October 17, 2022- Eye of the Tiger Family Message

Dear Barrett Families:

We hope you enjoyed the beautiful Fall weather this weekend! This is another short week with an early release on Thursday for Parent Teacher Conferences. We hope you enjoy spending time with your child’s teacher learning about their progress in school!

Barrett in Twitter This Week: This week in #KWBPride! Photos of 1st grade scientists, 3rd grade Simple Machines, Hispanic Heritage Family Night and Roving Readers, Bike and Walk to School Day, PreK Fire Department visit, 4th grade students sharing personal narratives, Project Discovery, Art, Music and beautiful fall trees at Barrett! https://twitter.com/search?q=%23kwbpride&f=live

Barrett Book Fair:  Mark your calendars for the KW Barrett Book Fair, with Pajama Mama & R.E.A.D.!  After school from October 31 – November 4, the book fair will be open in the library, with a special Family Shopping Night on November 3.

COVID In-School Testing: APS will continue to offer optional in-school COVID testing for all students and staff through our testing partner, Aegis Sciences Corporation. Our testing day is Thursday from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM in the lobby.  Please see this link for more information. Please remind your child to get tested on Thursday mornings if you have opted them in.

Halloween Parade and Festivities– Monday, October 31, 2022

We will continue our tradition of having a Halloween parade for the students on October 31, 2022. This is a fun time for our students, staff, and community to dress up and parade through the neighborhood.  Parents are invited to join us for the parade. Details of our specific plans will be shared via Schooltalk separately. Please refer to the School talk message for our parade route, timing of the event, and meeting location.

Your child’s room parents and/or teacher may plan a fall themed crafts and games class “party” for students to ensure that all of our students can participate as some of our families do not celebrate Halloween. Additionally, we will not allow edible items such as food and drinks at this event to ensure we are sensitive to our student’s dietary restrictions, allergies, etc. Please do not send your child with any food or treats for this event. We will be returning them home. Additional items to note:

• Please  ensure that your child’s costume is easy to wear independently since we will not have the space and/or staffing to help students change.
• Please leave accessories at home. If the parent wishes to participate in the parade with us, you can bring accessories and hand off to the student along the parade route and collect once we have returned to school.
• All students will re- enter the building with us after the parade and follow the same dismissal procedures. We will not dismiss students from the parade to ensure that we have accounted for all of our students after the parade.

Please use this link if you do NOT want your child to participate in any of the events on Halloween Day.

MLK Literary and Visual Arts Contest: The annual APS MLK Literary and Visual Arts contest will take place from Tuesday, October 18 – Friday, November 18.  The dates of the contest have shifted to produce a quality video for the MLK Annual Tribute on January 15, 2023.  The video will be highlighted at the January 23 School Board meeting.  This year there will be no drop off locations at any community centers.  All literary and visual art entries can be emailed to MLKentries@apsva.us, left in the front office at any school, or dropped off on the 1st floor of the Syphax building.  APS students in all grade levels are asked to participate in the contest.

Playground Demolition Update: We have an official date for when demolition of our playground will begin! Currently, demolition is slated to begin on October 22nd- 24th for our Kindergarten- 5th grade playground. Demolition of our Pre-K Playground will begin right after. Once demolition has been completed, installation of our new playground will begin.  We will walk the site on Monday and provide an update in next week’s message with any updates to the timeline.  What does this mean? This is the last week for us to enjoy on our old playground as a community. We will provide an update to our recess plans via School talk separately this week.

Unity Day (Wear Orange!)– October is National Bullying Prevention Month and one of the ways we will celebrate bullying prevention is by holding a Unity Day. On Unity Day, we will all wear orange to show unity for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion and to send a visible message that no one should ever experience \bullying. Unity Day is on Wednesday, October 19th!