Creekside Early Learning Center

Joan MacQueen Middle School remains open as a temporary evacuation center. We have A/C, food , water, restrooms, and wifi. Yes, animal friends ARE welcome! #AlpineStrong #United #OnwardandUpward

Tuesday (9/8) - AUSD will be providing FREE Grab and Go Meals for the week for all children 18 and under @ JMMS from 11:00 - 12:00 pm. #AlpineStrong #UnitedWeStand

Congratulations to CELC SSC members: Leslie Camerino, Ruben Camerino, Patricia Henry, and Randi Hunt. Thank you for your service to our school.

I hope each of you is staying safe and healthy. Over the last few months our students, staff, families and community have dealt with extraordinary difficulties: a pandemic, a return to distance learning, blackouts—and now evacuations due to wildfires. The Valley Fire has made the last few days trying for our community. Many staff and families have been impacted and will continue to be displaced. Power is out in parts of east county and evacuation orders continue to change by the moment. The JMMS gym is currently serving as a temporary evacuation center and will continue to be available to individuals who evacuate over the next few days. We have been coordinating efforts with the Red Cross, emergency and fire personnel and county staff. Santa Ana winds are also anticipated to hit our community tonight. In consultation with Alpine Fire Marshall, Jason McBroom, all staff except essential staff, will work from home today. However, our Grab and Go meal pick will take place at JMMS from 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM. Our ESS program and our CELC preschool will not be in operation. In addition, the Learning Pods at JMMS will not be able to take place this week due to the gym being used as an evacuation center. As always, we will continue to provide all supports possible to our Alpine and surrounding communities. Please continue to check for updates to stay informed. If you or your family are in need of assistance, please contact Mrs. Ripke. Sending virtual hugs!

Good evening Creekside families. I am thinking of all of you and our neighboring communities during this difficult time. Like Alpine has proven in the past, we are always ready and willing to support each other. I am sending good thoughts of safety and peace. If you know anyone of need, please ask them to reach out to me. I am currently at the evacuation center at JMMS (that is why this note is a little later than usual). It has been encouraging to see everyone work together to help out, including district employees, The Humane Society, Red Cross, the Kiwanis and more. My phone and email have been full of messages wanting to help the last two days. THANK YOU! Right now, we are doing ok but the district will put out a message if there is any way you can help. Tuesday marks the beginning of our third week of distance learning. In addition to providing distance learning, the staff has been working on schedules for the A/B hybrid model. Teachers will be sharing the A/B list in Google Classroom on Tuesday between 8:30am and 9:00am. Please take a moment to see which group your student(s) will be in. We have a board meeting at 6:15pm on Wednesday, September 9 outlining our upcoming opening. Please join us if you are able to sit in and listen. Communications will be going out on September10 with more details about our opening on September 21. Here is the link to the agenda and can also be found on our website at www.alpineschools.net. Here is the link to the Zoom meeting and it is also included on the agenda. We are still looking for pictures of friends and family members to honor in our Patriot Day Video. If you or a loved one are a first responder, military personnel, or a medical professional, please send a picture to your child’s teacher. I am also looking for volunteers to record a short video message. Please email me if you are willing to record your student giving a personal thank you or appreciation message. tripke@alpineschools.net As a reminder, Creekside is in need of water bottle donations and shade structures. Please let us know if you can help out. Have a great rest of your weekend and don’t forget that there is no school tomorrow for the Labor Day Holiday. Stay safe and cool! Virtual Hugs!

We have opened up Joan MacQueen Middle School gym. The gym is air conditioned and we have wifi, food, restrooms and water. We also welcome your pets. Red Cross is on site setting up. #AlpineStrong

#ValleyFire Update: Overnight, the Red Cross team provided safe shelter for three families affected by the fire. The Temporary Evacuation Point at JMMS has closed. The Temporary Evacuation Point at Steele Canyon remains open.

We are excited to once again welcome our youngest students back on campus. Today, our preschool students began face to face learning. We look forward to all students returning in the near future. #onwardandupward #learningtogether #Alpine

Please view our September Newsletter at https://www.smore.com/6jfsb.

