Monthly Archives: October 2020

Our Thunderbird Halloween Extravaganza has been simply spooktacular! Tomorrow we will announce the winning classes for our door decorating and pumpkin design challenges! Each class has had the opportunity to vote to pick the winners. Check out photos of all the pumpkin creations and door displays on these slides.

Thunderbird Door Decorating and Pumpkin Design Challenges

As a reminder, we are inviting students to come to school dressed in their Halloween costumes tomorrow. In order to ensure that all of our students enjoy their day, there are a few guidelines that we would like all students to follow with respect to costumes:

• Masks that cover the face or imitation weapons of any kind are not allowed. (students must wear their COVID face mask during the day)
• Extremely graphic or gory costumes (including blood) are not allowed. We have very young students who might be afraid.
• Costumes should be simple enough for students to manage independently. They will still need to put their COVID face mask on/take it off and wash/sanitize their hands throughout the day.
• Costumes should not interfere with classroom activities. Students must be able to sit, walk, see, hear, etc.
• Costumes should not be revealing in nature.

Please Note: Due to COVID-19 restrictions this year, students are not allowed to bring in any treats or non-food items such as stickers, pencils, glow bracelets, etc. to share or hand out to friends. We appreciate your understanding.

Hello Thunderbird Families:

As we are in the season of fall, we are reminded of God’s infinite love, acts of miracles and our daily blessings. Here at St. Daniel Catholic School, we are so thankful that you have chosen to share your most precious gifts, your children, with us! Our community of the school, home and parish is built upon wonderful relationships and we continue to look forward to the many experiences together this year.

Yesterday, we handed out additional masks for each student. 3 grey and 1 black. The grey masks have been provided by the school board and the black one by the Ministry of Education. You can still use your own. These are additional masks to help with making sure each child has a clean one ready for school use. The grey masks have a space on the inside for parents to write their child’s name in permanent ink/marker. Please remind your child to make sure to bring them home to be regularly laundered.

Please remember that to keep our community safe we need families to complete daily, the school screening assessment which can be found here or with a simple google search of “COVID self-assessment, Ontario”.  Let’s work together to keep the case numbers down.

Our Thunderbird Halloween Extravaganza has been frightfully fun! We are looking forward to seeing which class wins the door decorating and pumpkin design challenge! This is the link to all the spooktacular activities planned for this week! As a reminder, on October 30th we are inviting students to come to school dressed in their Halloween costumes. In order to ensure that all of our students enjoy their day, there are a few guidelines that we would like all students to follow with respect to costumes:

• Masks that cover the face or imitation weapons of any kind are not allowed. (students must wear their COVID face mask during the day)
• Extremely graphic or gory costumes (including blood) are not allowed. We have very young students who might be afraid.
• Costumes should be simple enough for students to manage independently. They will still need to put their COVID face mask on/take it off and wash/sanitize their hands throughout the day.
• Costumes should not interfere with classroom activities. Students must be able to sit, walk, see, hear, etc.
• Costumes should not be revealing in nature.

Please Note: Due to COVID-19 restrictions this year, students are not allowed to bring in any treats or non-food items such as stickers, pencils, glow bracelets, etc. to share or hand out to friends. We appreciate your understanding.

~ NURTURING ~ ENCOURAGING ~ SUCCESSFUL ~ THUNDERBIRDS ~

Good Morning Thunderbird Families:

Below you will find a very important message from our Director of Education, Loretta Notten.  Please be sure to take some time to read the message.  As always, thanks for all you do to support our Thunderbird community.

October 27^th, 2020

Dear Waterloo Catholic Community –

We hope that you are well in body, mind and spirit.  We know that can be challenging in these times but we hope that you are drawing energy from our students, and from their experience of being re-engaged in their learning and forging new friendships, while rekindling old ones. Every day we hear stories and bear witness to the good work of our staff, and we know that they are making a difference to all the students we serve.  The purpose of this letter is to share a few brief updates and then offer an invitation.

