UPDATE: Earlier Release
<Please scroll down for English version>
Liebe Eltern und Erziehungsberechtigte,
aufgrund der aktuellen Wetterwarnung in unserer Region und im Interesse der Sicherheit aller Schülerinnen und Schüler sowie Mitarbeitenden beenden wir den Unterricht und das Kindergartenprogramm heute vorzeitig um 12:55 Uhr. Die Schulbusse werden das Schulgelände um 13:05 Uhr verlassen.
Um eine ungefähre Ankunftszeit an Ihrer Haltestelle zu ermitteln, bitten wir Sie, sich an den Zeiten der regulären Busroute zu orientieren.
Wenn Ihr Kind nicht mit dem Bus fährt, holen Sie es bitte um 12:55 Uhr ab.
Sollte sich die Wettersituation so entwickeln, dass es erforderlich ist, werden wir selbstverständlich alle Schülerinnen und Schüler sicher in den Gebäuden behalten und Schutz im Gebäude gewährleisten, bis eine sichere Situation gegeben ist.
Falls Sie aufgrund von Verkehr oder Wetter nicht genau um 12:55 Uhr zur Abholung eintreffen können, werden wir die Kinder weiterhin in den jeweiligen Gebäuden – Preschool, Elementary School und im Hauptgebäude – betreuen und im Gebäude lassen, bis Sie sicher an der Schule angekommen sind, um Ihr Kind abzuholen.
Bitte fahren Sie vorsichtig, versuchen Sie jedoch so zeitnah wie möglich zur Schule zu kommen, da wir bemüht sind, die Gebäude für die Sicherheit aller Beteiligten so bald wie möglich nach 12:55 Uhr zu leeren.
Sollte es zu Verzögerungen bei der Abfahrt der Schulbusse kommen, werden wir Sie selbstverständlich umgehend mit einem weiteren Update informieren.
Wir danken Ihnen für Ihr Verständnis und wünschen Ihnen und Ihrer Familie, dass Sie gut und sicher durch das heutige Wetter kommen.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Die Schulleitung
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Dear Parents and Guardians,
Due to the severe weather alert in our region, and in the interest of the safety of all students and staff, classes and the preschool program will end early today at 12:55 pm. School buses will depart campus at 1:05 pm.
To estimate the approximate arrival time at your bus stop, please refer to the times listed on the regular bus route schedule.
If your child does not ride the bus please pick them up at 12:55pm.
If the situation warrants it, we will certainly keep all students safely sheltered inside the buildings and ensure everyone remains safe until conditions allow otherwise.
If you happen to be delayed in traffic or by the weather and cannot arrive exactly at 12:55 pm for pickup, students will remain inside their respective buildings - Preschool, Elementary School, and the Main Building - and will be supervised until you arrive safely to pick up your child.
Please drive carefully and do your best to be on time, as we are for everyone’s safety hoping to have the buildings cleared as soon as possible after 12:55 pm.
If bus departures are delayed, we will certainly provide another update promptly.
Thank you for your understanding. We wish everyone a safe afternoon and hope you stay safe during the weather.
Kind regards,
School Leadership
One Flew Over the Soccer Match
This year’s annual soccer match between graduates and teachers at the GISW had a small but delightful new feature.
Observers noticed that just above the competitors’ heads small sleek birds darted about, like tiny blue and white jet aircraft performing aerial maneuvers. They were Tree Swallows, newcomers on campus, apparently unafraid of the boisterous activity on the pitch.
The aerial acrobats were there by invitation, residents of a specially designed nest box nearby that was provided by the Science Department as part of its native species restoration project. The concept is to attract Bluebirds, Tree Swallows and other native species that in the past bred on or near the GISW campus; species that directly benefit the ecology of the school community while offering opportunities in field biology – learning their life-cycle, behavior, field marks and interdependence on many other organisms.
In February three specially designed nest boxes were assembled and carefully sited in locations where neither the school’s activities nor the birds’ breeding routines would conflict. This spring all three were occupied. One, on the sodded roof of the Elementary School, a pair of bluebirds have already raised and fledged three chicks. Parents and young may be seen routinely around the school, perched in low tree branches or insect hunting in grass and bushes.
This initiative, as with the pollinator garden project, provides a rewarding element of environmental education where school assignments, classroom teaching and laboratory discovery are enhanced by the excitement of seeing, hearing and studying native species right on campus. For example, 5th and 6th graders learned to calculate the efficiency of swallows’ hunting behavior – the speed of insect capture over the soccer field and return flight to the nest box to feed four rapidly growing hatchlings. Estimates are that each parent makes more than one hundred and twenty hunting-feeding roundtrips per day. Which explains how the little ones are becoming big ones ready to fly the nest by this weekend.
In December, a nest box to accommodate Barred Owls will be erected in a secluded section of the wooded area behind school grounds, not far from the soccer field.
Steffi Colopy
STEM Coordinator
