Dear TCGIS Parents and Community: 
Like our seasons, TCGIS has endured many changes over the past six months. As being one of those changes and my first Elternbrief message, I want to say thank you for welcoming me into your community. I have had the opportunity to meet amazing students, parents, staff members, and other stakeholders in TCGIS. One area of change that was brought to my attention when I started was safety and security. As we become accustomed to our new environment, all of us have had to create adjustments to ensure student learning and safety. On the point of safety, the school has been working very hard to ensure student safety and security in the new, transitional environment. Recently, I invited Shannon McNulty, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator at St. Paul Pubic Schools, to tour our school and help us identify safety and security needs. Based on those conversations, we started to meet with school staff, local stakeholders, state health and safety inspectors, playground designers, and others in order to create school-wide safety improvements during our time of transition and lay the foundation for our new facility. We will be implementing changes the week of December 9. For recess, this will include the teaching of improved rules for safety, newly defined play areas, revised supervision roles, streamlined discipline referral process, the removal of hazards as well as many other changes. For the lunchroom, we are purchasing new cleaning supplies to better meet Minnesota Department of Health standards and implementing a bell system in the Aula to help with transitions. In the school, we have developed safety procedures for weather, intruders, fire, chemical spills, and other potential threats. I invite anyone interested to review the research and documents with us and give input to their ongoing development. I firmly believe that the key to the success of our school is quality communication and collaboration among stakeholders. The great thing about education is we all have similar goals: the highest level of education, a supportive culture that promotes great citizens, and safety for our students. The more we collaborate, the better we can meet the needs of students. I invite you to contact me anytime you are looking to collaborate to better meet the needs of students! Thank you again for welcoming me into your community. Jeff Horton, Assistant Director |
