Dear, John MacNeil Families.
As part of our preparation for the reopening of school, I am pleased to share Update #2:

Monitoring Your Child’s Health
Our shared health is our shared responsibility. We need families to monitor the health of their child(ren) each day before they come to school using the COVID-19 Daily Checklist found on our website at https://jmc.hrce.ca    Please keep your child at home when they are ill, even if their symptoms are mild, and contact 811. By monitoring daily, you are doing your part to protect our shared health.

Illness at School
Any student who becomes unwell at school will have a separate location in the school where they will be supervised, while they wait to be picked up.

If a child feels unwell or begins to exhibit COVID-19 symptoms, a parent or guardian will be contacted for pick-up. It is very important to ensure that your contact information and other emergency contacts for your child are kept up to date with the school during the school year.

If your child exhibits COVID symptoms, contact 811 to receive advice from Public Health on what to do next, including if/when the child can return to school.
 
If a COVID-19 case is identified, Public Health will provide direction to the school and HRCE on communicating with families.

Arrivals and Dismissals
It will be important that we all do our part to limit congestion/crowds from gathering at the start and end of the day.

School entry will be different this year.  Students and families are asked to not enter the school grounds until 8:20am, at which time, students will directly enter their classroom through its outer door.  Students will be dismissed at 2:45pm through the same door.  These doors will be easy to identify.  These plans may adjust as we work through our new routines and identify any possible concerns.  We will update you regularly with changes.
Under the Back to School plan, schools will be limiting outside visitors in the building, including parents/guardians. This means you will not be able to enter the school to drop off or pick-up your child.

Hygiene
Frequent hand washing and using hand sanitizer are public health measures we can all practice both at home and school. We will be emphasizing the importance of hand hygiene, throughout the day specifically when entering school and classrooms and before and after eating. Hand sanitizing stations have been installed at entrances and in hallways, and there will be hand sanitizer in classrooms.

We will also be working with children on the importance that “no sharing is caring” in a pandemic. Our teachers will be using age-appropriate language to educate students on why they are not able to share food, personal belongings or their individual school supplies.

Lunch & Recess
As much as possible, students will be eating lunch in their classrooms. Please ensure it is something they can manage independently to avoid unnecessary handling of items by others.

In an attempt to limit interaction between classes, both lunch and recess will happen across a staggered schedule, ensuring no more than 4 classes are outside in designated areas at a time. 

Signage
Students will notice additional signage including directional signs to control flow in hallways, common areas, and outside spaces. Signage includes traffic flow arrows, physical distancing reminders, and designated Entrances & Exits.

Parking
John MacNeil is now a bussing school.  Families who qualify for bussing have already been contacted.  The daily visits by a school bus have resulted in a change to our school parking lot.  We have lost 20 parking spaces, meaning many staff will have to park on neighborhood streets.  It also means that our parking lot is restricted to staff only.  The historic use of our parking lot by parents of our younger students will no longer be permitted. 

Social media is awash with information concerning students return to school.  If you are unsure about anything you see or hear online, please contact me directly at ndaigle@hrce.ca or 902-464-2488.  Thank you again for your patience and understanding as we work to finalize plans for re-opening. 

Neil Daigle, Principal