AMERICAN EDUCATION
WEEK
This week the Vermilion Board of Education recognized
American Education Week. Throughout the
week millions of educators, parents, students and community leaders joined the
National Education Association in raising awareness about the critical need to
provide every child with a quality public education. This year’s theme is “Great Public
Schools: A Basic Right and Our
Responsibility”. In the past few years
we have seen an assault on funding for public schools, as federal and state
legislators seek to move more and more tax dollars to privately owned charter
schools. These schools are not always held
to the same academic or fiscal standard as public schools. The Ohio Education Association supports a new
website, http://knowyourcharter.com/ to
help residents of Ohio better
understand how publicly-funded charter schools are faring and how they compare
to traditional public schools. I
encourage you to review these statistics.
EMERGENCY CLOSING PROCEDURES
Our official first
snowfall of the season came much sooner than expected this year, but our crews
are prepared and working hard to make sure driveways, parking lots and
sidewalks are safe for students and visitors.
I frequently get questioned about how we make the decision whether to
close our schools during a weather event or other emergency. In general, parents should know that closing
school is a serious matter. As you might
expect, each situation is different, and usually involves a team of trained
individuals who work together to determine the best course of action on that
specific day. School will not always be
closed due to low temperatures, or a light snowfall. During weather events we look at weather
forecasts, travel the streets to evaluate road conditions and communicate with
City officials and the police department in an effort to determine whether
school should remain open. We do our
best to make the decision as early as possible so that staff and students can
be notified before they begin traveling.
COMMUNICATION FOR SCHOOL CLOSING
If a decision is
made to close school for weather related or other emergencies, we have many
ways to notify our staff, parents and students.
The announcement feature in Power School will be activated so that our
parents and staff receive a phone call, email and/or text announcement with
closing information. Parents should take
a few minutes to review the settings in your PowerSchool account to make sure
you will receive these messages. Please
check your phone number and email address to be sure the information is correct.
There are many
other ways that we communicate with parents and the community about school
closings:
- Local television and radio stations
- Visit our website at www.vermilionschools.org
- “Like” our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/VermilionSchools and follow us on Twitter.
- For the earliest notification, “Follow” my personal Twitter account, pic.twitter.com/yfki4BAAmJ
Use of social media
outlets by our parents and community has grown tremendously over the past few
years, and we find these are some of the best ways we can get information out
quickly.
WINTER SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT SEASON
BEGINS
We invite you to
join us for the many athletic and musical events that are scheduled for the
winter season. Basketball, wrestling and
bowling seasons will all begin within a few weeks, and we hope that you get the
opportunity to see our athletes in action.
December is also a great time to see some wonderful holiday concerts
without having to leave Vermilion. Our
students are always grateful to see a large crowd, as it helps them know that
their community supports what they are doing.
We are proud to invite you into our schools to see what our students are
achieving. Visit our district website
for a complete list of school events.
