Hello to all our wonderful Brant families! I want to wish you all a Happy New Year. I pray you have all had a restful and peaceful Christmas holiday break. Before I begin my update, I wanted to say a big thank you for all the wonderful Christmas well wishes from students and families. I continue to feel so welcomed by Brant families and I am so blessed to be part of the community.
With the extended break declared by the provincial government, we spent this first week back without the students. The hallways feel very empty without students in them, so we were delighted to hear yesterday that they will be in person on Monday, January 10th.
When we return to in person learning the processes that we had in place prior to the break will still apply. We will have hand sanitizing stations by the doors, classes will operate in their cohorts (homeroom grade groupings) and masks in the hallways. Students still need to be masked while riding the buses. We encourage you to help reinforce this with your child, since our goal is for the drivers to focus on safely navigating the route to and from school, rather than reminding students to follow the guidelines for bus behavior. I am confident they will continue to maintain the great reputation they have with our drivers for their excellent behavior.
Also, if your student is feeling ill at all, please keep them home. We are more than happy to arrange for work to come home, or to have them join virtually. See the guide from our division on when to stay home, including some links to AHS information that we are following around when to isolate. I am confident that we will continue to enjoy the good health we have seen at our school by following all the processes we have had in place since last year.
Hot lunches will continue, however the hot dog lunch that was scheduled for this past week will be done at the start of February. If you have already paid for January, you will be credited for that week next month.
Even with temperatures warming up next week, please ensure students dress for the weather. As well, have your child go through their things to make sure all gym strip, books and other class materials come back with them for the first day. We want to hit the ground running to make up for lost time! I am very excited to hear all the stories of what happened over the break. It has been too long, and though we are very happy for students to have had this extra time with their families, we miss them and can't wait to see them next week. God bless!
