Newsletter

Anser Charter School Flight Plan

September 30th, 2021

Welcome to the Anser Flight Plan. If you have Anser related submissions, please email them to Maua Romano at mromano@ansercharterschool.org by Monday 4:00 PM for inclusion in that week's Flight Plan.

Anser Website

Important Dates to Remember

October 8th Picture Day

October 15th and Lottery Application Opens

October 21st Early Release for Goal Setting

October 22nd No School for Goal Setting Conferences

Anser Covid Update

Anser Specific Covid Data:

Week of 09/27-10/3 as of today: Number of confirmed cases in students or staff: 2

Week of 09/20-09/26 as of today: Number of students or staff in quarantine*:5

Staffing limitations due to Covid and/or quarantine: Minimal
*Please remember that a student or staff person could be in quarantine for any number of reasons, including cold and allergy symptoms, while awaiting testing. Do not assume that a student or staff member who is absent or in quarantine should be interpreted as a “potential or probable” Covid case.

Wider Community Data

Cases of Covid in Ada county increased to 587.64 cases/100,000, up from 490.88 /100,000) last week.

· Crisis Standards of Care have been expanded statewide

· Idaho School Epidemiologists continue to monitor data and concur that schools that implement universal masking do not add to the level of community transmission.

· The primary driver of increasing Covid cases is unvaccinated adults, however cases among children are rising quickly in Ada County.

Link to Responsive Return Plan

Important Communications for Families

Health Screening

We ask that you continue to perform a daily health screening before bringing your child to school. No student should come to school if they exhibit any of the symptoms below. Please be sure you are in touch with Anser’s health screener, healthscreener@ansercharterschool.org if your children or anyone in your household has Covid Symptoms. The following are Covid symptoms and should prompt you to reach out to the health screener:
Fever (100.4F or higher)
Loss of smell or taste
New or unusual headache
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or loss of appetite
Cough
Sore Throat
Fatigue
Congestion or runny nose
Chills and muscle aches
Shortness of breath

Illness Decision Tree- English

Illness Decision Tree- Spanish

Anser Responsive Return Plan

Covid Policy FAQ:

The Anser Community Board Ad hoc Communications Committee has developed some FAQs based on questions received from families. Please review their September Communication Here.

COVID Tracker

Linked here is the COVID tracker for Anser. This highlights the current cases among staff and students and how many folks are have in quarantine.

Meet Our Instructional Guide, Emily Morgan!

What is an Instructional Guide?

In EL schools, the Instructional Guide serves as a facilitator of professional development as well as a coach for crew leaders. Coaching can be an unfamiliar concept in the school setting, but this definition from Elena Aguilar, author of The Art of Coaching illuminates what coaching can do for schools: “Coaching is an embedded support that attempts to respond to student and teacher needs in ongoing, consistent, dedicated ways.” Here at Anser, coaching from our Instructional Guide, Emily Morgan, offers several supports for our teachers including:

· Meeting with teams to support collaboration, reflection, and equitable learning for all students.

· Developing professional development around educational practices to directly support Anser students.

· Analyzing data to sustain student learning and growth.

· Working with individual teachers on goals and areas of focus for classrooms.

· Supporting teachers with the implementation of EL design at Anser.

Our Instructional Guide, Emily Morgan, spends time supporting teachers, so our students at Anser get the best educational experience we can offer. We are so thrilled we were able to add her to our staff as we prepare for expansion!

The Closet: A Community Resource

Anser JH student Sophia put together this poster about The Close, a resource for local teens and families. The Closet takes appointments for folks to have access to clothes, accessories, and toiletries.

Fall Fund Drive

Donations to the Fall Fund Drive support many facets of the school and Anser specific programs. This year, donations to the Fall Fund Drive will also support improvements for our outdoor spaces/playground to make it more inviting during our construction year. A group of parents is leading the way in procuring items for a nature based “stumpery”, for shade cloth panels to make outside seating more inviting, for some turf to cover areas that will soon turn to mud pits and the anxiously anticipated construction of two GAGA BALL PITS! A call out for volunteers will be sent to help out with installation, but an easy way for you to support these improvements is through your contribution to the Fall Fund Drive! Click here to donate today!

Thank you to the following families, staff and alumni for the contribution to the Fall Fund Drive:

Hollis Welsh, Jim and Nicole Pape, Jennifer Smackey, Zach Clayton, Hannah and Shane Newbill, Carrie Jones, Kristin Booton, Mike and Heather Dennis

Click here to donate!

