Welcome to the 2018-2019 school year!

Dear JICS Families,

All of us at the Lab School are eager to be with your children and to hear about your family’s summer holidays and adventures. The teachers will be in the school next week for professional development meetings and for classroom set up.

Our first day back with students is on Wednesday, September 5 at 8:45 am. The wonderful JICS Parents’ Association Executive will have coffee ready between 9:30am and 11:30am. This is a great opportunity to re-connect with other parents and to meet new families joining us for the first time.

The JICS Blog will continue to be our primary means of communication for school news. Each time the school blog is updated with important information, you will receive an email notice from the website. Class Reps: please email the parents in your cohort to ensure that they have received email notification of this blog entry. If not, they should be register ASAP.

Parents’ Association Executive

I want to thank the PA Executive who have met and worked throughout the summer to plan ways to best serve the parent community: developing a buddy-system for new families, organizing JICS clothing for sale, supporting the school by collecting your donations, and much more. Everyone is invited to the Parent Social on September 20th at 6pm organized by the PA at the school. This is an adult only event. Please follow the link to RSVP and sign up for babysitting for your JICS children. Please plan to attend this important and lovely annual social event.

New and Improved Website

We send a heartfelt thank you to Casey Dabiet, PA Communications Exec, for continuously working on improving the appearance and userability of our website. A new monthly calendar which includes all school events, holidays, and descriptions of annual family events (especially helpful for new families) has been created. We have included the School Behaviour Code and the Parent Handbook in the “Documents” section. These are both must-read items for parents as they contain valuable information and answer most questions.

Renovations

During these last weeks of the summer, there has been continued renovation activity to beautify the school.

• The JK classroom received a new colourful, easy-to-clean tile floor and the basement hallway and JK cubbies will be painted next week.

• The Grade 1 classroom was completely repainted.

• You will notice that we have relocated the Lab School office into the reception. Our school office administrator, Nancy, will share the reception area with receptionist, Paige.

• The Primary French classroom has moved to the first floor (formerly the school office) so that the children can learn in a brighter and larger space.

• The playground was repaved and cedars were planted to “green” the area. Also, please take the time to enjoy the new landscaping at our 56 Spadina Road entrance.

• The outdoor courtyard to the north of the gym will be a collaborative community project. Throughout this year, we will be consulting with the children in each grade to research and design this outdoor learning and play space. Stay tuned for more information about how parents can be involved!

Morning Drop Off

The front of the school is reserved for a “Kiss & Drive” program to ensure the safety of all children arriving at school. This space is for cars that are moving through in order to drop children off to JICS staff members who are outside on the sidewalk receiving students and taking them to the supervised playground. Parents cannot leave their cars in the “Kiss & Drive” zone 8:30 – 8:45 am as it blocks all waiting vehicles from approaching the school and creates an unsafe drop off zone.

For the first day/s of school, parents may want to park in order to escort their child to school. Legal local pay parking is available in our neighbourhood:

• Walmer Road Baptist Church (entrance on Lowther Road) – above ground parking in rear

• 7 Walmer Place (building behind Shoppers Drug Mart on Bloor) – underground parking, entrance on Walmer Road north of subway entrance

• 4 Spadina Road (north of Bloor, west side) – above ground

• 19 Spadina Road (north of Bloor, east side) – above ground

Reminder – Food Safety

I would like to remind you as you are preparing lunches and snacks that due to anaphylactic food allergies, all snacks and lunch foods brought to the school must be completely nut-free. We thank you for understanding that this is a life issue for some of our children from Nursery through to Grade 6. Your cooperation is appreciated.

Real Food for Real Kids Hot lunch program begins Monday, September 10.

School Forms Online (SFO) Thank you to all families who have completed their school forms registration online. If you have not yet accessed SFO, please do so by September 5.

Wednesday Afternoon Program Registration

The Wednesday Afternoon Program registration forms will be available for download on our website starting at the end of next week. Stay tuned! Nancy will begin to collect the Wednesday registration forms beginning Wednesday, September 5 at 8:00 am.

Please read about important changes to the Wednesday Afternoon Program this year here.

See you on Wednesday, September 5!

All the best,

Richard

Richard Messina

Principal

Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study Laboratory School

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education | University of Toronto

416-934-4509 | richard.messina@utoronto.ca

twitter: richardmessina2 @JackmanICS