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Weekly Update 4/22/2020

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Dr. Ellis provides his weekly update regarding how the district is continuing to provide support for scholars.

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Hello parents and guardians. As I promised, we will give you weekly updates to make sure that you are informed. As I always start my weekly messages to you, it is my hope and my prayer that you are being safe. As we look across Pike County, as we look across Mississippi, the number of Corona cases, Corona, Coronavirus cases they are rising, the death toll is increasing and so, I just want to make sure that all of you are being safe during this time. Although the governor has lifted some of those social distancing guidelines, the shelter in place, I want to encourage you to please be smart and please be safe and protect yourself and your family. I would like to update you on our grab-and-go meals. We're still providing those meals at Otken Elementary and Higgins. Last week we provided 1,597 meals. Because the governor has extended the school year closure for the remainder of the semester, we will reinstitute or bring back our bus grab-and-go delivery meals. We will begin that tomorrow so we're asking you to just be patient with us as we bring that back because we have how to get out in the community to let them know that we will be doing bus grab-and-go delivery meals again. But if you have any questions regarding a meal not being delivered, please contact our Transportation Director, Mrs. Patricia Dillon, and that number is 601-249-9373. Again, during the bus Grab & Go delivery meals, if you have any questions and you not getting the meals, please contact Mrs. Patricia Dillon, our Transportation Director, at 601-249-9373. Our academic packets; we have developed academic packets for Pre-K through 11th grade. These academic packets are the new academic packets and they will take us for the remainder of the semester. This work includes work that will take the students from April 27th to the May 22nd time frame. The packets can be picked up on the bus ramp from McComb High School, the bus ramp where we have those newspaper dispensers so that is the place where you'll be able to pick up the academic packets. Parents, I want to tell you that when you pick up the academic packets, make sure sure that you look to make sure that you're getting the right academic packet. We found this morning that someone had gone and taken some of the academic packets from one grade level and put them in another grade level. That's not a mistake that we made but you know that that is open so anyone can go in there and do anything to those academic packets. So as you pick them up, the new academic packets, just look to make sure that you have the appropriate grade level. Beginning Friday, I know that parents have been asking, where, where do we turn these acadmeic packets in. So beginning Friday, you can turn the academic packets in at the school; each school. The school that the scholar attends, there will be an identifiable drop slot; go to the school, drop the academic packets, those completed academic packets, in that drop slot and someone at the school at the end of the day will collect those and begin to do the, the, the, the grading for those so that your children can get those additional 10 points. And we're not grading them, we're just checking to see if they have completed those academic packets. I want you to continue to encourage your scholars to complete, to complete those academic packets because we know that um, we just want them to be ready when school starts and I can't say that enough whenever school resumes we want our scholars to be ready. I want also remind you that there's a home resource learning link under every school's website, on every school's webpage That link has optional optional online resources that we updated frequently, so please check that so that the scholar can have some time to do some online activities as well. I also want to remind you that our counselors, our counselors are available for any scholar who may be needing help to cope during this pandemic. So please email email the counselor and also copy the building principal so that we can provide those scholars with some mental health or whatever they need in order to cope during this time. We're still working with our vendor on providing Wi-Fi for our scholars in communities, so as we finalize that, I will get back with you to let you know what those locations are, but the hold up is not with us; the holdup is working with that vendor. McComb High School class of 2020; this is going to be a special class because of this pandemic and we know that uh, there have been some unfortunate circumstances because of the pandemic but, please know seniors, that we're in this together. As I said in my last message, we are planning a virtual graduation ceremony for you. You will receive some type of acknowledgement for all of the hard work that you've done. So parents and senior scholars, we want you to continue to look at our district website, our Facebook page, our other social media pieces, pieces, and call outs for additional information regarding that. As quick as we have plans we will share those plans with you as quickly as possible. Graduates, as we plan for your virtual graduation on tomorrow, tomorrow is the day that you will be able to pick up your cap and gowns, so tomorrow during the hours of 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock, please report to the JROTC building, stay in your cars; we