Special Meeting with Superintendent Porter

The Monroe County School District has an initiative on the current election ballot that would help cover the cost of funding a safe school officer on all public school campuses and our charter school families should fully understand the details about this initiative before casting their vote.  Superintendent of Schools, Mark Porter, will be at our campus this Thursday (8/16) at 6:30 to answer questions regarding how the district plans to comply with the state mandate and protect our charter school through the proposed millage increase and the impact on our school if the measure is not passed.  I strongly encourage everyone to follow this link to  the district’s promotional material:
link https://www.keysschools.com/cms/lib/FL02202360/Centricity/Domain/8/SchoolSafetyMCSDInfoCardDigital_Final073118.pdf .

This is a copy of the ballot language Monroe County voters will see:

Pursuant to newly-enacted legislation, the District is required to hire School Resource Officers and School Safety Officers. The District’s objective is to raise additional operational revenue exclusively for the hiring of the required security personnel.
Shall the District enact a yearly ad valorem tax of up to .0625 mill, for four (4) years beginning January 1, 2019, for purposes of raising revenue for the hiring of security personnel?

This Thursday’s special meeting has been arranged so that our families can understand the impact of the referendum, as voting will end before our All-School meeting takes place. Thanks for making arrangements to attend.

New Arrival & Dismissal Procedures

Please familiarize yourself with our updated arrival and dismissal procedures.  Parking is not permitted in our active arrival or dismissal line.  Families who decide to walk their child onto the campus need to park in an available space that is outside of our active arrival/dismissal line. The ‘walker’ gate for dismissal is now located near the crosswalk at the intersection of Pearl and United streets, and our active loading area is directly in front of our main office building.

Parent Directory: Occupations

We are creating a family directory where parents can post their occupation and generate potential business! Accurately completing your student’s enrollment paperwork will help our efforts at populating the directory.  Families will receive forms in next Tuesday’s take-home folder.  We will need all family data by 30 August so that we can organize the layout of the directory.  Thanks for turning in your students’ completed forms to our front office at your earliest convenience.

Registration with the district’s FOCUS parent portal is required for all families.
If you are a new family and have not yet registered, follow this link: https://monroe.focusschoolsoftware.com/focus/auth/

All-School Meeting

Our first All-School Meeting takes place at 6:00 on Wednesday, August 29th at school.  Families will have the opportunity to meet the school staff, connect with other families, and learn about our school.  Thank you for making arrangements for at least one representative from your family to attend our All-school meeting.

Blood Drive

Our first blood drive of the school year takes place Thursday, August 30th from 12:00-4:00.  Hosting regular blood drives benefits our community and May Sands Montessori as well; OneBlood gives our school $10 for each blood donor! As an incentive for donors, OneBlood will have a Fandango movie voucher for everyone who donates, and May Sands families who donate blood during our event will also earn two service hour points – be sure to sign up today! This is a link for anyone who wants to skip a line and book the online appointment (not required, but strongly recommended for those with busy schedules): https://donor.oneblood.org/donor/schedules/drive_schedule/740491

Take Home Folders

Today your student brought home a special, sturdy envelope that will serve as our school/home communication conduit. Please take a few minutes to review the contents of the envelope, sign the envelope, and return the student enrollment forms by this Friday (8/17).  The weekly news folder will travel home each Tuesday and must be signed & returned within the week.

Extended School Day Care