To begin, at the October Board meeting last night we brought a series of important updates in relation to our ongoing operation of schools in our new COVID reality.  We shared that it is our intention to eliminate the November transition window in elementary.  We have been listening to our stakeholders – parents, teachers, administrators and students, and while we know that it can be attractive to provide flexibility to accommodate changes between face to face and virtual, we also know that it takes a toll on everyone when there is disruption to pre-established classes.  No one asked for this new reality in which we are all living, and I think we can all appreciate that compromises are necessary, and that as a school board, we are delivering on a promise not fully of our own making.  Having said that, I am extremely proud of all our staff and all they do each and every day to help us deliver on that promise.  Our staff in our bricks and mortar schools, and our St. Isidore staff, are all hitting homeruns each and every day.  We anticipate that some parents may be disappointed to not have the additional transition opportunity, but we hope that in the main, people will agree that it was important to listen to the voices of our stakeholders, and to attempt to provide maximum stability moving forward.

In this same vein – we have been deliberating how to best proceed in secondary, in order to meet a variety of needs.  We have an additional 377 students who want to transition to St. Isidore in secondary and 40 who wish to return to face to face, (Generating a net 337 increase in students to St. Isidore, or 14% of our total secondary population now studying in virtual).  A great many boards are now looking at a hybrid model of delivery in secondary, but again we tried to listen to the voices of our staff who told us a pivot in late November to a different model of delivery, other than what we currently experiencing, might be too stressful for all involved.  We know our staff have been working so hard and we are not looking to disrupt your reality again.  We also want our students to have the best educational experience possible.  To that end, we will continue with the current delivery model and take the next quadmester to fully consider options for the remaining two quadmesters.

We have had a few cases of covid in the past few days.  It is perhaps inevitable that when the provincial numbers rise, we too will see some cases.  I realize that if you get a letter saying there has been a case of COVID in your school that it is most unsettling.  I am pleased to report that to date our cases remain relatively few, they seem to be quickly managed and most importantly, we have had no cases of covid transmission in our schools to date.  Our safety protocols are working.  I know how much we all value reading that statement so I cannot state strongly enough the importance of following our WCDSB operational guidelines, of wearing masks as warranted, good hygiene practices and most of all, strong daily implementation of the self-screening tool.  We will only navigate this time together and fortunately, I have full confidence in our TEAM! #StrongerTogether

And now to the invitation.  As we did this past spring, we are launching a ThoughtExchange today and it will remain open for the next week.  We really do want to hear from you.  To gain insight into your thoughts about the past several weeks and our launch to the 2020-21 school year.  A reminder that you can add thoughts at any time, but do not forget to return perhaps more than once to star ideas as they populate.  As was the case last spring, it will give us insights into your impressions, your questions and assist us in know where we need to focus more energy.

The ThoughtExchange is available at: https://my.thoughtexchange.com/474084826

Please know that it is also available on our main website.

As indicated above, please remember that all students (or parents on their behalf) should complete this updated self-screening tool every day:  COVID-19 school and child care screening tool and a reminder that no staff should come to school without completing the adult self-assessment:  https://covid19checkup.ca/  The process of self screening each day is a vital step in ensuring the continued safety of all our schools, so sincere thanks to all for remaining faithful to this and to all our required protocols.

We are so very happy to be back to learning in our schools.  We have transitioned to Year 2 of our Pastoral Plan – Gathered to Become.  We look forward to our CSAC Chair and New Administrator Commissioning event Wednesday evening.  It feels so important to continue to find ways to foster community.  How blessed are well that we share one family in Christ as WCDSB – he nourishes and strengthens us daily.

We sincerely thank you for journeying with us.   Please reach out to us if you need help or guidance, and remain confident that we are here to support you, as we walk together as a hope-filled community.  #WCDSBTogether  #WeGotThis

Sincerely,

Loretta Notten
Director of Education

Hey Thunderbird Community:

If you like working with children and want to part of an amazing community we have the job for you! We are currently looking for a Lunch Hour Supervisor. For more details please contact us at: 519-893-8801.

