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DGH community, parents and guardians with students in our school should have received an email from the TLDSB today regarding re-registration for school in September. All of our families MUST re-register their child(ren) for school in September, indicating whether they intend for their child to attend in-school OR whether their child will participate in at-home learning. Parents must choose one option or other other. Re-registration forms must be completed by next Thursday, August 13.

The link to this form and additional information around the TLDSB’s return to school plan would have been contained in the email families received. The information is also contained on the TLDSB website: the link is here: https://tldsb.ca/return-to-school-re-registration/

Note: the link to the actual re-registration form was sent directly to families in the email you should have received (the link is not on the board website because the link is specific to each family).

Please also note that the plan is not set in stone and is subject to change based on further developments.

If you did not receive the TLDSB’s email and link from the board office, please send an email to: infodgh@tldsb.on.ca.

This post and the attached letter is intended for parents and guardians who have Junior Kindergarten students starting at DGH in September 2020. Being upfront, there is not a great deal to share at the moment.  Our board (Trillium Lakelands District School Board) is currently in the planning stages of what September will look like for our students; however, until we are closer to the start of school and have the most up to date information from the Ministry of Education and our local health unit, it is hard to provide concrete information.  

Please know that as additional information becomes available, it will be shared with our school community, including our families with soon to be JK students at DGH.  

DGH community, a number of local organizations have partnered together to provide a Summer Lunch Program for any and all elementary aged students in the City of Kawartha Lakes. This is a pretty spectacular offering! Thank you to the Kawartha Food Source, the Salvation Army, Haliburton, Kawartha Pine Ridge Health Unit, and the Kawartha Lakes Food Coalition for supporting this program.

The program will operate out of King Albert PS between 11:00 am and 12 pm, and Parkview PS between 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm each Wednesday and Friday between July 3 and August 14.

Please check out the attached flyer for additional information and details.

The final post for the day! On behalf of the DGH staff, I would like to wish all of our families a safe and wonderful summer. The temperatures are finally where they should be (the cool and rainy days of May are but a distant memory now!) and I hope everyone has the opportunity to enjoy outside time with families and friends. We look forward to seeing all of our families in September.

DGH community, we do not yet know what the start of the school year in September will look like.  Many of you likely heard the Minister of Education’s announcement last Friday regarding the 3 possible options: all students learning at home, a normal school day for all students, or a modified school day where only a certain number of students come each day.  The Minister’s news release regarding this can be viewed by clicking here.  At this point we do not know which of these options will be picked.  

Once information and plans are available regarding what the start of school in September will look like, this will be communicated to our families via SchoolMessenger and our school website.  We do not yet have a specific date as to when this decision will be made.  Sit tight and know that school staff are in the same position (what will it look like and what plans do I need to put in place based on this?). 

We made it!  Our students this year will truly be a part of history.  Not since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918, have schools in Ontario closed in the manner and for the length of time that they have this year.  To say that this school closure tested the mettle of everyone (students, parents and staff) would surely be an understatement.  But this is what resiliency is all about.  Dealing with problems and finding potential solutions to at least survive, if not even thrive!  

When the history books are written on this time (and they will be), everyone involved will be able to reflect on this experience.  History is all too often an abstract concept: how do you understand something that happened 100 years ago?  Well, we now have insight into how history happens and how it affects people!  

Students – we appreciated the willingness of so many of you to try an entirely new style of learning.  While it may have been a challenge for some, almost every student attempted online to some degree, and some truly demonstrated extraordinary success.  Rather than your teacher standing in front of the class, Google Meets and phone calls became the norm for teacher contact.  Learning to use technology, such as Google Drive, to its fullest became something you were able to do.  The skills and knowledge you have gained through this experience will be with you for the rest of your schooling and in life beyond.   

Parents and guardians – we appreciated the time, energy and effort all of you put forth to support your child(ren).  I spoke with many of you over the course of these 3 months and I know what you put into supporting your kids – whether that be academic, social, physical, or mental health supports.  Many staff in the school have kids of our own and we have great empathy for how difficult it is to academically support your own children.  I happily shared my experiences with my own children.  “Dad.  Can you help me with quadratic equations?” asked my grade 10 son.  If Mrs. Lowell (who teaches high school Math) is reading this post, I apologize for the many Math misunderstandings I have given my son.  “Dad.  Can you help me with bonds in Chemistry?” asked my grade 12 daughter.  Seriously?  Grade 12 Chemistry?

Staff – we appreciated your pivoting to online learning in the span of 2 weeks.  While it was not always the easiest (few staff members had organized their own Google Meets and ScreenCastify was new ground for almost all of us), we got there.  Engaging and supporting students via video or telephone conference was an entirely new experience and getting overdue work was more than a bit problematic.  We tell our students on a regular basis that, “You never stop learning.” and never was that more true this year!      

Yet, out of this HAS come great things.  We all have a more in depth understanding of the technology available and how it can support students and further our teaching.  I have talked to numerous teachers who told me that they have never had this much contact with parents and guardians and that this relationship building has been a wonderful thing.  Many of our students have gained confidence in their ability to learn online and know that they can be successful in this way.  So much of school is figuring out how you learn best and developing the tools to be successful.  

While it may not have been the school year we were hoping for we can be proud of the resiliency we have shown and willingness to problem solve to find solutions. 

Do not forget, DGH community, that the TLDSB is implementing a system in which a digital/electronic report card will be emailed to parents on June 30.

All of the info that you require to ensure you receive an electronic version of your child’s report is contained in the letters below. The first letter provides general information regarding how electronic report cards will be sent out and the second letter how to set up SchoolMessenger (if you have not done so already) to receive email and messages from the school.

Should you absolutely require a paper version of the June Report Card, please let Mrs. Taylor or Ms. Starr know by calling the school.

DGH community, as you know if you have been outside today, it is a bit on the windy side! Rather than risking our signs blowing away, Mrs. James took a video of the signs and we have shared with this post. Enjoy!

Do not forget that Mrs. Starr is looking for all of our library books that students may still have. Mrs. Starr has printed her list of books that students still have and the list is rather long!

How can you return these books? You can drop library books off at the school any day between Monday and Thursday (June 22 to 25) between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on the cart or table that will be set outside of our school’s entry doors. We appreciate our community returning our library books. If you are unable to return books on these days/times, please let your child’s homeroom teacher know and we can determine an alternative time (if possible).

Thank you, Mrs. Starr, for caring so much about our library!

DGH community, the TLDSB is taking a huge step forward in how report cards will be distributed this June and going forward. Due to school closures and the limited ability for staff to be in the building and working in close quarters, the TLDSB is implementing a system in which a digital/electronic report card will be emailed to parents on June 30.

The attached letter below provides information on how you can access your child’s report card when it is emailed on June 30. Below the attached letter is a second document which provides instructions on how to sign up for SchoolMessenger and/or modify your permissions in the program. SchoolMessenger is the system we use to email our DGH families.

The TLDSB put significant thought into creating a safe and secure system for families to access their child’s report card. Your child’s report card will be emailed directly to parents and/or guardians. You will use your child’s date of birth in the format of mm/dd/year (e.g., June 18, 2020 would be written as 06/18/2020).

We expect that most families will not require a paper version of the report card. However, we know that some families will require a paper version; if this is the case, please let Mrs. Taylor or Ms. Starr know by calling the school.