November 2, 2022
Dear SJE Cooperative Schools Families,
As snow and colder temperatures arrive here in our area, I want to make you aware of the SJE Cooperative School’s plan for winter weather conditions and schooling options.
The Endicott and St. John Board of Directors have made plans for the 2022-2023 winter months. These plans include using 2-Hour Late Starts (10:30 AM student arrival), Early Releases (12:30PM), and Closure as options for dealing with unsafe winter weather. This plan focuses on trying to create options for students to attend face-to-face classes as much as possible. Below, please find greater details regarding the components of the winter plan.
2-Hour Late Starts
Initial alerts by phone, text, email, Face Book, SJE Website, and push notifications on the SJE Cooperative Schools App will go out at 6:00 AM.
Students would arrive at school at 10:30 AM. If weather conditions, early in the morning, look concerning, an added message to the 6:00AM call/alert would be added to let parents know that conditions would be reviewed again at 8:00 AM. If at 8:00 AM all looks to be improving, plans would move forward for a late start of school at 10:30 AM.
If, however, conditions look to be getting worse, a second message would go out by 8:30 AM to indicate the need to close school.
In the situation of a late start, NO preschool would be held in either Endicott or St. John. Make up days will be planned and announced as needed.
Early Release
From time to time conditions change during the school day requiring the school districts to go home early. Early release notifications would go out to parents again, by phone, text, email, Face Book, SJE Website, and push notifications on the SJE Cooperative Schools App.
Students would be served lunch and be released at 12:30PM. In this case, preschool students would be kept at the building and be transported on the regular routes with the K-12 students at 12:30 PM.
Closure
Notification would go out to families by phone, text, email, Face Book, SJE Website, and push notifications on the SJE Cooperative Schools App at 6:00 AM.
Closure days are required to be made up. Plans for make-up days would be announced as needed.
Online/Distance Learning
If the SJE Cooperative Schools exceed a total of three (3) days of closure, the Endicott and St. John boards will look at using online/distance learning in order to prevent numerous make-up days being added to the June 2023 calendar.
As in the past, student Chromebooks and learning schedules are being prepared if this option for learning will be needed. Lessons would be posted and accessed through the student’s Google accounts.
General Notes
1. If a bus cannot reach a student’s home, the student(s) would be returned to their school building site, where parents would be contacted and arrangements would be made for parent pick-up of the child(ren).
2. Students, who are unable to make it to the school site due to snow conditions, will be excused from school. A call from parents to the school office will be needed for the excused marking to be recorded.
3. Endicott and St. John Cooperative Schools work closely with Whitman County and the state highway departments to plan and prepare for winter road conditions. Whitman County road department has indicated that gravel roads will be considered a secondary priority and will not be plowed until they have accumulated six (6) inches of snow.
The state highway department has indicated that Highway 23 through St. John is also of secondary priority.
These two facts will be of importance to us in making our school day plans. It is possible we may find ourselves only able to operate buses on paved, plowed roads only. Notification will be made if this becomes necessary.
4. The SJE Cooperative Schools always operate as one system. School will not be held in one district only. Weather conditions in one district will apply to the other district.
5. Spokane Television stations KHQ, KXLY, and KREM work hard to post our school status each morning. This however, does not take the place of our SJE Cooperative alert/call system.
Please do notify your child(ren’s) school office if you have had a change in phone or email contacts since the beginning of the school year. It is our highest priority to keep our staff and student’s safety in mind when making our decisions regarding school operation.
If you have any questions regarding this email, please don’t hesitate to contact me by phone or email. I am always happy to answer any questions you may have or arrange a time to meet together.
Respectfully,
Suzanne Schmick, Superintendent
SJE Cooperative Schools
509-657-3523, Ext. 104 Endicott
509-648-3336, Ext. 132 St. John