Parent/Guardians,
At the last school board meeting, the board directed the GPS administration to move to the restricted model where students will attend 4 days a week M-Th onsite wearing masks all day (once everything is able to be put into place). In preparation for this move, we felt it appropriate to allow elementary-age students (K-8th) to shift back onsite or move online at the start of the 2nd quarter if it was agreed that it is in the student's best interest. This request is only for students K-8. High School students would be allowed to make the switch to or from online at the end of the semester.
We are asking that you notify the building principal of the school your child attends if you would like us to consider moving your student from online learning back onsite or vice versa. We are asking for this contact to be made by Wednesday, October 28th so we have accurate numbers to plan for. The first day of the 2nd quarter is November 2nd. Please contact the individual school principals if you have any further questions.
Please note that a date to move back to the Restricted model has not been finalized, but more information about that will be coming out soon.
John Larsen (interim principal)
Jefferson Elementary School
406-377-4155
Cindie Togni
Lincoln Elementary School
406-377-2308
Mark Goyette
Washington Middle School
406-377-2356
We made a change to the calendar as we noticed that Parent-Teacher Conferences fell on election day. Parent-Teacher conferences will now be on November 5th. We will also be moving the early out from the 3rd to the 5th along with the conferences. We are sorry for the inconvenience. This year we will be having the conferences virtually and more information will be coming out later on that once we get closer.
To view the updated calendar, please click on the following link (https://5il.co/mf47) or go to our website at www.glendiveschools.org.
It was just brought to our attention that there are many people who took the last email to say that we were going online. Glendive Public Schools is not going online. The last email was referencing the emails and messages from the district that notified everyone that we were going to go online because of the two boiler situations at LES and WMS. The purpose of this last email was to have everyone make sure they are getting the messages that we are sending out by updating their information. We are sorry for any confusion that this caused.
Recently, we had to notify everyone that school was going online for WMS and LES. When we send messages out to the community, we send the message out in a variety of ways (Website, App, Facebook, Email, Text, Voice, etc.). This school year we have been shifting away from Facebook as it is not a great way to get all parents information. Currently, the Glendive Public Schools App is the best way to receive information about what is happening in each school. In the last month, we have decided that we are going to utilize Infinite Campus (our School Information System) to deliver messages by email, text, and voice. In order for this to be effective, we need everyone to make sure they have an account set up and that their information is correct in the system. If you are seeing this message on Facebook, our website, or app, but did not get an email, you will need to check with your student’s school to make sure you are set up.
Below you will find the Parent Portal Link. Please click on it and login. If you do not have a login, please call your child's school and they can help you set one up. Moving forward, this is how we are going to send most of our information out to parents. This will also be the way for all emergencies that we will get the information out. You need to have a phone number and email address as a minimum. Please note that in order to have a text sent to you, you have to have a cell phone entered and opt in to get that (information on how to do that below).
Please log into your Parent Portal:
https://mtdecloud3.infinitecampus.org/campus/portal/glendive.jsp
Navigate to Settings (in the top right corner) and Select Contact Preferences. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the page to update your Contact Preferences to receive Text Messages from the District.
Thank you for your help with ensuring that we are able to reach you with our important information.
Good News! The crack in our boiler has been repaired and we now have heat at Lincoln School! School will resume tomorrow Wednesday October 21st. Wednesday is an A day for students, our B students will be offsite. Please ensure your child is dressed appropriately for the cold weather as the students will be outside for recess.
ALL LES classes will be online again tomorrow. Please have your students check in with their teachers tomorrow morning.
Update on the boiler:
We had our annual boiler inspection this summer. Due to the age of the boiler, there was an immediate repair needed. Unfortunately, there are only a couple of repair technicians in a four state region that are certified to do this type of repair on this age of boiler. We immediately scheduled with a repair technician to get it fixed. Because of the demand of these technicians, we were put on a waiting list. We have continually communicated with the repair technician throughout the summer and into the fall. And with the latest updated schedule, he was to be here on the 19th of October. Unfortunately, we got hit with unusually cold weather sooner than we expected. Currently, the repair technician is in route and once the repairs have been done and it is properly inspected, we will have heat again at LES. We do not know yet how long these repairs will take as this is an old boiler and the area of concern might spread to other areas. The best case scenario is that we have students back in the building on Wednesday. The worst case scenario is the boiler could be out of service for an extended period of time. We will update everyone tomorrow once we know more.
Tomorrow, 10/19 with school for LES being online, lunch will be available for pickup for LES "A group" students between 11-12:30 pm @ JES cafeteria entrance doors. In order to receive the meals, parent/students must call LES (377-2308 hit 1 for the office) by 9 am for us to have an accurate count of meals needed. Please leave a message if no one answers.
LES will be online tomorrow:
We have been unable to fire the boiler at LES and with this cold spell that we have, it is too cold to have students in the building all day. Currently the school is between 40-50 degrees and we do not have a way to warm up the building. For the health and safety of our students and staff, all LES classes tomorrow will be online. Please have your students check in with their teachers tomorrow.
Please be on the look out for more information being sent out tomorrow once we know more about the boiler.
Just a reminder that today is a scheduled early out for all schools.
Release times:
JES - 1:20
LES - 1:00
WMS - 12:46
DCHS - 12:46
The Glendive Unified School Board (GUSB) is pleased to announce Glendive Public Schools has been approved for the nationwide USDA Extended Summer Food Service Program Waiver to serve breakfast and lunches at no cost to all students enrolled in the Glendive Public Schools grades K-12, regardless of Free/Reduced or Paid status. The waiver is valid through December 31, 2020. The cost of student meals will return to normal on January 1, 2021.
