06. Attendance and Cafeteria Procedures

Child Watch - 646-5953 dial 1

All parents/guardians of children attending Wells Elementary School should call Child Watch when you know your child is going to be absent or tardy. If your child is absent, and the school has not been notified, and we cannot contact you, the police department will be notified.


Morning Arrival and Attendance

There is no classroom supervision until 8:30AM. Please do not drop off students before that time. School officially begins at 8:30 a.m. All students who arrive at school after 8:40 a.m., must sign in at the office as tardy, because attendance has already been reported. Although we understand there may be times which require your child to be tardy, please ensure they are consistently prompt in their arrival. Tardiness can cause missed or interrupted instruction.

Dismissal Changes

Any changes that are required to your child’s normal dismissal must be placed in writing and sent to school with your child. The child should turn the note in to his/her classroom teacher upon arrival so the teacher is aware of the change and can facilitate in your child reaching his/her appropriate destination. Having this information in a timely manner also allows our staff to prepare for any potential student anxiety about their change in travel plans. A list of all dismissal changes is distributed to all classroom teachers at 2:00 p.m. each day, to prepare for the release of the students at 3:00.

Our school clearly understands there are situations in every household that occasionally necessitate last minute changes to dismissal plans. We will continue to do our best to accommodate those needs. If you have an unusual need or emergency situation that requires your child’s dismissal plans change please contact our secretarial staff prior to 2:00.

Our school values instructional time. In previous years, we had an excessive amount of dismissal requests being made between 2:15 and 2:55, which was causing several classroom distractions that impacted instructional time. A new dismissal procedure was put in place to address this problem:

  1. No changes will be made to student’s dismissal plans after 2:15 each day, unless it is an unusual need or emergency situation.

  2. Students will not be dismissed between 2:30 and 3:00 unless there is an unusual need or emergency situation.

  3. If you do have an unusual need or emergency situation that requires you to change your child’s dismissal plans after 2:15, please ask one of our secretaries to speak to an administrator. Our administrators will speak with you about this request, and ask that you document the reasons for the early dismissal on a form that we will provide.

We encourage you to schedule appointments or lessons beyond the school day. This would greatly assist in decreasing classroom interruptions and maximizing student instructional time.




Signing Your Child Out of School.

Send a note to the classroom teacher if:

  • You plan to pick your child up at school at the end of the day,

  • Need to dismiss your child early from school for an appointment

Once a parent/guardian arrives at Wells Elementary School to dismiss/pick up their child they must sign them out. Each afternoon at 2:45 p.m., a secretary is located in the main entrance lobby area with a list of students who are expected to be picked up by their parent/guardian(s). Parent/guardians must see this secretary to sign children out. Once the child is signed out, the parent will be given a pass to pick up the child in the cafeteria. If a child needs to be dismissed early from school, parent/guardian must report to the office to sign him/her out prior to 2:45 p.m. Secretarial staff will locate your child and have him/her sent to the office for dismissal at that time.

Parents/guardians who plan to pick their child up on a consistent regular basis, daily or weekly, should send a note to the classroom teacher detailing the schedule. The teacher will forward this request to the office and a secretary will prepare a permanent pass to use when picking up at the end of each day. Those parents who have permanent passes will be required to present them to the secretary upon entering the building and to the dismissal staff in the cafeteria prior to leaving. Parent/guardian and child must exit the building via the Music room or back door of the cafeteria. Reentering the main portion of the building can only be done once all busses have left. These procedures have been developed to ensure the safety of all children at Wells Elementary School.

Only people listed on a child’s emergency card will be allowed to sign a child out unless a note is received from the parent. Please follow dismissal procedures and do not take your child while they are boarding buses.




Breakfast/Lunch

Breakfast and hot lunch are available at school each day. School menus are sent home monthly to assist you in selecting meals.

