers will be mailing out letters this week with critical information about when to start, assigned teacher, and kindergarten orientation. Only students who have completed documents in Final Forms will receive those letters. Also, if your child has not been through a Kindergarten online screening, please call Mrs. Wayland to set up an appointment for that assessment as soon as possible. 740-998-5293, Ext. 3006

The SVC approved the new football schedule yesterday. Here is our updated schedule. We will be playing in the first round of the OHSAA playoffs in week 7. All fall sports schedules can be found on our school website at www.adenalocalschools.com Varsity Football Schedule AUG. 28 AWAY PAINT VALLEY 7:00 SEPT. 4 AWAY UNIOTO 7:00 11 HOME WESTFALL 7:00 18 HOME PIKETON 7:00 25 AWAY HUNTINGTON 7:00 *OCT. 2 HOME ZANE TRACE 7:00 *Senior Night

Good Morning, This is Dustin England, Adena Middle School Principal, sharing important information for middle school students and families. If your child is attending school online through Adena Online Learning please follow the supply list below. *Plenty #2 pencils *Paper *Colored Pencils *1 Small White Dry Erase board *4 Pack of Dry Erase markers This list along with the normal supply list can be found on the school website under the middle school tab. All students who are entering 7th grade must have an updated immunization record on file by October 2nd, 2020. Click on the link below for more information. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzSMGehz3hQxTVBFQVJRd2d1NE1lOFl6ZGpDYlFycHJBOGsw/view Reminder if you have not filled out the Final Forms for your child this must be completed before school begins. I'm looking forward to seeing and working with all the students this year. Please call 740-998-2313 if you have any questions.

High School Students and Parents, Attached is the immunization for attendance document that all incoming seniors need to view. All seniors will need to have their required immunizations by October 2nd. All in-person class schedules will be mailed out next Thursday. Students attending online will be receiving their schedule at their scheduled appointment next week. A reminder that all new student drivers will need to purchase a parking permit. The cost is $5 and they are available in the high school office. Returning drivers can use their pass from previous years. Please try to get all the required Final Forms documents completed as soon as you can. The school year is approaching fast! We look forward to seeing you soon! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ziK0b98zqBD1Pr2PanqiSfwp7eoRSzq_cIL5KCVlTN0/edit Josh Jones Adena High School Principal

This message is for those high school students attending PRCTC this school year. Juniors attending will start back on August 20th. Seniors attending will start back on August 24th. There will be a bus at the school to transport you to PRCTC. It will be located in the bus pickup/drop off area. The bus will depart at 7:45 a.m. Josh Jones Adena High School Principal

ADENA SCHOOLS LATCHKEY 2020-2021 The Adena Local Schools will be able to offer afternoon latchkey services during the 2020-2021 school year. There will be 18 slots available (and possibly a maximum of 36 if staffing can be obtained) on a first-come first-serve basis. The cost is $5.00 per day, per child and each succeeding child in the family at $4.00 per day. Students must be at least 5 years of age and be no older than 12. Contact Kacey Shaffer to request a registration form at 740-998-4633, (Press Option 3).

Today at 3:00 p.m. the registration for Adena Online Learning will close. Use the following link to register your child. If you have already registered please disregard. https://forms.gle/vGQ3WzeajWFDKyeL8

IMPORTANT CHANGES to ADENA’S CALENDAR PLEASE READ CAREFULLY The restarting of school is underway. We are still awaiting some materials needed for protective barriers but in all, things are going very well. We are, however, going to DELAY the opening of school for students until September 8th to give us time to ensure all materials are in place and also observe the results and make adjustments as we watch districts opening up early. This will also give us time to watch the numbers and data for Ross County which has experienced an increase in infections and hospitalizations recently. We want to be sure we are capable of taking every measure to protect our students and staff. Our goal is still to provide in-person learning and quality remote learning. Thank you for your patience and understanding. The link to view the UPDATED RESTART GUIDE is below. Please contact your building principal if you have questions. https://bit.ly/30xwic1

Pre-K Information

Important Update Adena Local Schools The deadline for signing up for remote learning for the 2020-2021 school year is being extended to Friday, August 7 at 3:00 p.m. As we have established from the beginning, our restart will be subject to change at short notice. Please remain alert for updates. Our shipments of special supplies and equipment are arriving daily. However, if some critical items are delayed it could affect our calendar in the short term. If you have questions regarding remote learning vs in-person learning please contact your building principal as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we prepare for a safe and effective restart of learning.

Due to Health Department guidance, elementary students will not go to their last year's classrooms on the first day of school. This will create a situation for students/teachers to be exposed to more people than necessary. We apologize for this. Students will report to their new classrooms on the first day of school. We will still be conducting a kindergarten promotion ceremony and more details will be sent out next week regarding that. Mrs. Wayland

Good Afternoon, This message is for the high school students and parents. On August 6th, I will begin contacting each parent or guardian that has registered for their student to go online to set up an appointment. Each family will have to come to the school at the scheduled date and time to meet with me to go over the online expectations of the teacher, student, and parent/guardian. If a student does not currently already have a school Chromebook, they will receive one then. Each student will also receive their online schedule. Every student that registers to go online will be required to attend their online classes at the scheduled times. They will have live online instructional classes everyday, except for Friday. They will be in attendance in these online classes for at least two and a half hours a day, during the school day. Each student will also be required to watch pre-recorded lessons when they are assigned. On the days they don’t meet with a teacher, they will be submitting an assignment online that is assigned that day. Other assignments will be assigned throughout the week that connect to the online class sessions. If there are students that have no internet, other arrangements will be made for them and that will be discussed during their appointment. Our staff will be using a combination of Florida Virtual curriculum and their own Google Classroom content for each of their classes. If we do get into the situation where all students end up online, they all will have a set schedule of times in the day they will need to log on and attend their classes. Attendance will be taken in all of these classes. In summary, there will be attendance taken daily for those students attending online. They will be expected to follow their schedule and attend their classes at their scheduled times. Stay patient, positive, and take it one day at time. We will get through this together! Josh Jones Adena High School Principal