will have drive up service so that we can provide you with your cap and gowns. Now scholars, if you have any, an outstanding balance, we want you to contact Mr. Graves of Jostens because you know we don't handle any of those pieces; it is handled through that company. So if you have an outstanding balance, please contact Mr. Graves so that we can clear that up because we want every graduate to have their cap and gown so that they can participate in the virtual ceremony that we're planning for you. All of those seniors who were identified through our survey as needing a mobile device to complete their work, you can also pick up that mobile device, that Chromebook, tomorrow when you check out your cap and gown. So when you pick up your cap and gown tomorrow you will also be able to check out that mobile device. Seniors, just for liability purposes, you will have to complete a form acknowledging that if there's any damage to the mobile device, that you will be responsible for the damage of that mobile device. We know that we have other scholars in grades 9 through 11 who need a mobile device through our survey to complete their academic packets and what we want you to do is that we want you to report to McComb High School on Wednesday, April 29th, during the hours of 10 o'clock to 2, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to pick up your academic, not the academic packet, but to pick up your mobile device so students, scholars in grades 9 through 11, next Wednesday, next Wednesday, April 29th, during the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. is when you can pick up your mobile device. We also want to make sure that all of our scholars receive the support that they need, definitely at the high school level, so beginning tomorrow, our high school teachers will be providing that service to our students, to our scholars through Zoom. So the steps for the Zoom meeting, scholars, we would like for you to look for your SchoolStatus account, look in your SchoolStatus account for anything that's coming from teachers or your principals regarding this and for Google Classroom, you know that you would have to use your Gmail account to access those documents. Our teachers are going to be available for support twice a week, so through these Zoom meetings, our teachers will be there for you scholars, twice a week to make sure that you're getting the required help that you need in order to complete the academic packet or anything else that you may need. What we want you to do is just pay attention to our website because the times that those teachers will be available, we will post those times on our district website. Any senior who needs a half credit course, those seniors who need half credit courses, we will provide those courses for you. Please know that you have to complete these half credit courses in order to fulfill your requirements for graduation. We have modified those half credit courses so that you will be able to complete those half credit courses in a small window of time that, that you have, so seniors, please make sure that you, if you need these half credits in order for graduation, that you complete them because we want every one of our high school graduates this year, the class of 2020, to complete everything that they need so that they can participate in this virtual graduation ceremony that we have planned for you. Any student in grades 9 through 11, if you have a half credit course that you were supposed to be enrolled in after we got back for spring break we're not going to enroll you in that half credit course because of time. What we're going to do is that, at a later date, during the next school year, for those subsequent years, we will make that half credit course available to you. So please, hold tight and we will make those half credit courses up to you; this is nothing that would be held against a student, a scholar in grades 9 through 11 so stay tuned for more of that. Parents, scholars, during adversity, and you know we are in a crisis, during adversity is when people normally come together and what I will say is that the support that we've had from our parents, the support that we've had from the community during this crisis, it has been a time that everyone has risen to the occasion. We know that this is something that we've never experienced before, but I am thankful that we are all working together; we're not working against one another. We're working together to come out of this piece very strongly. I said in our last message that I think that we will emerge stronger from this but on today I'm saying that I will, I know that we will emerge stronger from this because of the support that we have of parents, the support that we have from the community members. And I just thank you for rallying during this crisis to make sure that every one of our scholars have everything that they need so that they can be successful. Thank you very much. Please look on our website, Facebook page, for updates. But thank you very much. Please be safe; continue to follow those guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the guidelines that may be coming from the Mississippi State Department of Health. Please follow those guidelines. Parents, scholars and community members, we want you safe. We want everyone to return safely to us when school resumes. So be safe and I will see you next week.

The McComb School District completes all teaching experience/employment verifictions through Verifent.

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Weekly Update 4/22/2020

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