RSU 34 -

We have family food boxes available for delivery or pick up starting Wednesday afternoon May 20th! Please call School-Community Coordinator Jennifer Goodwin at 370-8564 or email her at jennifer.goodwin@rsu34.org if your RSU #34 family could use one!

The University of Maine Extension has a series on food and cooking that could be great to do with kids, called "10 Steps to a Healthier You!" The lessons and supporting videos are available at the links below. Thanks for sharing these, Professor Kate Yerxa! Lessons: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KZ-te2z-Uqjkb67DPMbVwBQhk63GGZCY?usp=sharing -----and----- Videos: https://extension.umaine.edu/food-health/efnep/10-steps-to-a-healthier-you/

Understanding Anxiety during COVID-19 Parent Webinar 5 Link to video: https://youtu.be/a1I5Exg58-U Link to slides: https://www.bangorschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Parent-Webinar-5-compressed.pdf

With children spending a lot more time at home, Northern New England Poison Center has some important tips about keeping them safe! Thanks for sharing this, Mrs. Costello, one of our awesome team of school nurses that we celebrate on this School Nurse Appreciation Day! Thanks also to Nurse Vanessa and Nurse Jana!

Books are awesome, and our kids want more! If you have books for any age reader to donate, please drop them off in our elementary school lobbies. Thanks to the Wilcox family and Alton Grocery for getting another Little Free Library in action! We're working with more community partners to get these built and installed. Each has a sign about precautions such as hand-washing in the COVID19 era. (if you have books to return from our school libraries, please return them to the schools, not to the Little Free Libraries)

Surviving Distance Learning #4 Here is the shareable YouTube link: https://youtu.be/0aBai5n6pEk Here is a link to the slides: https://www.bangorschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Parent-Training-4-Return-from-Vacation-compressed.pdf

Surviving Distance Learning Part 3 Here's the video link: https://youtu.be/A_TBZdjsH68 Here's the PDF link: https://www.bangorschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Parent-Training-3-Vacation.pdf

Thanks to Miss Hamlin and Mrs. Zabierek's hard work, we have another 30 face shields on the way to our local healthcare workers! Our LMS 8th graders have been great tech support when we've run into 3d printing troubleshooting. http://bit.ly/3D-Face-Shield

Here is the link to the 2nd Parent Webinar video. Surviving Distance Learning #2 Link to the slides: https://www.bangorschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Parent-Training-2.pdf Link to the video: https://youtu.be/JQmpyoNHEF8

Science Experiments at Home....... https://www.weareteachers.com/easy-science-experiments/

Dear RSU #34 Community, we hope you all fared as well as possible in the storm! If April showers bring May flowers, what do April Nor'easters bring? We're looking for a few folks who are able to help support an effort. We have a bunch of donated books that we want to get into kids' hands through Little Free Libraries (https://littlefreelibrary.org/). There are a few in our community already; we'd like to add at least 5 more. If you're able to build one, please email Jon.Doty@rsu34.org. If you're able to financially support the effort, please visit the RSU #34 Education Foundation page - there are a few different ways to donate, including check and paypal. https://www.rsu34.org/rsu-34-education-foundation If you're able to donate books like our awesome friends at Stillwater Montessori School who donated 350(!!!) books, please set them aside and we'll be in touch with more details. If you're able to read some of the books with a kid - awesome and stay tuned for more details! Much thanks! (at Dr. Doty's house...April Nor'easter will bring a May burn permit to take care of the three trees that went down on the road!)

April 9th, 2020 Dear Parents & Caregivers of K-5 students, RSU #34 educators have been very excited to continue connecting with students these past several weeks. We miss them terribly! With this note comes the release of our learning packets for the week beginning Monday, April 13th. We still have Thursday and Friday going for the current week’s packets, please keep supporting your children with those! This new packet will “launch” Monday morning. The goal for each week is for all students to earn at least three BINGOs on their board! If students are eager to do more, they can! Distribution: As with last week, we’ll distribute the packets a few days before the start date, so families have a chance to print them or pick them up. This week you can get the packet any of these ways: *At www.rsu34.org, click on COVID19 *Thursday, Friday, and Monday mornings at any of our elementary school *With lunch distribution on THURSDAYS at Old Town High School (10 AM - noon) or on the bus delivery routes If you get them early, don’t worry about details in the packets until Monday morning. Teachers will start sharing things on Mondays through the age-appropriate ways they’re connecting with their students. For the latest updates on RSU #34 and COVID19, please visit www.rsu34.org If you need help with technology, please email ITDept@rsu34.org For food service questions please call 827-3908. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any of our school staff with questions. Sincerely, Jon Doty

Positive Behavior Supports & Interventions at Home During COVID 19 Learn behavior strategies you can use while home schooling during COVID 19. Thursday, April 9th - 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM Register here - https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_50vaHwy5RRGzBSq-fikgHA

Old Town High School students competed well in the Maine State Science Fair! Congratulations to Sydney Sheehan, winner of an Office of Naval Research award for her research titled "Ropeless Lobster Trap." And congratulations to Teagan Blackie, who earned 3rd place in the Behavioral Sciences category for her research titled "Differences in Spatial Awareness by Gender." Much thanks to Mr. Mayfield and the OTHS staff for helping our competitors prepare for the Science Fair!

