Welcome Back Rio Students and Families!

I hope that you have had a great summer and are ready to start a new school year. This year will be different, but I would like to assure you that the staff at Rio will do everything to provide the best educational opportunity we can under the circumstances. I know you have a difficult decision to make; choose to send your child to the building or opt to do the online version. I will describe both scenarios to help with any questions or concerns.

If you choose to send your child to the building, we have put several safety and health protocols in place. Our first and utmost priority is the safety of our students. Those include, but are not limited to:

· EVERYONE will wear a mask when social distancing is not possible.

· Students may have their temperature taken when they arrive at school.

· There are several scheduled hand washings during the day.

· The custodial staff will do extra cleaning of handrails, door knobs, and commonly touched areas throughout the day.

· One directional hallways for traffic flow is created as much as possible.

· The building will be cleaned thoroughly on a nightly basis.

With that being said, we are also committed to providing as much normalcy throughout the day as possible. Our teachers and staff are AMAZING and have some very creative ideas of how to ensure our students have the best educational experience possible.

If you chose the online option, our district is able to provide this through the Jefferson ESC Virtual Learning. Using this option means your child is still a student of the Gallipolis City Schools and Rio Grande Elementary. Your child will be in one of our classes and assigned to a homeroom teacher. The teacher will use the program through ProgessBook (our administrative computer system) and Google Classroom. This will be a benefit to the student once they return to the building at a later date. This is also the platform the entire district will use in the unfortunate event that we have to close and all go completely online. In order for us to establish homeroom lists, the deadline for choosing the online option is August 14, 2020.

Either way, your child is one of OUR students. We will love and support you in any way we can. This is an ever changing situation and we will adapt accordingly. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the number or email below. Also, you may follow the Gallipolis City Schools district and Rio Grande Elementary News Facebook pages for any updates.

I’m sorry to say that there will be no Meet the Teacher event held this year. You will be receiving a letter from your child’s teacher after class lists have been established. We look forward to seeing you soon. It is our honor to have your student be a part of the Rio Grande Elementary family.

Sincerely,

Julie A. Bays, Principal

Julie.bays@gc-k12.org

740-245-5333