Welcome back! I am excited to work with you and your children to make this a great school year. We work very hard at Sequoia at every level, in every way to make your child’s experience the very best that it can be. Sequoia is a family of caring staff, parents/guardians, and students.

There will be some changes this year at Sequoia due to budgetary cuts. As you may know, the School District has eliminated much transportation for students. This may change your daily patterns. We will only have supervision for students beginning at 8:30 each morning and until 3:10 each day after school. It is crucial that students get to school no earlier than 8:30 and by 9:00 (or their kindergarten) start time EVERY DAY. While I know that absence occurs, please parents, do all that you can to schedule appointments and vacations when we are not in session.

In addition to transportation cuts, our custodial time has been cut.  Our custodian hours have been reduced by 4 hours daily.  Please help us by reinforcing to your child the need for picking up after one’s self and making sure that jackets and coats are picked up. Donations of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes for the classrooms would be appreciated.

Safety is a number one priority at Sequoia. As a reminder, please make sure that when dropping kids off in the circle that they exit quickly and safely and that you are able to drive right through. Parking is not allowed in the morning along the circle in non-spots. Cars should turn right outside of the parking lot for ease and safety reasons. When dropping students off in front of the school across the street, they must walk to the cross walk and cross with the crossing guard. Students are to walk onto the campus, not run. They are to turn off their cell phones as they come onto campus. Parents that drive their children are NOT to make U-turns in front of the school, block the buses or park in the bus lane. By following simple traffic safety rules, all of our students will stay safe.

Our school focus this school year will be on Writing. Every child will be taught reading, math, science, and history, but you will see that we will do more writing within those areas. Students will learn to write to express thoughts and support arguments. You can help by encouraging your child to read and write as often as possible at home.

Lastly, I would like to ask all of you to join the PTA this school year. Membership is $5 per person. The money goes to support the school: supplies, rewards, events, assemblies, and teachers. Joining does not require that you attend every event or volunteer to run every event. It is merely a statement that you support our school. And, for every member that joins, I have a donor who will match $1. That means, if every family and staff member joins, we will have an extra $510!! Let’s meet that challenge.

Thank you for all that you do for your children and Sequoia. I look forward to a great year. As a team, I know we will all do what is best for the children and their success at Sequoia.

Miss Hollander