Van Buren Middle School
eNews - October 2020
Modified Hybrid Schedule Starts Monday!
Starting Monday, October 19, the Van Buren School district will shift to a modified hybrid model, which means students will be on-campus four days a week: Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays with the middle school day remaining 8:00am-2:05pm . Wednesdays will be online days for all students. More details are included in this letter that was emailed (and mailed) to families.
School Pictures
School portraits will be taken Tuesday, October 20 (the October 21 date was canceled as that is now an online Wednesday). You can order pictures at http://mylifetouch.com using picture day ID EVT4GFZBK.
For our VBMS VLA students, plan arrive between 12:00-12:15pm - see details here
Student-Led Conferences
VBMS will continue our student-led conferences this fall with protocols to allow for greater distancing including Zoom options for families preferring to video conference. These will take place Wednesday 11/11/20, Thursday 11/12/20, and Thursday 11/19/20, 3-7pm. Details on scheduling will be shared soon.
Schoology
The adoption of Schoology has allowed us to align to one platform for online components to our classes at Van Buren in grades K-12. Parents should have received an email providing information on how to create parent accounts in Schoology. Below are links to video tutorials and help guides:
Video Tutorial – How To Create Parent Account & Link Accounts In Schoology
A Parent’s Guide To Schoology - Written Guides From Schoology
Pandemic School Lunch Waiver
All Van Buren students are eligible to receive free school lunches (a regular lunch) as a result of the federal school lunch program waiver made possible through the CARES act. Additionally, any students purchasing a regular school lunch since the start of the school year will have that lunch cost refunded to their lunch account in the coming weeks.
On-Campus Student Attendance - Updated for Modified Hybrid (starts 10/19/20)
On-Campus Days: Attendance works the same as always - if a student will not be at school, we require parent contact by 8:30am the day of the absence with the student’s name and reason for absence.
Online Days: During online days, students are expected to log in to Schoology at least once each online day as we have to track student “attendance” per state mandate. There is no required time - teachers will be available for Zoom sessions and to reply to email messages. As students fail to login, we will address those “absences” on an individual basis.
VLA: Students should log in to the VLA platform regularly. As students fail to login, we will address those “absences” on an individual basis.
Using PaySchools for Lunches and School Fees
Van Buren Schools is now using PaySchools to accommodate online payments for our school lunches and fees. If you used PayForIt in the past for lunches, you can login here to migrate your account to PaySchools. If you never used PayForIt in the past, create a PaySchools account here. Note: Lunches and fees can still be paid for by bringing in a check or cash.
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