Student Guest Policy Change
The leadership of Friday School has been considering making a change to the Friday School Guest Policy, specifically regarding visiting/guest students.
Normally, we may have one or two students visit per week. Because of different school districts early release days etc, this was considerably more in the fall. So much so, that teachers were asking to verify their enrollment numbers for their classes. I've looked into Mount Vernon's school district calendar for spring, and it is much the same as it was in the fall. This has made us consider what we need to do to deal with the issue.
Some of the reasons that have led the FS Leadership to look at/revise our student guest policy:
*Teachers are not expected to provide materials to unregistered students week to week, yet many have been. This affects their class budgets.
*EBC expects us to know where each person on campus is supposed to be in case of an emergency, this makes it a liability issue
*There have been too many student guests for us to successfully keep track of
*We have had some behavioral problems with multiple student guests
*Oftentimes, we do not have parent permission forms for student guests, another liability issue
*Current policy is that a person can visit one time during any given session. We have had the same students come multiple days in the same session.
*Many of our classes are full after registration, so we really don't have room for student guests
So until further notice, we are NOT going to be allowing student guests at Friday School. Students must be registered to attend classes!
*if you have a student that you would like to be able to come any given week, they must be registered in classes.
*if your family has a public school student that will need to occasionally attend Friday School, they must be registered or you will need to make other arrangements for them during FS hours.
*do not let your kids invite their friends to FS
*if you bring a student guest, they will not be allowed to attend classes.
*if you have friends who are former FS members, feel free to invite them to our public events: Display Night, Graduation, our occasional picnic or our Christmas Party.
This change in policy will not affect:
*Those who want to check out our program (we will give them a basic tour)
*Visiting dads, grandparents, etc. (must check in as a guest with the Friday School Coordinator)
You will want to keep this in mind as you make arrangements for this springs term. Just to let you know, this change has no one person or family in mind. Our desire is not to make things more difficult for you or your family (this affects my family as well), but to help the co-op cope with an issue that we have not had to deal with to this extent before. This information will be addressed on our parent sheet that we all sign at the beginning of the term, as well as in the parent handbook. I will also be posting it on our website and the Facebook page.
If you have any questions, or I did not cover your situation specifically, please send me an email.
Sincerely,
Zindra Nelson and Friday School Leadership
