South Loop Families,
As we close out the 2021-2022 school year, I want to thank each and every one of you for your role in supporting our students and our school this year. This has not been a year without challenges. At the onset of the year, we welcomed our full student body back to in-person learning for the first time since March of 2020. We spent the year warily avoiding covid exposures, testing students in schools, and contact tracing in an effort to keep students and staff safe. As the year now ends, we can look back and see how much our students have accomplished through the support of teachers, families, and our school community
This year exemplified the need to work together to ensure our kids got back to what they needed, which was to be learning in school, in classrooms full of their friends and peers. Having students back in our buildings was a great reminder of the joy we as educators are lucky to have in our work. Thank you for allowing us to work with your students each day, we know there is nothing more precious in this world, and we thank you for choosing to send your students to South Loop.
As some of you may be aware, yesterday there was yet another potential threat involving gun violence against a school in Texas. Thankfully, no students were harmed in this incident. As a community, we must continue to stay focused on what is important to us. We must speak out against the threat of potential harm to the very space that many of our students find as a safe haven.
I urge all of you to be advocates for safe learning environments for all children. Help us ensure that this is not a reality for our students. Contact your local and state representatives, and advocate for safer school environments. All children deserve the right to attend school free of the fear that schools are not a safe space, or with the threat of losing their lives. As parents, educators, and a school community, it is our responsibility to ensure that our children can attend school in a safe learning environment.
Please utilize the resource below to help protect America’s children from these senseless tragedies.
- Red Flag Laws
- Sandy Hook Promise – Sandy Hook Promise trains students and adults to know the signs of gun violence so that no parent experiences the tragic, preventable loss of their child.
- ILLINOIS CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION AUTHORITY (ICJIA)
- Protect Our Schools
- National Center for School Crisis
- Resources from the National Center for Healthy Safe Children
- Video — Biden’s Address: ‘Why do we keep letting this happen?’ (Watch right here)
- Speak to your Legislators
- Make sure your leaders hear from you on facebook and twitter
- Participate in coordinated actions
- Volunteer and Donate
- Never give up. Our nation needs to hear from you. Write an op-ed for your local paper, ask your family and friends to join you at an event, or simply talk to them about the reality your child and you as a parent face everyday.
Today our Kindergarteners graduated; these little scholars who started the year looking like babies, intimidated by the new-ness of their classrooms and building spent the year learning their numbers and their letters and prepare now to move on to First grade, where their knowledge and skills will deepen as they continue to learn and grow. Their graduation song had lyrics that made me think of each of my students: “I’m brave, I’m strong, I’m Smart, and I’m loved”. To my students, that is my end of year message to you, because each and every one of you are brave and smart, strong and loved. Remember that this summer and always. Stay safe, have fun, read a lot, rest, and we can’t wait to see you back in the Fall for our next adventures learning together.
Yours in Education,
Mrs. Shelton