School News, Calendar and Announcements

Dear Wellington Families, 

We hope you had a great weekend! Happy Lunar New Year to those in our community who celebrate!  We wish you a year of good luck and fortune. We know that the joy and excitement of the holiday was overshadowed by the grotesque and senseless violence in California this past weekend.  When any members of our school family hurt, we all feel the pain.  We send our love to all of those impacted by this violence and reiterate our commitment to working with our students to build a better world in the future. 

Last week we had an assembly for our kindergarten, first and second grade students. We watched a video created by our fourth graders about our values, spoke about the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, and sang music together about Dr. King and sewing seeds of caring.  A huge thank you to Mr. McMahan, Ms. Carone, Ms. Walsh and many other staff members, who helped prepare for the assembly and participated together with their students. 

The following are some updates.

Report Cards 

We look forward to sharing all of the ways that your children have grown when their progress reports become available on Plus Portals on January 27th. Please let us know if you need a paper copy of your child’s report card.  We are proud of our students' hard work, effort, and academic achievement. 

Arrival and Dismissal

As you know, we have a rolling car drop-off each morning, Parents and guardians who are dropping children off should enter on Orchard Street and pull all the way forward in the circle. Children can only be let out of the car in the circle in the area where the curb is painted yellow. Staff are available in this area to ensure students’ safe departure from their cars and welcome them warmly to school.  For safety reasons, there is no car drop-off at any other entrance to the building.   

In the afternoon, we do not have a rolling pick-up and are required to keep our fire lane clear in case of emergency.  Parents and guardians are asked to park legally on the streets surrounding our school and walk to pick-up children. For safety reasons, older students who are permitted to walk, must go directly home. Those staying in the playground after school must be accompanied by an adult.

Please make sure to contact both the office and your child’s teacher by 2 PM at the latest if you need to make a change to your child’s dismissal plan.  We can’t accept changes (except for in the case of true emergencies) after that point because our office is preparing for dismissal. 

Safety Drills

As you know, we have multiple types of drills each year.  We have already had two evacuation (fire) drills this year to help our students know what to do in the case of a fire or need to evacuate the building. This coming week, in coordination with the Belmont Police Department, we will have a Safety Drill. Over the past months teachers have worked with the Police Department to train for the unlikely event of an intruder in the building. Although the adults know what to do in a range of scenarios, in order to reduce our students’ anxiety, we only practice the parts of the procedure that are developmentally appropriate for them - staying put in their classrooms and following adult directions. We use these slides, to help prepare our students for the experience. I will be in touch once we have the drill so that you can discuss it with your children.  We will not use any loud alarms or sirens and will not leave the building; our goal is to be prepared without adding any additional worry to the already full plates of our very young learners. 

As always, our students’ emotional and physical safety are our highest priorities.  Please don’t hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions or concerns.

All the best,

Heidi and Molly