RSU #34 and neighboring districts are partners in a regional group that coordinates training and other services. Here's a professional development video and slides from Dr. Andy Kahn, a school psychologist. We hope it's helpful for families paddling these new waters with us! Surviving Distance Learning Dr. Andy Kahn, Eastern Maine Eastern Maine Counseling and Testing Services Video: https://youtu.be/TRiDyxm45oc Slides: https://www.bangorschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Parent-Training-1-optimized.pdf

Positive Behavior Supports & Interventions at Home During COVID 19 Learn behavior strategies you can use while home schooling during COVID 19. Thursday, April 9th - 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM Register here - https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_50vaHwy5RRGzBSq-fikgHA

Managing Your Child’s Anxiety Here is the link for a Parent Forum tonight!! Feel free to join! Thursday, April 2 5-6:30pm Join Zoom Meeting https://emhs.zoom.us/j/9371670089 Meeting ID: 937 167 0089 Veazie Community School will be hosting a live Zoom session with Northern Light Acadia Hospital's Chris McLaughlin, LCSW. Chris hosted our parent forums earlier this winter. Chris will share valuable information and resources on how to best manage your child’s anxiety, as well as offering ideas and suggestions that may be helpful in keeping your own worries as a parent in check, during this unprecedented global coronavirus crisis. Chris will share tips, facts, and recommendations on how we all can make it through this pandemic as successfully as possible and will be open to hearing any questions you may have in how to support your child (and each other!) through this challenging time.

April 2nd, 2020 Dear Parents & Caregivers of K-5 students, RSU #34 educators have been very excited to connect with students these past several weeks. We miss them terribly! With this note comes the release of our learning packets for the week beginning Monday, April 6th. Students do not need to do anything with these until Monday morning, when teachers begin guiding and supporting the activities for the week. Each week going forward we’ll release a packet like this for each grade. The goal for each week is for all students to earn at least three BINGOs on their board! If students are eager to do more, they can! Distribution: We’ll start distributing the packets a few days before the start date, so families have a chance to print them or pick them up. This week you can get the packet any of these ways: *At www.rsu34.org, click on COVID19 *Thursday, Friday, and Monday mornings at any of our elementary schools, or with lunch distribution at Old Town High School (10 AM - noon) *From our buses distributing lunches (packets will be on the buses Thursday, Friday, and Monday) Please don’t worry about details in the packets until Monday morning; teachers will start sharing things on Mondays through the age-appropriate ways they’re connecting with their students. For the latest updates on RSU #34 and COVID19, please visit www.rsu34.org If you need help with technology, please email ITDept@rsu34.org For food service questions please call 827-3908. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any of our school staff with questions. Sincerely, Jon Doty

Dear RSU #34 Schools Families, Governor Mills has announced that beginning at 12:01 a.m. this Thursday, Maine residents will be prohibited from traveling outside their homes for all but “essential personal activities” and ordered all schools closed for classroom-based instruction until May 1, 2020. This essentially continues our current operating procedures with homebound learning. Teachers are now providing students with learning opportunities, times to connect, ask questions, and receive help. That will continue. While it is impossible to predict when or if we will be able to reopen our schools and return to a normal schedule in the near future, we will be exploring additional opportunities for our students to engage in virtual activities. It is our plan that students in good standing will move to the next grade level for the 2020-2021 school year as would normally be the case. We are also considering plans, should it be necessary, to have an alternative way to honor our 2020 graduates in case a traditional ceremony isn’t possible. Seniors expecting to graduate in June of 2020 MUST be in contact with OTHS staff to successfully complete graduation requirements. We anticipate changes in our delivery model but, we will continue to offer our meals program and we encourage anyone who would like to participate to contact the RSU#34 Food Service office at 827-3908. If you are concerned with how your child is doing emotionally you can contact the NAMI MAINE HELPLINE. Their number is 800-464-5767, press 1 (helpline@namimaine.org). Here is a link to the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) and additional hotline numbers. Their direct number is (207)287-3703. Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any of the RSU#34 schools or the central office as well, at (207) 827-7171. Please look for information on our website, www.RSU34.org and download our app if you have not already done so. You can also use the number 2-1-1 to get general information regarding the Coronavirus outbreak in Maine. The Alton, Bradley and Old Town communities are strong, together. Eventually, life will return to normal and our students will return to school. We will have learned much that will help us to be even better as a school system. In the meantime, we will continue to rely on one another as one Coyote Strong community. Sincerely, David Walker

Here's how to connect with our School Counselor Facebook Page! https://www.facebook.com/RSU34-GuidanceStudent-Services-412120629362989/