Principal's Message
Dear Wealthy Elementary Families,
With the temperature hovering in the mid-30’s, the snow can be quite wet on the playground. Please send your child(ren) with snow pants, boots, hats, and mittens daily to assist in keeping clothes dry and warm throughout the school day. Teachers encourage hand washing regularly, but if your child becomes ill, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Kent County Health Department recommend that he/she does not return to school until fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medicine. Thank you for your assistance!
PTO Family Movie Night
This Friday at 6:00 p.m. is the PTO-sponsored Family Movie Night! Please join us in your pajamas, bring a blanket, and make yourself comfortable on the gymnasium floor as we watch the live action Aladdin. This movie was chosen by our students during the November election run by our Student Leadership Team. To learn more about the movie and developmental level of the content, please click here. Please note the earlier start time from years past due to the run time of just over two hours.
Movie night is an event for the whole family and children must be supervised by an adult to attend. The PTO and Student Leadership Team will be selling popcorn and candy for enjoyment during the film. Please bring a water bottle from home and use the drinking fountains purchased by our PTO to stay hydrated while helping out the environment. I hope to see you on Friday at 6:00 p.m. for the movie! School doors will open at 5:15 p.m.
Code Red Info
Consistent with our commitment to communicate and to serve the best interest of our students, I am writing to provide you with information of a very important safety drill that will be conducted Thursday, January 30, 2020. Wealthy Elementary School will have a Full Sheltering/Lockdown drill in cooperation with East Grand Rapids Public Safety. This drill is conducted at least three times annually in compliance with legislation adopted in 2006 (as amended by Public Act 12 of 2014). This will be our second Code Red drill of this year.
During this drill, teachers and school staff implement procedures designed to maximize student safety in the unlikely event that a threatening situation were to unfold in or near our school. These procedures have been designed in collaboration with the East Grand Rapids Public Safety Department and a public safety officer will be present during our drill to observe and provide feedback about performance. The public safety department will not practice their response procedures during our drill. The most noticeable components to these procedures that your child will experience are hearing the term “Code Red” as a signal to take shelter, statements they might hear over the Public Address system if a real danger were present, the verification that doors are locked and closed, lights being turned off, and the repositioning of students within each classroom to maximize safety.
In preparation for this drill, your child’s classroom teacher will have an age-appropriate class discussion about the drill and about appropriate student behavior and responses during the drill. Teachers emphasize that this drill is just practice for a highly unlikely situation with the goal of avoiding or reducing student anxiety during the drill. Since each grade level is unique regarding what depth of information or what types of student questions are age-appropriate, teachers moderate these discussions carefully and may direct students to talk with parents about those questions deemed by the teacher to be best addressed by parents. While these classroom conversations and the remarks over the Public Address system prior to the drill have been adequate at creating an anxiety-free experience for the vast majority of students in the past, please feel free to talk with your child to help them make meaning of why such a drill is necessary and to understand its importance.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this safety drill, please do not hesitate to contact me.
School Musical
This is “tech week” for our school musical. The cast, crew, and parent volunteers have been hard at work preparing for this year’s show, Frozen Jr. If you’d like to purchase tickets to the February 6, 7, or 8 performances, please click here. Tickets will also be for sale after school next week Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. in the front lobby area.
The audience will see many of our first graders in a video during the performances as well as some of our second graders acting as flowers during the song, “In Summer”. Thank you to the PTO for supporting the musical which includes nearly half our student body annually! It is a fantastic community event and allows many of our students to shine in unique ways.
Warm Regards,
https://twitter.com/principalcallen