Breakfast, hot lunch (including milk) and extra lunch milk costs are as follows:

Hot Lunch $2.75

Reduced Lunch $0.40

Breakfast $1.50

Free Breakfast/lunch $0.00 (Per eligibility)

Reduced Breakfast $0.00 (Per eligibility)

Chocolate Milk $0.60

White Milk $0.60

Money for lunch and milk may be brought daily; however, we encourage you to pre-pay for a week or several weeks in advance so that young children do not need to deal with the money. Prepaying speeds up the process allowing more time to eat. All checks should be made out to Wells/Ogunquit Food Service. Free and reduced hot lunch applications for participation in the National School Lunch Program are provided to parents at the beginning of each school-year. The applications are also available on the school website and accepted at anytime throughout the school-year.

Electronic Lunch Payment

Electronic Lunch Payment: The Wells Ogunquit Community School District offers an easy and convenient secure online prepayment service to deposit money into your child’s school meal account at any time. Please see letter below for specific details regarding this method of paying for school lunch:



WELLS-OGUNQUIT COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

FOOD SERVICE PROGRAM

Chris Pasternak, Director


Dear Parents:

With national attention currently focused on children’s health and wellness issues, Wells Ogunquit C.S.D.’s Food Service Department is excited to provide parents a convenient, easy and secure online prepayment service to deposit money into your child’s school meal account at any time. This service also provides parents the ability to view your child’s account balance through a web site called Myschoolbucks.com. By placing money in each child’s account prior to entering the cafeteria, we find the lunch lines move along much faster so your child has more time to eat and be with friends.

Also, parents will have the ability to print out a copy of their child’s meal purchase history report. This history report will show you all dates and times that your child has purchased a breakfast or lunch within the past thirty days.

To access these services:

2. Click on the MyNutrikids.com link on the left hand side of the school’s main page. From this site you will create your account and add money to your child’s school meal account. We would encourage you to set up an automatic low balance reminder. All you need is your child’s name, student ID number and school ZIP code. The instructions listed on the back of this page will guide you through the easy online account set up process.

Things to know:

  • If you have more than one child in the District you can handle all online pre-payments from the same online account.

  • Payments may be made through an existing PayPal account or with a major credit or debit card.

  • Payments are generally processed by PayPal within 24 hours. However, if the payment option selected is an eCheck, processing may take anywhere from 4 to 7 business days. If you opt to pay via eCheck, please allow a minimum lead time of one week before the funds are made available in your child’s account.

  • In order to use the online prepayment service, a small convenience fee for each transaction will be assessed to cover the bank fees. The convenience fee is $1.95 per deposit transaction. Parents placing money into multiple meal accounts will only be assessed the $1.95 fee once per deposit transaction. WOCSD School District will not profit from the use of this site.

  • Low balance notice will not automatically be sent to you via e-mail available for each student.

We are very excited to offer these new services and hope that you will take advantage of the many options available, including auto reminders via e-mail when balances are low. However, if you choose not to take advantage of the online prepayment service you may continue to make advance payments via check, which should be made payable to Wells Food Service. Please write your child’s full name on the check.


If you have any questions about these new services, please feel free to contact my office at 646-7872.


Best Regards,


Food Service Director

Chris Pasternak



Registering for Myschoolbucks.com

You will first need your child’s student ID number; you may get this number by contacting your child’s school Food Service Department or contacting my office.

Go to www.myschoolbucks.com. Click Sign Up and enter the required information. Click Finish to complete the initial registration process.


Many families qualify for free or reduced lunches. A letter explaining policy and guidelines goes home at the beginning of the school-year and may be obtained from the school office at any time during the school-year. Assistance in filling out this form may be obtained by calling the school office. Confidentiality is maintained for participants in the free/reduced lunch program.

Children may, instead of buying a lunch, bring a lunch from home. School menus are sent home monthly to assist you in selecting meals.

For children bringing snacks or lunches to school, we encourage good nutrition - lots of fruits, vegetables, cheeses, nuts, etc., rather than sweets. Please do not send soda or candy.