WMES - Back to School Updates 2020
September 4, 2020

Dear WMES Families:
Well- we’ve been very busy getting ready to welcome students next week. Here is a little video to introduce our staff and give you a little sneak peak into WMES this year:
https://safeYouTube.net/w/8iqZ

Here are today’s updates from WMES:
• For the first day of school we need all parents of students who are riding the bus to log into https://hrcetransportation.mybusplanner.ca/ and find out the bus number for the bus students will be riding home.  This will be a 4-digit number and it will not be the same number as last year. Please send this number to your child’s classroom teacher on or before Tuesday. 
• A reminder about student drop off and pick up this year at WMES.  Parents / Guardians will not be able to come into the school this year.
If you are dropping off, please don’t linger – and we know that is going to be hard on the first day. We promise to take lots of pictures, and you can call us at the office to check in if you need to. The Kiss and Go lane needs to keep moving and if you need to get out of the vehicle with your student on the first day we ask you to park in our upper parking lot off School Street and walk down.  If at all possible please do these drop offs after 8am as we would like to limit the number of people in our bus loop / sidewalk area as much as possible.

• At the end of the day please do not get out of your vehicle or walk onto school grounds until the buses have left the bus loop.  Walking students won’t be dismissed until the buses have gone.  When on school grounds – please social distance as much as possible.  Thank you in advance!

• Transportation requests must be sent to transportation@hrce.ca . Students must be on a bus manifest to travel on a school bus.  Students cannot bring a note and ride home with a friend.  Thank you for understanding.
• Please remember to keep extra school supplies at home this year.  Classroom teachers will let you know when supplies need to be replenished.  Anything that comes to school with the student each morning should come home at the end of the day, with the exception of their kit box.   Please label all clothing items as we won’t have a lost and found this year and we would really like to make sure that all of your child’s belongings make it home. 

• On Tuesday all students will be receiving 2 reusable cloth masks.  (Only students in grades 4 and 5 are required to wear masks when inside the school).  All students must wear a mask when riding the school bus.  We will be sending home to blank fabric labels with the masks so that you can label them – as they are all the same.  Thank you in advance.

• Phys. Ed classes will be outside as much as possible, but may also take place in our gymnasium as we are fortunate at WMES to have a very large gym.  Phys. Ed teachers have been given significant guidelines to follow to ensure student safety.

• Music classes will take place in the grade level classrooms for the first month while we get used to new routines and social distancing practices.  We are fortunate to have the stage area as our Music class this year, and classes may take place in the Music classroom later in the Fall if we find that we can do this and still follow all protocols.

• Core French for grades 4 and 5 classes will take place in the grade 4 and 5 classes (as has been done for the past few years).

• Students will not be visiting the library this year, but Mrs. Dey will be visiting them in their classrooms regularly.  We will have our very own “Book-mobile” on a cart and students will be able to bring books home for a week at a time.  Mrs. Dey has also created a website for our library and we will share this information with you soon.

• Recess will look a lot different this year at WMES.  Recess breaks will not be school wide but will occur frequently through the day for classroom cohorts (as we will be getting outside as much as we can).  Classroom teachers will take their students outside for these breaks, and each grade level will have an assigned area of the school grounds where they can go each day.   Students will not be mingling with students from other classes right now.  We will adjust these plans if Public Health deems it safe at some point in the coming months. 

• Lunch is still from 11 – 12pm.  One lunch monitor will be assigned to each class and each class will have a different area of the school to go to when they go outside. 
Our cafeteria will not open until September 14th.  When the cafeteria opens all orders will need to be placed online as students will not be visiting the cafeteria.  We will send the information for how to order home next week.   Students lunches will be delivered to them in their classrooms. 
In an effort to reduce traffic flow in the classrooms we are asking all students to take their recess and lunch garbage home for disposal (unless of course it is going to cause a big mess).

There has been a lot of information come home over the past week, and we realize it is a lot of change for many families.We have been trying to consolidate the information coming home on our webpage at https://wms.hrce.ca/wms/parents/back-school-2020.

We will try to give you regular “glimpses inside WMES” through our twitter account once school starts so be sure to follow us on Twitter: @WMESchool

I would like to send a huge shout out to our amazing staff who have been working tirelessly over the past days / weeks to get ready for a very different school opening this year.   I am so proud to work with such an amazing group of professionals.  Thank you WMES staff for all you do!

Please reach out if you have questions/ concerns.  We will try to get back to you asap.

We will send home more updates next week.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Together, we’ve got this!
Take care & stay safe, See you on Tuesday!
Karla Wolfe
Principal WMES