October 16, 2020

This week was another busy one with changes to our health screening process in the mornings, PSAT’s, senior days for fall athletics, and family-student-teacher conferences.

We are so thankful for the faculty and staff that stepped up to conduct health screenings every morning. They have been an integral part of our ability to have students in the schools each day. As the weather starts to shift to cooler mornings with rain, wind, and soon snow, we are moving health screenings indoors. We now have stations set up in the main lobby of the high school that match the parking space signs outside for cars. Since we are required to maintain our health screening process and in preparation for more students starting next week, we are encouraging students and families to start the health screening process prior to their arrival at school. Please use this link (QR code is below) to answer the health screening questions. If you are able, please have your student load the screener on their phone. When the student arrives at school, they will only need to complete the last question, recording their temperature, with one of our health screeners. This will make our process more efficient with more students coming into the building. If your student is not able to fill out the screening form ahead of time that is okay as all of our health screeners are prepared to complete the form if needed.

This week we also received some exciting news. Our GSA (gay-straight alliance) won two awards for the Queerantine Fire Truck Pull . We were awarded the Golden Fire Truck for fan favorite and best costume. This is the second year in a row that our student-faculty GSA has raised over $2000 for Outright Vermont and won the Golden Fire Truck award. We are so proud of our GSA as they continue to work towards creating an open, safe, and inclusive school environment for the LGBTQ+ community.

Lastly, please be sure to read the technology news and upcoming events sections below. There are important updates that we want all families to know.

Technology News:

*On Wednesday October 28, LSUU will be testing BrightArrow, our direct notification system. Alerts will be sent to the contact information we have on file including email, text and voice phone. If you have not yet done so, please complete your yearly registration ("Forms" in your PowerSchool parent portal) to ensure we have the correct information on file, before October 26. Please reach out to your school if you have questions about the status of your registration, or if you need help with your username and password. The URL for the PowerSchool parent portal is https://ps.morrisville.org/public. Please note, PowerSchool will be down for scheduled maintenance Friday evening. Registration will be available starting Saturday.

*This year (2020-2021) we are using a new content filter for student devices. The product is called Securly. Securly is designed to block sites and content that are not suitable for school. The biggest difference students and families will see this year is since the filter is on the device, the content filtering that we use in our buildings is now applied to our devices when they are at home. Also, Securly has parental controls that we will enable and communicate more about later in the year. At this point, there is nothing parents need to do. If you have questions, please reach out to our SMHS technology manager Jake Goss (stowetech@lsuu.org). If your student experiences any technology based issues related to Securly, you can submit a ticket to our ticket system by emailing lsuutech@lsuu.org.

Student Announcements:

This year our Student Leadership group is creating student announcement videos for all students. These videos are shared with advisories each Wednesday. Watch the most recent videos below.

September 30 Video October 7 Video

Resources:

*Assistance for overdue utility bills information

*Suicide Prevention Information from our school counselors

*Healthy Lamoille Valley is holding a PhotoVoice Project

Photovoice Deadline Extension: The new project date is Friday, October 23rd. Details can be found here. https://www.healthylamoillevalley.org/photovoice-2020/