Eagle News
For those of you new to Alpine Elementary, my primary means of communicating with parents is a weekly email that I call the Eagle News. I will often include an anecdote about my life in a section of the email called Outside of the Principal’s Office that I hope allows parents to better to get to know me. The Alpine Elementary Staff looks forward to a new school year that will enable all students to have a successful learning experience. So here is the first Eagle News for the 2021-2022 school year!
Important Dates
August 6—Parents can get on Skyward and see who their child’s teacher is going to be for the new school year. Call the office, 801-610-8700, if you need help logging into Skyward. We have spent a lot of time creating classes that are balanced by number of students, gender, academic ability and behavioral characteristics. To maintain that balance, I respectfully ask that parents not call or email me requesting a teacher change after being informed who your student’s assigned teacher will be. Moving students from one class to another after teacher assignments have been made creates imbalanced classes. I know that parents talk amongst themselves and have perceptions about preferred teachers, but it is not possible to accommodate all parent requests. Students often tell parents that they are not in the same class as their friends, and ask their parents to contact me wanting to make a class change. Please do not do that!
August 16—Open House, 4:00 – 6:00 pm. Teachers will communicate with parents via email about classroom routines, expectations, and curriculum prior to the August 16 Open House. This is a time for students and parents to meet the teacher and see the assigned classroom.
August 17—First day of school for 1 – 6 graders. Our school schedule for the new school year is:
9:15 am – 3:30 pm, Monday – Friday. There will be no designated early release day for students, as Mondays have been in previous years.
August 24–First day of school for Preschool and Kindergarten.
AM—9:15 am – 12:00 pm
PM—12:45 pm – 3:30 pm
Supply Lists
Grade level classroom supply lists will be posted on the Alpine Elementary website on August 4.
No Masks in School Required
We receive daily updates on how COVID-19 and other variant viruses are impacting people around the world. At this time, Governor Cox, the Utah County Health Department and the Alpine School District Board of Directors have not issued a mask mandate in schools. Consequently, unless directed otherwise by state and district officials prior to August 17, students, parents and staff will not be required to wear masks in school. Having said that, any student, parent or staff member can choose to wear a mask in the school. We will continue to teach and reteach our students the importance of personal hygiene and to not come to school if displaying any virus-like symptoms.
Outside the Principal’s Office
The two big trips my wife Laura and I took this summer were to Rapid City, SD and Newport, OR. We enjoyed visiting our son and daughter-in-law in South Dakota, and unlike a year ago when I fractured my clavicle in bike wreck, I had two beautiful bike rides on the Needles Highway near Mount Rushmore. We raised our family in Redmond, Oregon which is 175 miles from the Pacific Ocean, but the part of Oregon we miss the most is the Oregon Coast. The four days Laura and I spent on the Oregon Coast were good for the soul! We enjoyed the cooler weather as we walked the beaches, ate some excellent sea food, and of course had to sample some ice cream from the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I spent a lot of time on my road bike this summer, Suncrest, Alpine Loop, Granite Flats and the Murdock Trail were some of my go to rides.