SEL Intro Letter for Families

A message from Sarah W...

Dear K-5 Families,

The specials class that I teach, “SEL with Sarah W,” kicked off last week and I so enjoyed working with each crew! At Anser, we support and foster each child’s whole development. In addition to academic growth, children also need skills to take on learning challenges, make good decisions, manage strong emotions, and get along with others. This social-emotional learning (SEL) is best supported both in the classroom and on the playground. In my role, I have the opportunity to teach and reinforce skills in both places. Our class session last week focused on safe play on our playground.

This week, I began lessons from Second Step Elementary, a research-based social-emotional learning program designed to improved children’s social-emotional skills. Second Step skills and concepts are designed to help children both in and out of school. Four units cover the following topics:

Growth Mindset & Goal-Setting: Children learn how to pay attention and manage distractions, develop a growth mindset, and apply goal-setting strategies to their social and academic lives.

Emotion Management: Children learn how to identify and label emotions and use emotion-management strategies - including stress management for older students - to calm strong feelings.

Empathy & Kindness: Children learn how to recognize kindness and act kindly, have empathy for others, take others’ perspectives, and recognize kind acts and empathy as important elements of building and maintaining relationships.

Problem-Solving: Children learn how to identify and state a problem, recognize if a problem is an accident, and use the STEP problem-solving process:

S: Say the problem

T: Think of Solutions

E: Explore the outcomes

P: Pick a solution

I’ll send regular communications through your child’s teacher and the Flight Plan, to help you reinforce Second Step language, skills, and goals at home. If you have any questions about Second Step Elementary, please don’t hesitate to contact me or your child’s teacher for more information. Thank you for your support as we work to build a safe and supportive school community.

Sincerely,

Sarah Wilson

swilson@ansercharterschool.org

Student Support Update and Counseling Services

Hello Anser Families,

Welcome back to our returning families and to the new families, we are so glad to have you and your children join our crew. This school year we hired an additional Student Support Specialist (school counselor) for Elementary students. Hillard McMorris will primarily focus on supporting students in grades K-5 while Siler McCraw will focus on 6-8. We will work closely to ensure students social and emotional needs are met at school. In our roles as the Student Support Specialists, we do not provide professional counseling but rather we work to provide brief, solution focused counseling. If you want your child to receive outside counseling services, we can aide in recommending and connecting you with those outside services.

Every year students have the Consent for Services sent home for parent signature. This year, instead of sending a paper copy, we are utilizing this google form. Please only submit one google form per family.

Please reach out to us with any concerns or questions about our services or about the google form.

Siler McCraw- smccraw@ansercharterschool.org

Hillard McMorris- hmcmorris@ansercharterschool.org

*Updated* Thursday Grab and Go Greenbelt Walks

Come and join Anser parents every Thursday morning at 8:45 am with your A.M. drink on a walk on the greenbelt while you get to know each other. We meet at the Boys and Girls Club parking lot and get on the greenbelt there. We can't wait to see you!

Construction Update

Today the foundation of our expanded building was poured! Next will come trenching for plumbing, electrical conduit and then they will pour the slab of our new building! Its so exciting to see this progress and we are very grateful for our general contractor Jordan-Wilcomb Construction for doing excellent work, keeping the site secure and having a sense of humor when balls, sticks (even rocks) fly over the fencing. It’s not easy to construct on a school site- but their team is full of good sports, who have gotten a kick out the apology notes our students have written after the above projectiles have landed!

Here are a few questions we have received:

Q: What will be put in the strips of dirt that run along the pickup line sidewalk?
A: We are required to install a 10 foot wide landscaped strip along the sidewalk. A privacy fence will go up between our property and the neighboring property as well.

Q: Will the portable classrooms stay in the front parking lot?
A: No, when construction is complete they will all be removed entirely from the Anser property.

Q: Will we always be entering the school grounds only from 43^rd St?
A: No, that is just for this school year. We will continue to have the new drop off/pickup line, but once all of the portables are removed, we will also have some parking and the bus loading zone on 42^nd St. Bicycle traffic will also be encouraged to use 42^nd St. This will allow us to reduce congestion on just one street.

Q: Will all of the students use the same playground after expansion?
A: No. K-5 students will use the restored playground and a portion of blacktop area. 6^th-8^th grade students will use the newly built courtyard at the front of the building.

Linked here are the renderings of our new space!