We have had an amazing week of learning at Voyager Academy Elementary School. Thank you for your encouragement and support this week. Thank you for your patience as we are working out the concerns related to starting back to school and thank you for allowing us to be a part of your family as we seek to create independent life-long learners. The very best thing you can do for your child this year is to make sure they attend school if at all possible and that they arrive on time.
CAR LINE UPDATES: Thank you for being so patient as we are diligently working to make the car line experience the best it can possibly be. Listed below are a few updates:
Kindergarten students will be added to the car line mix beginning on Monday, August 16.
You are highly encouraged to arrive to car line between 7:15 and 7:30 am.
Please make sure your child is unbuckled, has on their mask and has their belongings when you pull up to a drop off zone. The goal is for the student to quickly step out of the car so that cars can continue to move through the line.
Parents are allowed to now park in the BACK of the high school parking lot and walk over to the front of the elementary building. If you are going to walk over, please remember you are walking at your own risk and parents MUST walk with their student.
We are attempting to allow elementary parents who have a middle school student to turn right if at all possible. When the middle school drive completely fills up and we have nowhere else for the cars to turn, we have no option but to ask you to turn left. If we do not send parents left then the entire car line system would stop moving until middle school opens up at 7:45.
We are working on adding more staff to the afterschool and before school programs so that we can make our car line system more efficient.
PTO BACK TO SCHOOL PARTY: Thank you to the PTO for organizing our back to school party. It will be great to meet all of our new families. Thank you for coming out to join the Voyager community.
SECOND AND THIRD GRADE CHORUS: Mrs. Sawyer has started a before school chorus with our 2nd and 3rd graders. They will meet each Thursday morning at 7:10 am. I have already heard them sing and they are amazing! More updates will be coming to you all soon.
WHAT DO I DO IF MY CHILD HAS BEEN EXPOSED TO COVID?
Contact Mr. Manning and your child's teacher
Mr. Manning or the school nurse will contact the family and talk you through the quarantine/isolation process.
Students may still work from home during this quarantine period. The teacher will provide assignments for the student and the parent will need to complete a daily on-line attendance.
VAES HAS SOME NEW SAFETY GUIDELINES FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF:
It has been an awesome start to the 2021-2022 school year and I anticipate any greater things to come. As we seek to ensure the health and safety of all students and staff, we would like to take a moment to update our safety procedures. We have made some changes as we attempt to do everything in our power to keep students learning at school.
1. It is imperative that students begin school each day with a mask that fits them properly. Please make sure your child has a mask that will stay up over their nose. This is our number one safety feature.
2. We will be reinforcing the fact that students will have a 30 minute lunch break with 14 minutes to eat lunch and then we would like for their masks to go back on. If students do not finish lunch within the 14 minutes, they will be given time to eat. If possible, students will eat lunch outside or will be spread out throughout the classroom.
3. Students will be asked to keep their masks on for outdoor recess if they cannot be socially distant. If the outside temperature is over 90, recess will be held inside.
4. Classrooms should have set times in the day to ensure all students have washed their hands and table tops have been cleaned.
5. If students have any symptoms of sickness, the student should remain home until they have no symptoms.
6. Our school nurse and managing director are keeping a very close eye on the ever changing safety guidelines for schools. We will keep you updated as information is shared with us.
7. If we have a student who tests positive for Covid, that student will be asked to isolate for 10 days before returning to school. Voyager will send out a health email that tells families we have had a positive case within our school community. WE WILL INFORM FAMILIES OF THE GRADE LEVEL FOR ANY EXPOSURE. Positive cases are reported to the health department. Students who are exposed to a positive Covid individual within their home, should report that to the building principal as soon as possible. That student will be asked to quarantine based on the most recent guidelines. All cases will be followed by the school nurse. If a student is exposed to another student at school who has tested positive for Covid, that exposed student will not need to quarantine based on the most recent recommendations from the state of North Carolina. If that student were to begin to show any Covid symptoms then that student would need to quarantine.
Thank you for working with us as we seek to keep every student and every staff member as safe as possible. I understand we may not like the various guidelines, but I think we can all agree we need to do everything possible to keep our Voyager family healthy.
BOG’S ARE COMING: The 3rd grade students will complete the NC beginning of Year Assessments on August 19. Please make sure your child has had a good night’s sleep, a solid breakfast and arrives to school on time.
VOYAGER NEEDS SUBSTITUTES: If you are interested in being a substitute teacher for Voyager Academy Elementary, you may apply on the school website or you may reach out to the Assistant Principal, Mrs. Jessica Weiland and she will talk you through the process of signing up to assist us. Thank you for your willingness to help.
DISMISSAL UPDATE: Car line begins at 2:45 and we will strive to end at 3:15. We have many parents who are not picking up students until 3:45 or 4:00. Please pick your children up on time. It is not fair to the front office staff to ask them to stay late each day because parents are not arriving on time. Let’s teach our children how to do the right thing by example.
BIRTHDAY ROCK: VAES is looking to try and obtain a large boulder that we can place on the campus to be our BIRTHDAY ROCK! If you have any connections and could obtain a free boulder and get it to our campus so we could have a BIRTHDAY ROCK, please email Jessica Weiland at jweiland@voyageracademy.net or Tony Manning at tmanning@voyageracademy.net.
WHAT ARE WE DOING AT VOYAGER THIS WEEK?
Our classes have begun a new math curriculum this week. It is called BRIDGES. Your student is going to love it.
We also began a new language arts curriculum entitled CKLA.
This week our first graders decided on their hopes and dreams for the year, brainstormed their classroom rules, and started learning about fables and stories. They learned a very important lesson by reading "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" - If you tell lies, no one is going to believe you when you tell the truth!
This past week the second graders created their hopes and dreams, learned about our classmates by creating our own glyphs and started learning about fairy tales.
Kindergarten learned all about the Voyager campus by looking for Pete the Cat.
Our third grade students began a study of Fairy Tales this week and have completed many team building activities. Mrs. Weiland has been a special guest during morning meeting in several of the classrooms.