Hello Thunderbird Families:

Please find the link to our Halloween Extravaganza! It is sure to be a Spooktacular week full of frightfully fun activities! St. Daniel Halloween Week Activities Link

On October 30th we are inviting students to come to school dressed in their Halloween costumes. In order to ensure that all of our students enjoy their day, there are a few guidelines that we would like all students to follow with respect to costumes:

• Masks that cover the face or imitation weapons of any kind are not allowed, (students must wear their COVID face mask during the day).
• Extremely graphic or gory costumes (including blood) are not allowed. We have very young students who might be afraid.
• Costumes should be simple enough for students to manage independently. They will still need to put their COVID face mask on/take it off and wash/sanitize their hands throughout the day.
• Costumes should not interfere with classroom activities. Students must be able to sit, walk, see, hear, etc.
• Costumes should not be revealing in nature.

Please Note: Due to COVID-19 restrictions this year, students are not allowed to bring in any treats or non-food items such as stickers, pencils, glow bracelets, etc. to share or hand out to friends. We appreciate your understanding.

Hello Thunderbird Families:

This is the time each year when we update or create Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for some of our students. Tomorrow those students with IEP’s will be sent home for parents to review. Those students with IEP’s that are attending St. Isidore can expect to receive their IEP in the mail.

Please see the links below for an explanation of the IEP.

SEAC IEP Letter

IEP Checklist

To our Thunderbird Families:

We want to take this opportunity to wish our St. Daniel community a very Happy Thanksgiving. We are so grateful for our Thunderbirds and Thunderbird families. We wish you a weekend filled with all the joys of the season. A reminder that tomorrow is a PA Day – no school for students.  

We know that Thanksgiving may look a bit different this year. While most of us in Waterloo Region will still be able to celebrate the holiday in one way or another, many will struggle to put anything on the table. Normally at this time St. Daniel School would be collecting food to help support those in need, however, this year we are not able to collect items due to the Covid-19 protocols in place. If you are interested in supporting the Waterloo Region Foodbank financial donations can be made at www.thefoodbank.ca/donate.

Please find the link to our Thanksgiving Video Blessing from St. Anthony Daniel Parish below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wdw7KKY3vEBgEbO8Ak0-BNC9QTRwMCQn/view?usp=sharing

Also, please see the letter below from our Director of Education, Loretta Notten with a special Thanksgiving reflection.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pnckYHbRwrTpOqcI6duWpvDcWpr86BnL/view?usp=sharing

God bless!

-The St. Daniel Staff

~ Nurturing ~ Encouraging ~ Successful ~ Thunderbirds ~

Hello Thunderbird Families:

Below you will find the links to the most current COVID-19 protocols that we are required to follow from Public Health. Please see the links below. Also, please be sure to complete the screening tool daily, it take less than a minute. This will help you to decide if your child(ren) should come to school when they may be showing any symptoms. Thanks!

Parent and Caregiver Information:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JKoMYdA5u387LO5sju4Y63-o3wORNpeB/view?usp=sharing

Screening Tool:

https://covid-19.ontario.ca/school-screening/

Hello Thunderbird Families:

Just a friendly reminder that Friday October 9th is a PA Day, there is no school for our students. Extended day is running for those families that have registered.

Take care!

Rowan’s Law Day

On Wed., October 7th, let’s wear purple in memory of Rowan Stringer, a 17 year-old Ottawa rugby player. In 2018, a new law called Rowan’s Law was passed in Ontario. It helps protect people who play sports, or play active games in schools, and helps teachers, parents/guardians, and coaches learn about preventing concussions. Rowan‘s Law also helps people who get concussions to recover.

Have you ever bumped your head or body? We’re all at risk of getting a concussion but because some bumps can hurt our brains, and our brains may need a lot of time to heal, Rowan’s Law was created.

Thanks to Rowan’s Law, all sports organizations and schools in Ontario have rules in place around concussions. Even when we do our best to prevent injuries there is always some risk. If you bump your head or jar your neck stop and tell someone!

Play safe, Thunderbirds!