| Huge thanks to the dozens of parents who joined us last night for Dundee's first ever virtual PTO meeting and first PTO meeting of the 2020/2021 school year. We had two Zoom pages worth of attendees! While we missed the natural social interaction that can happen when we're face-to-face, we were still able to hear directly from Principal Kennedy about the school year so far and learn about what role the PTO can play in helping our school this year. Did you miss the meeting? Here are some highlights: |  |
- Dundee has 440 students this year, down slightly from prior years. Ms. Kennedy attributes that to many kindergarten students electing to wait a year to start school due to the pandemic.
- Consensus among parents and administrators is that our teachers and staff have done an incredible job pivoting to online learning so far. Ms. Kennedy detailed all the work teachers and staff have done in a short amount of time, including spending a lot of their own money to better equip their classrooms for online learning.
- The PTO has decided to automatically award all Dundee teachers grants this fall instead of asking them to apply through the usual PTO grant process. Because of the large amount of money the teachers spent on their own getting their classrooms ready, the PTO felt this was the best way to support and thank our staff. Look for the checks soon, teachers!
- The PTO budget is (kind of) set for the year. You can see the budget here. The vast majority of our fall events will not be taking place due to COVID restrictions. The spring events are still tentatively on the calendar but we realize that may change as we get closer. Also due to COVID, the PTO has decided to hold off on the annual Dundee Direct push, where we ask all families to contribute what they can. We're still happy to take any donations people feel comfortable making, but the big campaign is on hold for now.
- We will have t-shirt sales, which is great because we know lots of people are asking for new gear! Look for an online order in the next few weeks. Shirts will be made after the orders are finalized. (And if you can't wait, you can see what we have in stock in our store.)
- Standardized testing is not happening remotely this fall for Dundee kids. If we go back, we may do MAP testing at that point but nothing is planned yet.
- Ms. Kennedy said Superintendent Logan and OPS officials will continue to review if and when it is safe for students to return to in-person learning. She said everyone would rather have the kids in school but with a district our size and with the disproportionate way COVID is affecting our population, the Superintendent has a lot of factors to consider.
We covered a lot of ground in an hour! Do you have any questions or comments you didn't get answered or that you want to share? Send us an email at dundeepto@gmail.com and we'll do our best to get them answered.
Thanks to everyone for zooming in for our meeting! It was good to see all the faces - both old and new. We'll see you next month - on Tuesday, October 6th.
- Consensus among parents and administrators is that our teachers and staff have done an incredible job pivoting to online learning so far. Ms. Kennedy detailed all the work teachers and staff have done in a short amount of time, including spending a lot of their own money to better equip their classrooms for online learning.
- The PTO has decided to automatically award all Dundee teachers grants this fall instead of asking them to apply through the usual PTO grant process. Because of the large amount of money the teachers spent on their own getting their classrooms ready, the PTO felt this was the best way to support and thank our staff. Look for the checks soon, teachers!
- The PTO budget is (kind of) set for the year. You can see the budget here. The vast majority of our fall events will not be taking place due to COVID restrictions. The spring events are still tentatively on the calendar but we realize that may change as we get closer. Also due to COVID, the PTO has decided to hold off on the annual Dundee Direct push, where we ask all families to contribute what they can. We're still happy to take any donations people feel comfortable making, but the big campaign is on hold for now.
- We will have t-shirt sales, which is great because we know lots of people are asking for new gear! Look for an online order in the next few weeks. Shirts will be made after the orders are finalized. (And if you can't wait, you can see what we have in stock in our store.)
- Standardized testing is not happening remotely this fall for Dundee kids. If we go back, we may do MAP testing at that point but nothing is planned yet.
- Ms. Kennedy said Superintendent Logan and OPS officials will continue to review if and when it is safe for students to return to in-person learning. She said everyone would rather have the kids in school but with a district our size and with the disproportionate way COVID is affecting our population, the Superintendent has a lot of factors to consider.
We covered a lot of ground in an hour! Do you have any questions or comments you didn't get answered or that you want to share? Send us an email at dundeepto@gmail.com and we'll do our best to get them answered.
Thanks to everyone for zooming in for our meeting! It was good to see all the faces - both old and new. We'll see you next month - on Tuesday, October 6th.