A big congratulations to the staff and families for completing our first full week of Distance Learning. Although we experienced the expected "bumps" along the way, I am very proud to say that we persevered through the challenges! Thank you for all of your support, patience, grace, and hard work to make the first week as smooth as possible. We apologize for any frustrations and are hopeful that our circumstances will become easier to navigate as we gain experience in these uncharted waters. Since Dr. Newman's announcement on Wednesday regarding schools opening on Monday, September 21, we have been working to prepare schedules and ensure the campus is safe and ready for our staff and Cubs. The principals at each site have been working together to align the A/B schedules for siblings. After looking it over a few more times and making necessary changes, we will be sending out a communication on or before September 8 to let families know which schedule they will have. Creekside will have staggered start and end times to help support social distancing and traffic flow. Some other tasks that we have been working on include delivering COVID-19 supply boxes to each classroom, placing directional arrows around campus to support social distancing and traffic flow, marking spots on the lunch benches to indicate and distance seating, ordering recess equipment for each classroom, and delivering plastic student partitions. All of this is in addition to the many other things that we completed in July. We are still in need of donations of shade canopies and cases of water. If you would like to donate, please contact the school office. Since we will not be able to have an in person event for Patriot Day like we did last year, the staff is working on a video to honor 911 heroes and all of our local first responders and military. We would love it if families would share pictures of their first responders and military family members (or friends) to add to our video. If you would like to participate, please email the photo(s) to your child’s teacher. Thank you for your continued support. More information and updates will be included in our September Newsletter that comes out tomorrow.

As we continue to plan for the reopening of our schools we want to ensure we have an accurate accounting of each student’s preferred learning model. We will be offering students the option of participating in Distance Learning, returning to school for face-to-face learning in the A/B Day hybrid model, independent study, or our home school program. We realize that you may have rethought which learning model you want your child to participate in. If you would like to make a change to the model your child will be participating in when we reopen our campuses on September 21, please contact the school office by Wednesday, September 3.

Dear AUSD Families, I am thrilled that the 2020-2021 school year is finally underway. Our goal of reopening our schools for face-to-face learning is now close to reality. For the last several months, we have been preparing for the return of our staff and students to campus. We have developed and updated our reopening schools plan with every new public health order. We have purchased pallets of hand sanitizer, face coverings, personal protective equipment, electrostatic cleaners, Chromebooks, new digital books and tools, and much more, all with the goal of reopening our schools with a sound plan in place. We are also finalizing an agreement with the San Diego County Office of Education to provide free hotspots to our families who do not have reliable internet access. To ensure that we had the option to open our schools, even if San Diego remained on the county watchlist, we submitted an Elementary School waiver. Yesterday, we were notified that the county and state approved our waiver. In fact, we were one of only four public school districts in San Diego county to receive a waiver approval. We have reassigned many of our staff, including bus drivers, instructional aides, and food and nutrition staff, to support our families in our Extended Student Services child care program. We were also the first school district in the state of CA to design and develop a Learning Pod option for our parents. In short, we have been focused on adapting our district to meet the challenges our families face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. While our goal is to open our schools, we want to do it in a way that ensures the health and safety of our staff, students and families. We have designed a gradual re-entry plan that will allow us to begin to open our schools on September 2 with our Preschool Special Day Class being the first to return for face-to-face learning. Our goal is to ensure that all of our planning and procedures have a chance to be put into practice and tested before we bring all students back on campus. On September 21, we will begin our hybrid learning model with all students returning to campus in the A/B Day learning model. More information will be forthcoming regarding days in which students will be attending. Having our staff and teachers feel safe is critical to our goal of ensuring the opening of our schools is done with care for our entire community. When we return to campus, all students in grades TK-8 will be required to wear a face-covering unless they qualify for one of the exemptions specified in the CDPH face-covering guidelines. With a gradual re-entry plan, we feel confident that we can monitor the success of our social distancing and sanitation measures, make adjustments as needed and ensure that everyone is as safe as possible. While there is much work that has gone into our reopening plan, there is much work ahead. I have asked our staff to assume positive intentions in all our actions and to create a working and learning environment that supports everyone. Lastly, as we move forward and open our schools, I also ask that each of you join me in supporting our students and staff as we all work together to make our community proud of the way we respond in reopening our schools. With great respect and hope for the future, Dr. Rich Newman Proudest Superintendent on Earth

