Posted August 24, 2021
Good afternoon Swigert Families,
It was wonderful to see students and families on our first day of school yesterday. The energy and enthusiasm was contagious- especially after missing an in person start last year. We appreciate your patience as we work through drop off and pick up procedures. Due to covid, Denver Public Schools is not allowing parents into the building except for special circumstances. We will send videos of the classrooms as part of our back to school night.
We realize that starting with half days is challenging for many families but we find it incredibly important for two reasons. First, to ease students into the routine of school again. And secondly, it allows teachers one time to do beginning of year assessments. We will continue to gather reading, writing and math data over the next two weeks and will send home this data after September 3rd. Wednesday will be our first full day of school and I imagine you will have some tired kids coming home. It takes a couple weeks to build the stamina of a school routine – make sure kids are going to be early and getting plenty of rest. Wednesday will include our first full lunch and the beginning of specials – yay, we are so glad to have full in person specials back.
Lunch: Students will be eating lunch outside in specific areas on the playground. If students order a hot lunch they will walk to the cafeteria to pick up their lunch and head to their identified lunch spot. Lunches for ECE and Kinder: If your child will be ordering lunch from the cafeteria please preview the lunch options the menu can be found here. Each teacher will ask their students if they are having cafeteria lunch daily, and which option they want. Lunches for ECE, Kinder, and 1st Grade will be delivered to the classrooms. If your child is going to be late (arriving after 8:45 AM) and needs a lunch, please inform the child’s teacher and the office, to ensure there is a lunch available.
Specials: Students will have a special rotation daily; either STEM, Physical Education, Spanish, Visual Arts or Music. Classroom teachers will share the specials schedule because it differs by class and grade level.
We look forward to seeing you at our PTA sponsored community welcome breakfast this Saturday on the Swigert playground from 8:30-10:30. This annual event is a fun way to connect and meet new families!
Sincerely,
Shelby Dennis
shelby_dennis@dpsk12.org
This is a reminder to get those last few hours of reading in!
The Swigert Summer Reading Challenge ends Friday and hours read will need to be submitted by Monday the 30th. Once your hours are completed, you can submit them through the online form at https://www.swigertpta.com/
Please email Swigertsummerreadingchal
Saturday, August 28th, 8:30-10:30 AM
Join the Swigert staff and PTA for a Welcome Breakfast for all Swigert Families on Saturday, August 28th. It takes place on the Swigert playground and includes food from local restaurants, fun activities for the kids, and a chance to get to know other Swigert families.
In Store Spirit Event @ Pozzetti Gelato
Friday, August 27th
Noon-9:00pm
5094 North Central Park Boulevard
Celebrate a successful first week back to school with gelato! Mention SWIGERT and 20% of your total will be donated back to our school.
These are the current health and safety guidelines we are following :
Please see DPS safety guidance here:
Update on Masking and Health Procedures for the Start of School | Denver Public Schools (dpsk12.org)
Information on free covid tests for students and community members:
New Quarantining Guidelines:
Denver Public School has released new guidance regarding quarantining for the upcoming school year. If a student tests positive for COVID, they will need to be quarantined for at least ten days after symptom onset and is 24 hours fever free without using medicine. If a student has close contact they will need to quarantine for 10 days without a test or 7 days, if not exhibiting symptoms and with proof of a negative PCR test taken 4 days for last exposure. The biggest change is the exceptions- you don’t need to quarantine if both parties were wearing a mask properly over the mouth and nose at the time of exposure and without symptoms. This is important and if masks are worn properly and consistently inside the building we will not need to quarantine whole classes or students with close contact.. There will be no quarantines or contact tracing for any outdoor exposure. Please reiterate the importance of mask wearing inside the building to your children and will do the same at school.
Here is the covid decisions tree:
Here are the Swigert covid coordinators:
Hoang Tran, School Nurse: Hoang_Tran@dpsk12.org ; 720-424-4803
Richard Fisher, Dean of Operations, Richard_Fisher@dpsk12.org; 720-424-4742
Shelby Dennis, School Principal, Shelby_Dennis@dpsk12.org; 720-424-4795
September 9th
Unfortunately, DPS shared that we cannot hold any in person activities inside for the first sixty days of the school year. This impacts how we planned to do Back to School Night on September 9th. For right now, we will plan on having online sessions with admin to go over important information from the year and have teachers create videos of their classrooms and send our important information. We will reassess when we have the green light to hold in person events on campus.
Please pack a water bottle and an extra snack for your child daily. Students will have a break in the morning for snack/recess.
If your child has health concerns or allergies please email our nurse Hoang Tran at Hoang_Tran@dpsk12.org
Dine and Donate – Friday, August 27th
Pozzetti Gelato Noon-9PM
PTA Welcome Back Breakfast – Saturday, August 28th, 8:30-10:30 AM
Join the Swigert staff and PTA for a Welcome Breakfast for all Swigert Families on Saturday, August 28th. It takes place on the Swigert playground and includes food from local restaurants, fun activities for the kids, and a chance to get to know other Swigert families.
Back to School Night – Thursday, September 9th
Back to School Night is a parent/guardian-only event to hear about your teacher’s plans for the school year, student expectations, general school information and an opportunity for you to ask questions. The night is divided into classroom sessions with your student’s teacher and presentations from our administrators. **Details to come and may differ for COVID protocols.
Hello Swigert families!
On behalf of the Swigert PTA Board, I am excited to welcome you to school for the 2021-2022 school year. While things will still look a little different this year, we are very excited to see our children returning to campus together. Swigert is a wonderful community of amazing families, engaged students and dedicated teachers and staff. We are looking forward to re-engaging that community, even if we have to do things a little differently. The resilience and can-do attitude we have seen from this community is exactly what we need to make this a great year for our Swigert Eagles.
Our PTA is a volunteer organization, and we work to support the Swigert community through advocacy, community-building and fundraising to support critical funding needs that will enrich all of our children’s experience at Swigert. Our work has supported staffing, professional development for teachers, the International Baccalaureate program, critical needs for those families with limited financial resources, the school garden and community building family activities. Our success is only possible because of the generous donations of time, expertise and funds from our parents, teachers, staff and community. Everywhere you look, you will find people going out of their way to make Swigert the best it can be. I strongly encourage you to join our PTA and help in any way you can.
We have many activities planned as we start school to help foster our community (and do so safely). Our first event will be held this Saturday, August 28th as we kick off the school year with a Welcome Breakfast on the school playground from 8:30-10:30. We hope to see many of you there! Please keep an eye on the Swigert calendar for the most up to date information about our events and activities. I also hope you will join us for our first PTA meeting on Wednesday, September 1 at 6:00pm. This meeting will be held virtually on Zoom.
I am excited to see our returning families and to meet our new families. Please feel free to contact me or any of our board members, if you have any questions. Thank you for your support!
Best wishes for an amazing year!
Courtney Percival
Swigert PTA President, President@swigertpta.com
Swigertpta.com