Newsletter: August 25

Dear Parents,

Our FCPS kids have started back at school and our Early Childhood Education programs are enjoying our last two weeks of summer while the office gets ready to kick off the new school year! You may have received or will be receiving some forms via adobe sign. Please return those to us so that we can keep our files up to date. Please also remember to send us or bring us up to date vaccination/health records after well visits for your child(ren).

CHILD AND ADULT FOOD CARE PROGRAM FORMS FOR 2022-2023 SCHOOL YEAR

It’s that time of year again! Since the grand majority of our students filled out their CACFP forms in September of last year, we will be doing a complete school renewal for the 2022-2023 school year during the next week. This includes our new families who may have filled out forms over the summer. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we really appreciate your help with streamlining our bookkeeping!

There will be tables set up by the gate at pickup starting on TODAY Thursday, August 25th. We will have forms organized by classroom! Please swing by and sign your forms. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via brightwheel or email!

Staff Announcements

We have a few staff announcements to share with our community:

Miss Pinky’s last day at Common Ground was Monday. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors! Miss Simi is leading the room for the time being, while we work to find a replacement lead teacher for the Toddler program.
Miss LJ will be stepping down from her full time position while her husband attends Law School! She’s already agreed to stay on to help us with community events, including our October Stuffy Sleep Over and Trunk-or-Treat for Halloween!
Mr. Jordon has rejoined our staff as a School Aged Bus Driver!
We are currently interviewing for several positions, both full and part time. Those jobs can be found on all the job board sites due to a wonderful state sponsored partnership with Aquire4Hire!

Sign-Up Reminders:

We are still missing laundry helpers for the Love Bugs and the Busy Bees classrooms. Remember, ANY FAMILY can sign up for ANY CLASSROOM laundry. We currently using the honor system for tracking parent volunteer hours, but if it continues to be difficult to get volunteers, we may have to track those hours more closely.

Laundry Sign Up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f4faca723abff2-laundry

Morning/Evening extended hours are staffed base on sign-ups. It’s important that we have an accurate count so that we can staff appropirately. Please make sure that you sign up at least 2 days ahead of time and communicate any changes as soon as you are aware of them via brightwheel message. We will do our best to accommodate late sign-ups.

Extended Care Hours: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f4faca723abff2-fall

SATURDAY HOURS ARE BACK! Make sure you sign up for September Saturday Hours prior to the Labor Day Weekend! Again, this program is staffed according to sign ups, so it’s important that we have an accurate count a week prior to the event. Donations can be made at our PayPal Giving Fund page and will be applied to your account.

September Saturday Hours: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f4faca723abff2-september

Where to find information:

We know that it can seem overwhelming to know where to look for everything, so we try to keep you up to date through multiple channels. Here’s a handy list of where you can find information about your child’s room and events at the center:

Brightwheel - There are so many amazing features in this app! - Open your APP and select your child to follow long:
- Messages - you have the option to send a message directly to us to ask questions:
  - staff & admins - this chat goes your child’s classroom teachers, the administration, and the adults associated with your child’s account (both parents, any approved family or pick up persons)
  - admins only - this chat only goes to the center admins. It can be used for questions about billing, transitions, or anything that your child’s classroom teacher doesn’t need to be privy to
- Add Photo - if there is something that you do at home or over the weekend that you’d like to share with the teachers, please use this feature and let the teachers know through messages that you have shared something to the feed. We don’t get notifications for this, but it is a great way to share “at home” fun with the teachers! You do need to actually take the photo in the moment through the Brightwheel app to utilize this feature though. I have made the request that parents be able to upload photos from their albums with their tech support, so hopefully that will be coming soon!
- Calendar: You will find information about our CLOSED DAYS, center wide events, and classroom events in this calendar. Full details for these things are always available on the the calendar on our website, just consider this calendar a reminder.
- Learning: Lesson plans are available under this tab, remember that our fall programs do not begin until September 6th, so lesson plans may not be published yet.
- Documents: relevant center-wide documents are available here
Our Website and Newsletter -
- Subscribe to both our Newsletter and never miss one! We try to remember to share the link via messages, but we don’t want to overload the chat midday.
- This is the main CALENDAR for the school
- Menus can be found here
- Our BLOG is available here
Sign Ups
- We share our sign up genius links in most newsletters and on the calendar for events. They can also be found on the front page of the Newletter.