April 9, 2010
Dear Parents,
We wanted to take an opportunity to address a few points before the end of the current school year. As we grow as a school, we continue to learn new things about how we can improve the services that we provide to your student, family and school district. Here are some of the items that we would like to address:
With the redesign of the schools website we are adding features to help our parents. One of the most recent additions is the ability to download and print off permission forms for your student to participate in field trips or special events. This is helpful when a permission form is lost or destroyed on the way home and one is needed for your child to participate in an event. In order to use this resource, go to our website www.thegrahamacademy.com and on the right side of the page we will place a link to the most recent permission form for a specific event. Click the link and download the file, then print it off, sign and send in your permission form. We are investigating the potential to provide more online resources for the families of our students and are hopeful that we will be able to have them in place for the beginning of next school year.
We understand that our students come from various school districts and their transportation to and from the school can be a long journey and some students bring electronic devices with them to occupy their time. We want to support the students and families with this, so we provide a locked closet where students store their personal belongings for the school day in order to keep their personal property safe. We have however seen an increase in the number of students bringing cell phones and other electronic devices into the classroom settings. We want parents to know that electronic devices are not permitted in school and must be kept in a student’s coat or bag in the locked closet during the school day. If a student does not follow this and brings their electronic device into the classroom, the device will be confiscated and held until a parent or guardian can arrange to pick it up from the school administration.
One of the things that we have come to realize more clearly is that as a small private school, stewarding our resources is very important in order to continue to provide quality services for our current students and those who will eventually enter the program here at the Graham Academy.
We have seen a trend where some of the school’s manipulatives (small toys or equipment used in the program) are being taken home by our students accidentally or for other reasons. We are asking all of our parents to be aware of what is coming home with your student. If you find something that belongs to the school, would you please promptly return the property to the school. The spirit of this letter is not accusatory but rather is asking for parental support in helping us to maintain a high quality program for all students. One of the reasons that we are addressing this issue now is because of the disappearance of one of the school’s MP3 players, connection cable and charger. The unit is a COBY audio and color video player that is used to provide background music to serve as a calming agent for some of our students. It is rectangular in shape and has a black face and silver back. The model number is MP705-2G. Although this player and it’s accessories are not overly expensive, it is the cumulative effect of little things disappearing that will make our ability to improve services more difficult. If you happen to find this unit would you please contact the school administration to arrange for the return of the item.
As a school we are very appreciative of the students and families that we work with. We want to continue to provide a quality education and service for everyone connected to our school. One specific area we want to develop is the lines of communication between the school and our parents. There are several ways that currently are available for information to be distributed to our parents: phone call, send home flyer, update the school website’s (newsroom page), or update to the school’s facebook page. We would like to utilize email as an option to distribute information quickly to parents, especially if school is not in session. Email and other online tools are a very effective use of the available resources that we have as a school. Unfortunately, we do not have current email addresses for all of our parents.
It would also be helpful for us to know how you receive information from the Graham Academy. By gathering this information it will allow us to effectively send announcements and permission forms to families directly as needed. Please numerically mark below in order of how you currently receive new information from the Graham Academy and how you would prefer to receive information in the future. Please supply your current email address and return the simple survey with your student.
Thank you for your assistance,
Nick Ouellette
Note to Parents April 1, 2010
