Morton Magic!
Have a shout out to a parent or member of our community? Please share at info@75morton.org and we will be sure to include in the weekly newsletter!
Shout out to all of the families for your generous gift to our staff members! Thank you for making us feel so loved and appreciated!
Student Life at Morton
Check out some of the things happening at Morton before we went on break!
6th-graders stamped and mailed their letters to pen pals in Chile!
830 wrote down microaggressions they have heard about various groups of people, discussed how they were harmful, then tore them up and threw them away - hopefully erasing these from our vocabulary!
8th grade advisories create an interactive bulletin board about being an UPSTANDER!
Bea, our comfort dog, visits a 7th grade class!
Black Student Union
75 Morton is a diverse school, but it is a majority white school (45% of our students are white.) Black students represent 25% of NYC’s student population, but only 12% of our population at 75 Morton. It can be hard to be a minority in a school. Many students who identify as Black have expressed a need to have a safe space in our school community.
Discuss race and racism in our lives and in the world around us.
We want to work together to build a more inclusive school.
We want to celebrate and share our cultures & pride
Discuss identity
Create and establish meaningful relationships between students
The BSU aims to create strong bonds within a small group, with the hope to establish an even stronger and more inclusive community.
Meetings will be help on Fridays at 3:15- 4:00pm
75 Morton’s GSA (Gender and Sexuality Alliance)
Wednesdays at 8am in Room 426
Our GSA promotes inclusion, advocacy, and justice for students who identify on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
ALL ARE WELCOME.
Dear Families,
Happy New Year! I hope you had a restful break - I did! It was much needed and I enjoyed lazing around and reading for pleasure (currently, a book called Rats by Robert Sullivan).
While I was resting, the NYC DOE was busy creating new policies for testing and quarantining in hopes of increasing safety while allowing students to remain in the classroom. We highly encourage all students to get tested before returning to school on Monday. We also encourage all families who have not yet submitted consent, regardless of whether their child is vaccinated, to consent to inschool testing through their NYC Schools Account (schoolsaccount.nyc) or return a signed paper form to the school.
In addition to the new DOE policies, at 75 Morton we will:
- continue to maintain 3ft in classes and 6ft in the lunchroom.
- continue to enforce mask wearing with a "3 warnings then no outlunch" policy. There is no reason for any student to have a mask below their nose or on their chin.
- minimize hallway contacts by having students stay in their "homebase" classroom for all content classes and only move for lunch and electives.
- Students will also remain in their "homebase" periods 1 and 2 on Monday, January 3rd to participate in a "Welcome Back" lesson to ease the transition back to school, reconnect with the community, and refresh on expectations.
Below are important updates from the DOE. It is a lot of information, but it is very important - please read carefully:
Home Test Kits
● Beginning January 3, schools will distribute free, take-home COVID-19 rapid test kits to any student who exhibit COVID-like symptoms or have been in a classroom where a positive case has been identified.
● If your child was exposed to COVID-19 at school, please help your child take the first test on the day they receive the home test and help your child take the second test five days after exposure or at the first indication of symptoms.
- Your child may continue to attend school as long as your child receives negative test results and does not experience any symptoms of COVID-19.
- If your child has COVID-like symptoms or feels ill before the fifth day, please have your child isolate and take the second home test immediately.
- If your child tests positive on either home test, your child must isolate for 10 days following the first positive result. Please contact your child’s school immediately to inform them and for further guidance.
● If your child had symptoms of COVID-19 at school, please help your child take the first test immediately and help your child take the second test 24 hours later.
- Your child may not attend school until they receive negative results on both of these home tests taken within 24 hours of each other and have been fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication OR if your child receives a negative test result from a PCR COVID test.
- If your child tests positive on either home test, your child must isolate for 10 days following the first positive result. Please contact your child’s school immediately and report the test results.
● Any student who tests positive on a take-home test should immediately report it to the school and begin isolating. Students who test positive must isolate for 10 days and can return to school on Day 11. No negative test is required to return to school.
● As a reminder, all students, staff and visitors must pass the DOE health screener in order to enter school buildings. Additional questions will be added to the health screeners for those students and staff who receive at-home rapid test kits to share their negative result. No other proof of a negative result is required in order for these students to enter the school building.
New Quarantine Policy
Our goal is to ensure that students safely remain in school as much as possible, and we have updated our policies to ensure we meet this goal. This means that if there is a positive case in a classroom:
● For students in kindergarten through grade 12, unvaccinated or not yet fully-vaccinated students who were in close proximity to a positive case will no longer have to quarantine and will continue attending school if they do not have symptoms and do not have a positive test result from a COVID test. Instead, all students and adults in that classroom will receive a take-home rapid test kit and take two tests over the course of five days.
Increased In-School Surveillance Testing
To further ensure the safety of our students, families, and staff, the in-school surveillance testing program is expanding to double the number of individuals tested in each school, including both vaccinated and unvaccinated students, in grades 1 and up.
Testing is a critical part of keeping schools open and communities safe. Thank you to those families who have already consented to testing, and for your cooperation by participating in our in-school testing program!
COVID-19 Testing Sites
● The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) continues to open new testing sites throughout the five boroughs. We strongly encourage that all students get tested for COVID-19, through a PCR, lab-based rapid test, or a home test kit on a continuous basis, regardless of vaccination status.
For a list of testing sites, including sites with at-home rapid tests, call 212-COVID19, visit nyc.gov/covidtest, text "COVID TEST" to 855-48, or call 311 to find a nearby testing site.
If you made it to the end of this, you get a gold star!! Also, you may have a lot of questions - we will work through this together.
Love,
Valerie
And Also:
If a student is required to quarantine based on NYC DOE protocols, all work will be posted in google classroom. Google classroom work will only be available for those students.
From Previous Newsletters:
The End of 1st Marking Period was December 3rd. Teachers submit grades on December 10th, and report cards are available December 15th. Student report cards can be found at their NYC Schools Account. A conversion chart for JR can be found here.
Kids aged 5 - 12 are now eligible to be vaccinated for COVID-19. You can locate a vaccination site here (for first or second dose). You can also earn $100 for 75 Morton by naming us as the referring organization.
Question? Check the family handbook first!
Important Dates:
Wednesday, January 5th - Office Hours with Valerie - 3:30 - 4:00pm
Monday, January 17th- MLK Jr Day - No School
“Looking for a way to support our teachers and show them some love? Teachers love snacks! You can have them sent to the main office. Email jill@75morton.org or PTA@75morton.org if you have questions.”