Message from GPS:
Please check your email or Infinite Campus account for an important message from Glendive Public Schools regarding ordering Breakfast/Lunch for your student's offsite days. Please contact your student's school to update your information or to find out more information about this message.
The Glendive Public Schools nurses wish to advise parents that COVID-19 testing will NOT be a part of your student's routine screenings. As always, please call with any questions or concerns. We are looking forward to a safe and healthy school year!
On August 29, 2020, Glendive Public Schools was notified that a Student at Lincoln tested positive for COVID-19. According to the Dawson County Health Department, some of the Lincoln staff and students were in contact with the student during the period of possible exposure. However, because of how we have structured the classes/schedules to mitigate possible exposure, only a small amount of the students and staff came in contact with the student. The student was at school on 8/26/20. Contact tracing has been completed and those individuals who were considered close contacts have been identified and notified. Glendive Public Schools will continue to take safety precautions to make sure all students and staff are as safe as possible.
If any staff or students are at risk of exposure, the Dawson County Health Department will be in contact with that person to determine a safe and appropriate course of action. It is still recommended that any person who feels sick or ill, seek out their medical provider for specific instructions. Glendive Public Schools is following the Dawson County Health Department and CDC guidelines to clean and disinfect our schools every day. School administrators will continue to monitor the situation and will provide further information if and when it becomes available.
Beginning Monday, August 31, Glendive Public Schools will offer breakfast and lunch meals for children to take home for their offsite days. A meal count will be taken in each homeroom/1st period, first thing each morning. On Monday and Tuesday, children may sign up for an onsite lunch for that current day and for a breakfast and/or lunch meal to take home for the following day.
On Wednesdays, “A day” students may request meals for Thursday and Friday breakfasts and/or lunches during meal count. Thursdays “B day” students may request meals for Friday and Monday breakfasts and/or lunches during meal count. A staff member will be in a designated area to distribute the requested meals as students leave school each afternoon.
Please do not hesitate to contact Food Service Director, Anne Sadorf at 377-2555 if you need assistance or have any questions.
Please click on the following link to see the GPS Active COVID cases. Check back as we will update the document once we get more information. You can also go to www.glendiveschools.com to find this link and get the updates.
GPS Active COVID cases: https://rb.gy/50iklu
We are so excited to have students in our buildings again. Below is some information that might help you out for this first week.
Face coverings:
Please remember that students/staff will be required to wear face coverings on school property at all times except for the following circumstances: where social distancing can be maintained, at recess if the groups/cohorts are less than 50 students, consuming food and drink, and while engaging in physical activity.
This applies even if we drop below 4 active cases in Dawson County. Our plans were in place before Glendive had enough cases for the Governor's order to go into effect based on guidance from our Health Department and the CDC recommendations.
Online:
If you have opted out of Face-to-Face instruction you should be getting information from each school on when your student will start. If you still haven't seen anything, please call the school that your child goes to for more information.
Offsite:
With this being the first week of school, we will not be doing the offsite days. We want to make sure that we have everything set up. Next week, we will be starting the offsite days with all students. Your student's teachers will be sending work home or in their online platform for the students to complete.
Recess:
Each school is set up a little differently with how recess will work this year. Each school is trying to set up times for students to be outside without their masks. The general rule is that students can be outside without their masks if they are grouped with fewer than 50 students and they are outside for less than 15 minutes. There will be times where this is not possible (i.e. mornings when all students come to school on the playground). Please know we will continue to try and create opportunities for students to be able to take off their face coverings. Please help us by encouraging your students to follow these procedures so that we can continue to try and offer these opportunities and keep our schools healthy.
Food Service:
This week we will be offering Breakfast and Lunch for onsite students only. Next week, we will start offering the opportunity for students to also request Breakfast and Lunch on their offsite days. Please watch out for more information coming out this week about how the offsite process will work along with the process for students that are online.
The following is guidance and protocols developed by the Dawson County Health Department to help mitigate the risk of COVID-19 spread at Glendive Public Schools. Please check out the following link. We will also be sending out a Frequently Asked Questions sheet developed by the Health Department in the next couple of days.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gBmrDjKhix4AThfhBR41dIhbb0uYmphHKze8Hqc4YX4/edit?usp=sharing
RE: GPS will NOT be charging the Tech Fee for 20-21 school year
Thank you for your patience as we travel to new waters for Glendive Public Schools. Recently it was announced that parents were going to need to pay a $30 rental fee for the Chromebooks and Ipads that the students will be receiving this year. After last spring, we heard from many parents and staff members that the online learning was difficult for many reasons. Some of those reasons had to do with not having the proper devices, not being able to keep their student on task, not being able to control what their student was doing, etc. We heard loud and clear and were able to purchase Chromebooks for all students grades 3-12 and IPads for students grades PK-2. Not only were we able to get a device for every student, but we also wanted to make sure that they meet all student privacy requirements and applicable technology laws. In addition, we wanted to make sure that we were able to control all aspects of the device at school or at home for their offsite days.
We have received many emails and have talked to many parents over the last week about the rental fee. We will NOT be charging this fee this year as we agree that it was announced too late. If you have already paid the fee, the school will be contacting you to give your money back. We understand that grants were used to purchase this equipment. The school district will need to find a way to help make this sustainable moving forward. There will still be a device checkout sheet that will need to be signed so parents are aware of the process for checking out the device. If you have any questions about this, please contact your student’s building administrator.
We are really looking forward to having students start back in the schools tomorrow. Again, thank you for your patience and grace throughout this difficult time.
Info on Transportation:
With the A/B Hybrid Schedule, Glendive Public Schools will have busing available for all students that need it! Busing will be available starting the first day of school. Here is the new bus schedule for the 20-21 school year.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rhUUChgIlVbDlDstRJtI5yyXN-KGAUgD1dnrGMmk-6E/edit?usp=sharing