February 15

In light of yesterday’s events in Florida, we want to assure you that the Laurel Ridge staff and the DeKalb County School District (DCSD) consider the safety of our students and staff our first priority.  Every school in the district regularly practices drills for emergency situations including intruder drills and has an extensive safety plan.  The DCSD Public Safety Department utilizes a threat assessment protocol to investigate, analyze, and review any threat made against a school or the district. DCSD has also recently added two canine units to the Public Safety Department.

We ask for your help in ensuring that we keep LRE safe.  Please make sure that when you visit the campus that you park only in designated areas.  The area in front of the school and by the trailers are fire lanes and need to be kept clear.  We ask that you always enter the building using the double doors by the front office.  As soon as you enter the building, please be sure to check in and out in the office to receive a visitor’s badge.  The staff has been instructed to stop any visitor without a badge.  If someone does stop you and asks about a badge, please be nice as they are just trying to keep our LRE family safe.  If you are coming to campus for a meeting, the front office staff will verify this with the classroom teacher or staff before you are permitted to exit the office.   We ask that once your meeting is over that you do not visit other locations in the building as we are responsible for accounting for all visitors if there is an actual emergency.  This is not only for our students’ and staffs’ safety but it also limits interruptions to instruction.  Just five minutes of lost instruction a day is equal to 15 hours of instructional time over one school year.

If there were an emergency, we will utilize the district’s calling post system to send out phone and email messages.  It is imperative that if any of your contact information has changed or changes in the future that you contact the front office to update your information.  We thank you for your continued support so we can make LRE a safe place for our students and staff. ~Ms. Kyle

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Upcoming Events:

Feb. 16 – Inclement Weather Make-up Day

Feb. 19 – No School

Feb. 23 – Internet Safety Day – Students should wear yellow to school

Feb. 27 – 6 pm: Milestones Information Session with Dr. Henry, 6:30pm: PTA Meeting (Babysitting will be available starting at 6pm)

Feb. 27 – March 6 – Digital Make-up Day (See announcement below)

March 1 – Conference Night

March 2 – Read Across America Day & Community Assemblies.

March 6 – 5:30 pm – How to help with student worries related to milestones testing with Ms. Wierwille (Open to students and parents), 6:00pm Parent-Student Milestones Night.  Come learn about ways to help with Milestones prep at home.

March 8 – 15: Digital Make-up Day (See announcement below)

March 9 – Inclement Weather Make-up Day

March 16 and March 19-23 – Book Fair

March 22 – 6:00 pm LRE Variety Show

March 22 – Report Cards

March 30 – Community Assemblies

April 2-6 – Spring Break

April 10 – Milestones testing starts.  For a complete Milestones schedule visit:  2018 DCSD GA Milestones Testing Schedule   More information about testing and the testing schedule will be sent out closer to time.

April 24 – 4:00pm – Principals Advisory Council Meeting in Media Center

April 26 – Report Cards

May 9 – Bike to School Day

May 11 – Community Assembly

May 18 – Field Day

May 22 – 1st-4th Honors Day

May 23 – 5th Grade Graduation

May 24 – Last Day of School, 1:15-1:45 pm Class Parties

Please see the following announcement about inclement weather make-up days:

Following feedback from its stakeholders, the DeKalb County School District (DCSD) will employ Virtual Learning Days using its Digital Dreamers technology to make up time lost in January to inclement weather.  More than 21,075 students, teachers, staff and stakeholders participated in an inclement weather survey that outlined options for making up two days of instruction. Of the respondents, approximately 63 percent selected virtual learning as the preferred option.

With virtual learning, teachers will provide students with a virtual assignment that is content-specific and relevant.  Virtual learning access will be made available to students over two weeks – Feb. 27 through March 6; and March 8 through March 15. Students will have five school days plus a weekend to complete their assignments.

Assignments may involve reading, writing, conducting research, performing mini labs, completing practice problems, taking notes, and/or answering questions. Students will be given one week to complete and submit the virtual assignment.  Parents will receive assignments from their child’s teacher the week of February 20.

This approach will allow the district to make up two lost inclement weather days. Students will make up the other two days with schools open on Feb. 16 and March 9.

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