The school year is coming to a close and it is time for Kindergarten Roundup!

Please review the Kindergarten Roundup Flyer for more details about the upcoming event on Thursday, April 26th from 5-7PM in the Little Gym. The evening will be an opportunity for you to turn in the Kindergarten Registration paperwork and set an appointment for your child the last week of school to complete a kindergarten readiness assessment. Please note that you will have to come to the registration night to register your child. We will NOT be performing registrations over the phone or on the day of testing.

You will also need to bring the following items to school the night of April 26th:

• Copy of a Certified Birth Certificate
• Current Immunization Records
• Photo ID and/or Proof of Guardianship
• Proof of Physical Address (i.e. current utiltiy bill, etc)
• Kindergarten Registration Packet

If your child will need to ride the bus please fill out the Bus Sign-Up Form. Computers will be available the night of registration if you want to fill out the bus form then.

The board would like to get your feedback in the next few weeks. We will be using surveys to get feedback on a couple of items. Decisions were based off of your feedback from the last survey. In the future, our goal is to get the most accurate information from our community. So the decision the board has to make will reflect the majority of the community. 

The tool that we are using is based off of having a parent portal to Infinite Campus (I.C.). We will be sending out surveys through I.C. If you do not have a parent portal you will be unable to participate in these surveys. There are many reasons to have a parent portal to I.C. You can check on your student's progress, look at your student's grades, participate in surveys, put money on lunch account, and much more. I.C. also has a free app that makes this even more convenient.

If you do not have a parent portal to I.C. or you forgot your parent portal password. Please call the school at 406-656-2893 ext 200 or 501 or stop by at one of the offices. Setting up the portal only takes a minute and can benefit you and your child. In the near future there will be surveys sent out. We would love to get your feedback.

The month of February proved to be a challenging month due to large snow accumulation and extreme temperatures. We had two snow days last month, one on February 9^th and the other February 20th. The state does not go by the number of days students are in school but the number of instructional hours.

Under MT law 20-9-806(2); “The board of trustees may close school for “1” day each school year because of an unforeseen emergency and may not be required to reschedule the pupil-instruction time lost because of the unforeseen emergency.” The February 9^th snow day was an unforeseen emergency and the board approved February 9^th as an emergency day under MT law 20-9-806(2). Therefore no instruction time will need to be made up.

The February 20th snow day, due to the extreme temperatures, brings Elder Grove’s total number of instructional hours lower than the state’s limit by 6 hours. Elder Grove needs to make up those 6 hours of instruction before the end of the year. The board approved making up this time by making 3 Early Out days, full length days. After careful consideration to other possibilities, it was determined to be the least disruptive to parents, students, and staff. The three Early Outs that will be regular dismissal times are March 21^st, April 4^th and May 9^th. Please make arrangements to have your student in school on these days for their regular school day hours. K-2 will be a 2:15 dismissal and 3^rd-8^th will be a 3:00 dismissal.

Once again I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Justin Klebe

Superintendent

It is First Student's policy to only slow down at bus stops if there are no students.  It is important to make sure your student(s) are at the stop before the scheduled time. The buses are on strict schedules and cannot wait for students. If students are late getting to stops, this will make future stops late as well as arrival to school. Please make sure your student is at their assigned stop 5 minutes before the scheduled time, to make sure they meet its arrival and catch the bus.

Parents,

With the recent shooting in Florida, I wanted to reach out to the parents at Elder Grove and let you know that Elder Grove has policies and plans in place for emergencies like this. We hope it never happens, but it would be naive to not plan for emergencies such as these in today’s scary world.

Elder Grove has your students’ safety as their number one priority. We understand the immense responsibility you as parents have put on us as you release your child to our school each day. We have different lock down procedures for different levels of emergencies and run regular drills to make sure teachers and students understand what to do during these lock downs. We have a Vision Team, whose sole responsibility is to constantly review the safety and security procedures and measures we have in place. The team meets after every drill and examines ways we can do better. 

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