This message is for 8th grade students/families who were scheduled to participate in the Annual Washington D.C. trip during the spring 2020. Unfortunately, after talking with the travel company we have decided to cancel the trip this year. We tried our best to reschedule this trip for the Fall but after consulting the travel company we felt this was not a safe time to participate. The Adena Treasurer’s Department is processing the refunds and will be sending the checks out later this week. If you have any questions please contact me via email at dustin.england@adenalocalschools.com. Thank you for your patience and understanding. - Mr. England, Adena MS Principal

Hello! This is an IMPORTANT LINK to the Adena Local Schools “Restart Family Guide.” What you want to know about school opening this year as well as information on our “Remote Learning” option is in this document. Please click the link below and read carefully. If you wish to sign up for Adena Remote Learning this is the time to do so. Read everything carefully and then follow the instructions to sign up if you wish to take advantage of this option. Thank you! https://docs.google.com/document/d/171uSq2j76NokaHPGVjHE3KSO9X0cZqQb-YyNmJm0POQ/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the link to our next district survey. Your input helps us plan. Please take time to answer the questions. We appreciate your help! https://forms.gle/tCRp7rR5YmsVushA6

Quick Update: Adena School Reopening We received some more information, guidelines and directions from the Ohio Department of Education this morning. We will process this information, continue our work and refine our requirement list for opening in the fall. Expect the survey by July 20th at the latest. Many are interested in the start date of school. We intend to begin with a staggered start on the original calendar in order to complete required tasks that have been strongly encouraged by ODE, prepare the students to understand and get ready for new ways of doing things as well as become comfortable with the new practices and procedures of school, and give our very young students the chance to have closure for their previous class and teacher. All students will be attending regularly by Labor Day. We know we won’t start early or insert long breaks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. We know we will respect the Ross County Fair schedule. We will give you plenty of advance notice on the staggered start schedules and any other important information. Please rest assured we are looking at many things and will prepare you to ease into the 2021 school year with as little stress as possible. We know it is hard to wait for information, but our intent is to not get in a hurry and get it done correctly. We appreciate your patience and understanding. Have a great weekend!

District Update from Superintendent John Balzer These are definitely “trying times” for all of us as we try to find our way through the COVID 19 pandemic. We want to give you a general update on what we are doing as we prepare to have school in August. First, we have to put aside all politics, social media myths, debates (and occasional rants) to examine the real science of this virus and determine what we need to do in order to provide a safe environment for our students and our staff while they are at school. Safety always has to be the first priority. Remember, we also have to think about students’ families- many caregivers are grandparents who are in a high-risk category. We have to remember that some student’s parents or siblings may be undergoing cancer treatments or have pre-existing health conditions that place them in high risk groups. We must remember that when we bring all the kids to school, we also set up a situation where viruses can be distributed throughout the community in a highly efficient manner. It’s up to us to see to it that if we have school all are protected and we do all we can to prevent the spread of COVID. We are working with the Ohio Department of Education guidelines established by the Governor’s office. We have the guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics. We are working with the Ross County Health Department as well. It is our goal to provide five days per week instruction for all students who wish to attend. We are developing an online school program for students who wish to learn from home until there is a sanctioned vaccine available. At this point in time, we believe that students need the opportunity to attend school for the social benefit and to receive the needed instruction along with the benefits of participating in the extra-curricular activities that balance out the overall educational program in order to create a well-rounded student. The focus each day should easily be learning and socialization with safety practices quietly in place in the background of day to day operations. In order for the district to provide the opportunities our students should receive, we will need the support and cooperation of parents, caregivers and the community. The politics removed, we have to create a safe environment that is practical, manageable, and doesn’t cause unnecessary stress to, or frighten our children- especially our little ones. If we can work together to accomplish the necessary safeguards that would enable us to bring all 1200 students back to the building, we can offer our students something very close to schooling they experienced prior to the arrival of COVID. Now that we finally have the Ohio guidelines, our next steps are to establish the needed plans for operations in large congregate settings like lunch, transportation, hallway traffic, playground and extracurriculars. We have to implement extra sanitation practices with the custodial staff. There will be stricter limitations on access to the building from the public. We believe we can accomplish this if we can get all stakeholders to cooperate and support our efforts to reopen. We need to hear your voices. We will be sending an important survey out in the coming days to get your input. Please help us by taking the time to sit down and participate in the process. Remember, nobody is going to be completely happy about how things will look going forward. It is complicated, it is frustrating and it is sometimes very tense. We owe it to our children to leave them out of all of the politics and turmoil that only create fear and unrest in their minds. I think we as a community can come together and establish common ground over what are appropriate and acceptable precautionary measures that will allow us to safely resume school- the one thing that keeps our children feeling like things are pretty “normal.” The Village has always come through for the children in the past, and I have no doubt we can do that in this situation as well. Together, we will find a way to work through what might be the most important issue of the pandemic. When our kids look back at this part of our history and tell their children about it, let’s hope their response will be that, “We were Warrior Strong and worked to make sure we all got through it together.” As the district leader, I sincerely appreciate your interest and support in the school system. I look forward to working with the community to accomplish this very important work. Stay well and do your part in helping keep the community safe!