Hello Valley Parents and Guardians,
Parent Teacher Conferences
This week we will be hosting our Fall Parent Teacher Conferences. There will be two afternoons/evenings of meetings. On Tuesday all appointments will be pre-scheduled through zoom. On Wednesday the appointments will be first-come first served and in person in the teacher’s classrooms.
We are strongly encouraging parents utilize Zoom on Tuesday as opposed to in-person on Wednesday. Currently about half of the possible appointments are available. Please sign up via the website https://pickatime.com/granitesd.
If you are unable to utilize the zoom conference on Tuesday and need to participate in person, we strongly recommend only coming with one parent and the student in order to minimize the number of people in the building. Masks are also recommended and will be available if you need one.
No School Friday
There is no school on Friday October 1st due to Parent Teacher Conferences this week. Enjoy a safe three day weekend!
TikTok Challenge and Bathroom Update
Over the last week or so we have seen a decline in the amount of vandalism in relation to the unacceptable TikTok Bathroom Challenge that was sweeping the country. We had multiple students suspended and referred to law enforcement for criminal charges for vandalism. We appreciate the many students we had reporting the damage that allowed us to find the students responsible for the damage.
As you likely have heard, we had all of our student restroom soap dispensers removed from the building. The vast majority of them were ripped off the walls and destroyed. This obviously creates multiple problems in terms of proper hygiene and hand washing. We have obtained two soap dispensers that we are going to place in the Center Hall bathrooms. We will be checking that bathroom multiple times each period to try and ensure that the soap remains accessible to students this week with hopes of purchasing and mounting additional soap dispensers over the coming weeks.
Behaviors Vastly Improved
We appreciate all the parents that had conversations with students about how to deal with conflict and what to do if there are rumors of a fight. The last two weeks in school the behaviors and amount of student conflict has been drastically improved. We have been able to work through a number of conflict mitigation strategies with students that were willing to say they were having issues with other students. We are grateful for the progress being made and look forward to continued teaching opportunities.
Picture Day Retakes
For any student that needs to use the picture day retake please mark down November 2nd on your calendar. More information will come out prior to the retake day.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Rich Nielsen
Principal, Valley Jr High