I hope that everyone had a great holiday season. The return to school marks the beginning of our second semester and a return to work. However, it is generally these next couple of months when weather can start to wreak havoc on our schedule. The policy between the five Dent County districts remains the same. If 2 of the 5 schools decide that their roads are too dangerous for a bus to travel on, then all Dent County schools will cancel. This means that there could be times when we cancel when the roads in our district seem fine if they are not safe in other parts of the county. Our main priority is always going to be student safety. We would much rather err on the side of caution when making those decisions. Our notification system in the event of a school closure due to weather will only call the primary number listed in our student information system. If you have had a recent phone number change, please contact the office to make sure that we have the most up to date information so that you will receive these notifications. We will also post school cancellations on our Facebook page and with local news stations such as KY3 and KOLR 10. We are working on creating a school app that will also provide messages through push notifications and the school website. We hope that it will be available soon and will send more information out about that when it is ready.
Please continue to stress to your children the importance of always trying their hardest. Read to them as often as possible. Remember, the level of importance that you place on education will be the level of importance that your child will place on education. Stay invested in their work. Research shows that just 15 to 20 minutes of reading with your child each night greatly increases their performance in school. If you have any questions or need additional resources at home, please do not hesitate to ask. We will always strive to help in any way possible. It is important for the school and the home to work together to make sure that each child receives the full benefits of the best education possible.
Finally, I want to thank you for working with us that last week in December. We had 4 classes excluded from school due to COVID. Those phone calls are not easy to make for us here at school and there is nothing we hate more than not having every student in this building every day. The support we received from parents was great and I cannot thank you enough for working with us in these trying times. The safety of your children is our top priority.