Free Meals Extended Until Dec 31 (and other News)

Sorry for so much info, but there's a lot going on:

1. USDA has extended the free meals option to all students through December 31. We will be taking advantage of this opportunity to feed kids their breakfast and lunch for free. If students want a second breakfast and/or lunch, they will have to pay the regular meal rate for a second meal. Virtual students may call in by 8am for a free breakfast/lunch takeaway meal which a parent can pick up from the elementary front doors at 10am.

2. The first quarter has been adjusted due to the delay of the start of school. The end of first quarter is now October 21st. That pushes Parent/Teacher conferences back to October 29th from 1pm to 7pm. There will be no school on October 30th.

3. I know there have been situations where we are waiting on COVID19 tests for certain kids. I'm sorry we can't be more direct with some of the information, but we still have to follow FERPA and HIPAA regulations. Student information will be shared officially from the office on a need-to-know basis to teachers. We don't share protected information with the school board either, so they typically can't answer your questions because they don't know. Please do not ask us to violate this since there can be legal ramifications for doing so.

4. Athletics has been a bit of a mess this year with all of the testing and symptoms and whatnot surrounding COVID19. Keep in mind that information on Facebook isn't official unless it is on an "official" school district page. We just dealt with a situation where information following the Jasper cancellation was posted on several private Facebook pages claiming to be sharing official school information. I talked with the Jasper Superintendent and she said the school didn't post any information that day, but several pages owned by parents and one by a non-staff assistant coach did post information as if they were official school statements (the assistant coach’s page said “No test could be provided by other team. Plus weather”). In the end, both schools tried to be flexible enough for kids to get to play football and it didn't work out for several reasons. These type of arrangements will rarely work out to make everyone happy, so we apologize if parents were inconvenienced by the schools' efforts to create an opportunity for kids to get to play ball.

5. On a positive note, our high school volleyball teams remind me of the 2019 Chiefs! They stubbornly hang in there no matter what and can come back from way behind to win. Varsity and JV went a full 8 sets last night. The games were always just a few points apart. I took my giant textbook thinking I would get a little time to read, but I was paying attention to the game the whole time. During my time in Eminence, I learned a lot about volleyball (except rotation which is still a mystery to me) and traveled with the team to state twice in four years which was an amazing experience! So hang in there girls and never quit, never play to 'not lose', because a long point run is always possible.

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but I made it 4 full days this week before really being hit with the fatigue. At my age, I'm thankful I've recovered as fast as I have.