Parents and Church Body –
Grace and Peace!
This Sunday starts backup Equipping Classes for adults and Sunday School for children! I am very grateful for your patience as the teachers, curriculum, classrooms, and additional procedures are prepared to serve, protect, and equip families.
Please read below to find several key items to help with this return!
Promotion Sunday
Promotion Sunday was slotted to change this year at the beginning of fall instead of summer and ties us right into our return. Promotion Sunday is a time when children will be able to move up a grade and or age group that ties closely to the LS school district cutoff of 7/31. The 6th graders going into 7th grade were already on the move up at the beginning of summer to help them enjoy and acclimate to the Grounded Student Ministry (GSM).
To help with this you will find the information below helpful for Teacher and Room changes. For the safety of all families, the information will not be sent out with the children’s names, ages, and birthdates, but the teachers in every room will have a list of all children.
These lists are based on the information in our church management software and are the best we have for the age or grade that they are in this coming year (Sept 2020-Aug 2021). If you find a correction to be made – please alert the teacher in that room, the children's desk, or send me an email, and we will get it corrected the following week.
Teacher and Room changes
In addition, we had planned to shift to a more consolidated approach to the Sunday School hour in-room and teacher structure – this gives us many benefits
- Safety - Children (Infants through 6th grade) are in the children’s wing of the church to improve the safety of children and help parents with drop-off and pick-up.
- Team-Teaching – This is 3 teachers per room to help with staffing teachers (training, schedule, vacations, etc.) – and allows for some breaks in the rigors of preparing and teaching lessons each week while improving relationships by reducing the need for subs who are not as familiar with the children.
- Consolidated Rooms – Team teaching allows the ability to combine some grades to gain extra eyes, ears, and hands in the classrooms. This directly helps with the Saftey and Team-Teaching model above.
- Reduced Curriculum Cost – We have an excellent curriculum for Sunday School, Generations of Grace, and to continue to maintain that and improve resources for teachers and families we have benefits to cost reduction with the Team-Teaching and Consolidated Rooms as well.
You will find a link to a document that maps every classroom to the age or grade of your children, the teachers in those areas, and you will find signs on each door in the children’s wing that maps directly to that document. This will help you find the classroom and understand quickly what age, grades, and teachers are in that room.
Communication Improvements
Over the coming weeks, after we return and settle back in, you will find additional communication improvements to help us equip you better as parents (and as teachers).
With the new Generations of Grace, there will be some exciting new information shared!
The most immediate change in communication will work on is communication between teachers and parents regarding incidents in the room. The teachers will have included on the roster an incident report for that room and hour of teaching. We will work to document and communicate both physical and behavioral incidents that will help us to serve, protect, and equip families even better.
Check-In
Finally, we ask as you check in your children – please be mindful of choosing the correct classes and children that will be attending each Sunday. This will be double-checked in each room to make sure we have the best possible records of children we have in our care, helping to account for each and every child and volunteer, again, to serve, protect, and even equip families better.
Self-check-in is available at the iPad and printer in the Children’s Hallway and if you need assistance or know of a visitor coming – please direct them to the Children’s Hallway desk where a Desk Greeter is working to welcome visitors and will help them connect to our body well.
COVID
Masks and Social Distancing
We will continue to have all volunteers wearing masks while teaching children and ask that children wear masks as dictated by Jackson County and the CDC as we have been doing for many months.
Expectations: 0-2yr no masks; preschool to 3rd-grade masks are encouraged as possible; 4-6th grade children are required to wear a mask.
Sanitizing
As volunteers and children enter a room, we are asking to sanitize hands. This will also be done as needed in the classroom for additional protection.
All items will either be sanitized (especially high-touch points, chairs, tables, doors, etc.) or be kept out of use if not cleanable for an appropriate amount of time.
Most snacks and food are being eliminated during class with the exception of the children under elementary age. Those will be handled safely and with disposable containers, and sippy cups will be sanitized in between uses.
We will watch attendance and work to maintain social distancing and sanitizing efforts with space and volunteers we have available and abide as well as we can to CDC and Jackson County.
Illness
Please refrain from bringing any children who are currently having any symptoms that are related to COVID. We realize this will create some inconvenience not only for families but will also impact class and volunteer availability.
Please be mindful that we will strive to do all we can to maintain classes, but as people become ill and display concern for others by staying home, there might be a time when a children's class will be unable to meet because volunteers are unavailable. We know this will cause some disruption, and are thankful in advance for your patience and understanding.
- Sam Walker SDG