Five Day Week

A wonderful winter greeting to all our Brant families!

This week meant that we had 5 days to fill with experiences, instead of the usual 4. And it was a busy week indeed.

The weather was just cool enough all week to let students skate and for the ice to stay in good shape. I really appreciate the excitement of the students as they head out, but even more I am grateful for the way the larger students take care of the younger ones. There is a constant stream of teens helping with younger grades’ skate laces, assisting onto the ice and playing games together. It is a real blessing to watch.

Other notes:

• Hot lunch registration is online for February. Be sure to sign up for those hot lunches right away.

• Palliser has end of life chromebooks available for purchase. These devices no longer have software or hardware support, but are still in working condition. If you want one for home, let me know and I can request it from the division. The cost is approximately $20.

• Our next open house is planned for February 17th, 4-8pm. Please pass the word to anyone who is interested in having their child attend Brant but wants to check out the school first. Our best advertisement is our families and their word of mouth of the quality of education they have experienced at Brant.

• The skating rink will be closed this weekend due to the warm weather. We are hopeful it will be cooler next week.

I want to thank all of those families who kept their students home when they weren’t feeling well. Through the course of the week we saw student absences for all reasons slowly increase to around 16% by Thursday with some positive covid cases at all levels. We also had several staff ill during the week, which necessitated some adjustments for subs and the activities done in class. Through it all the students here continued to demonstrate the character and behavior that is a hallmark of Brant students. I am very proud of the efforts of everyone, staff and students alike, to continue the educational experience, whether it was online or in person. The one request I would make is that if your child has symptoms, please keep them home for 24 hours past the end of those symptoms to be sure they are recovered. This will really help our community keep our numbers down, our needs for subs and help us prevent the possibility of us going online for school. Thank you.

Palliser has also asked we share this information regarding covid reporting with you:

Recently, the province announced changes in that Alberta Health Services is not currently confirming positive cases of COVID-19 in schools.   To help you understand what is happening in your child’s school, we will report on the percentage of students absent due to self-reported cases of COVID-19 or general illness.  You are able to view our COVID-19 cases and student absence data for your child’s school on our Palliser website.  The information will be updated each weekday and display student absence rates up to the previous day.  This online reporting will replace notifications that we previously provided to a classroom when we received a self-reported case.

Most importantly, we need to ensure your child stays home when they are sick.  We have developed a Stay at Home Guide for students and families to understand when your child needs to stay home and for how long.

Please use the links in the above paragraph to access the most up-to-date information from the division about absences and whether your child should stay home.

I wish you a blessed weekend.

Quinn Barreth, Principal