Good afternoon CELC families. Our official first day of virtual learning starts tomorrow at 9:00 am. We are so excited to see our Cubs on Zoom. The CELC staff is ready to see those precious smiles! We are experiencing some technical challenges with our Chromebooks. Some of our Chromebooks are set on kiosk mode. This mode limits the ability to add bookmarks and is also causing some families difficulty accessing Zoom. The Tech Department is working to solve this problem and we are hoping that it is resolved by Monday at 8:30 am. The District has set up technical assistance for AUSD families. If you need assistance, please contact our Tech Department at helpdesk@alpineschools.net. Thank you in advance for your patience, grace and flexibility as we launch this school year. It was great to see many of you last week at our drive through materials pick up. If you were unable to make it, please contact your teacher to set up a time to pick up your student’s bag of materials. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for Mrs. Ripke in the community. She is trying to connect with 100 current, former or future Cubs by the 100th day of school. This weekend, she sighted her 9th Cub. Follow the fun on our Facebook page #cubinthecommunity. We love our Cubs!

Good afternoon parents. CELC is looking for School Site Council Members for the 2020-21 school year. If you are interested, please review the document in this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bDB7kE995oty3yGFjxTsVtnJn96rXJMMlwFrvcUmxdw/edit?usp=sharing. You can either fill out the document and email it to Charlene Brown at cbrown@alpineschools.net. Or, you may read the document and email Charlene to let her know that you are interested. Please include a statement about yourself. This document is also in your student's Google Classroom.

Class placements will be posted in Parent Vue at 12:00pm today. Back to School Night is at 5:00pm tonight. Zoom links are being emailed out at 7:00am. Your child's teacher will email you more information after 12:00pm today. We hope to see you tonight. If you are not able to make it, the presentations will be recored and available to view at a later time.

Please click on the link to view directions and details about CELC's Drive Through Materials Pick Up. https://www.smore.com/yux6g

Update on COVID-19 Watchlist Dear AUSD Families, You may have heard the news that the County of San Diego was removed from the state’s COVID-19 watchlist and wonder what it means for Alpine Union. This is encouraging news that could help pave the way for us to reopening schools this fall. However, there are some important things to keep in mind. First, these numbers will need to stay within the acceptable range for at least 14 days before schools in San Diego County will be allowed to reopen without a waiver. Second, when we are allowed to return to face-to-face instruction, we hope to make the transition as seamless as possible for our students, staff, and families by beginning with our hybrid model as outlined in our AUSD Reopening Schools Plan and the AUSD Safe Schools Parent and Student Reopening Guidebook. While we keep a close eye on the watchlist, we are also planning on submitting a County of San Diego Elementary School Waiver next week so that we may begin to reopen our campuses. The process for reopening our schools remains the same as our plans have outlined. For the last several months, we have been developing and updating our reopening plans to do everything possible to ensure healthy environments for our students and staff. As you can imagine, the process for reopening is very complex. District leadership has also been working with our employee associations to develop memorandums of understanding that address working conditions in our schools before employees return to school sites. As a reminder, we have created two options to support our parents as Distance Learning begins: Extended Student Services and Alpine COVID-19 Learning Pods. Information on both options are available on our website on our COVID-19 webpage. I appreciate your flexibility, support, and understanding as we adjust to these ever-changing conditions. I will continue to share updates as they become available. You can also find the most current information on our reopening plans on our COVID-19 webpage. I very much look forward to seeing our students back on campus in the very near future. Stay well and healthy! Sincerely, Dr. Rich Newman Proudest Superintendent on Earth

Hello Creekside parents! This is a reminder that if you do not have wifi access to support your Cub during distance learning, please email Charlene Brown at cbrown@alpineschools.net. The district has a limited amount of hotspots for families that need support.

Please view the August newsletter for the latest news and updates. https://www.smore.com/cazf5

Creekside enrollment is still open for the 2020-21 school year! We have space available in TK and K. Please call the office for registration information. 619-659-8250 We are scheduling appointments to help you with the process. Creekside is the place to be!