Re-2 is You

March is Music in our Schools Month and this month, Garfield Re-2 will be talking to music educators about the importance of music in our schools and what that looks like at various levels.

This week we chat with Noelle Gingrich at Rifle Middle School.

Mary McPhee:

It's Mary McPhee, I just wanted to come on and remind you about the free and reduced application. It's that time again, to get it off of the website, print it, bring it into your child's school. Or of course you can mail it to me anytime.

Mary McPhee:

If you have any kind of questions that are regarding that application, you can call the nutrition office and talk to Sherry Edwards, and her number is (970)-665-7604. My number here in my office is (970)-665-7697. So call us any time, and make sure that you print out the application and we can go over it together.

Mary McPhee:

This week's shout out goes to Monica Peyton at Cactus Valley Elementary. She and her staff helped out when Elk Creek needed help. The Elk Creek kitchen staff had to go into quarantine and they came to help us. Monica helped me, Jennifer helped me, and Stephanie of course held down the fort there, and we got through, and Ryan was very happy.

Mary McPhee:

So I just want to give a shout out to the Cactus Valley kitchen crew for helping us make it through. I hope you all have a great weekend, and a good week next week. See you next time.

Theresa Hamilton:

Ryan Hudson, you are the head of the agriculture department at Rifle High School, yes?

Ryan Hudson:

Yes, ma'am.

Theresa Hamilton:

What else do you do?

Ryan Hudson:

So I'm the FFA Advisor. So we have the FFA program, we do all of here with welding, construction, leadership. We work in the greenhouse. We have a lot of different things going on.

Theresa Hamilton:

So we're talking today because next week is national FFA week.

Ryan Hudson:

Yep. It is. It's going to be a great week. We've got a lot of stuff to celebrate. And even with the times that we're dealing with, we're still going to have a good time and have great opportunities to have some fun.

Theresa Hamilton:

Talk to me a little bit about the importance of FFA and, for anybody that doesn't know, FFA is future farmers of America. Why is that an important program to have in our schools?

Ryan Hudson:

Well, I don't know that we have enough time, but I'll give you the highlights. So the technical way to look at it is, is we're inter-curricular, so there's three circles. School, and then we have the SAE component, which is their supervised agricultural experience, and that can range from animals, to working, to all those other things. And then we have the personal side of it that ties in as well with FFA, with our contests and stuff. And so it makes these three circles in it. It makes school relevant. It makes it fun.

Theresa Hamilton:

I know that one week out of a year is not nearly enough to celebrate our nation's farmers. But what are the kinds of things that you have scheduled for next week, at least at rifle high school, to celebrate our future farmers of America?

Ryan Hudson:

Yeah, it's an interesting thing about the [inaudible 00:03:17] we've talked about the [inaudible 00:03:18] and challenges, but we farmed so you don't have to, and it gives everybody the opportunity to do other things. That's kind of a cool quote because about 200,000 people raise all of our food in the United States plus everywhere else in the world.

Ryan Hudson:

It's really an opportunity to highlight some of those things, but we're going to do a lot of things like a spirit day. We have a tacky tourist day. So you, you can imagine where that's going to go. It'll be much have a blue and gold day and official dress day. We're going to have a giant Jenga contest during lunches. We have some chapter meetings to talk about some things that are coming up with our events in our CDE contests and stuff, our career development contest. And we're also going to do Ag. Olympics one day at lunch,...

Sara Brainard:

Hi, this is Sara Brainard with Garfield County Public Health Department. This pandemic has been hard on all of you, but the way to get through it has not changed. We still have to do the things that help keep your family safe from the virus, keep you going to work, and keep schools open. We still have to follow best practice in wearing a mask, hand washing, social distancing, and not gathering in large groups. This is a reminder about how to keep your kids in school and staff coming to work.

Sara Brainard:

Once you've had an exposure to COVID-19, that means any household members that have tested positive or anyone that you know with a COVID diagnosis, stay home. If anybody in your house has been tested for the virus, stay home. Everyone in the house stays home until you have a test result. If you or your child are sick or have symptoms, even with something that seems like it's not much, stay home or keep your child at home. It is so much easier to keep one person home than an entire cohort if you follow these guidelines. There's nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about if you or your family get COVID. The important thing here is to follow these guidelines. Thank you.

Mary McPhee:

It's Mary here to remind you to fill out your free and reduced application. We didn't get any new forms this week, but I know how it goes. Just take a minute this weekend to answer just a few questions, and then return this form to your school. It'll just take a minute. It really helps out the school district a lot. This week's shout out goes to LaDonna Sjogren at Grand Mesa Elementary. LaDonna and her staff served 207 staff meals in January. Those meals really help our department's revenue, that because of quarantines, closures, and off-site students is really behind this year. I want to just thank LaDonna, Chrissy, and Eliza for all you do every day. Keep up the good work. Talk to you next week. Bye.

Mary McPhee

... Mary McPhee, nutrition services director, with our weekly update. Please print, fill out and bring in your free-and-reduced application as soon as possible. This week, we got three new applications. This will help fund many, many things in our district for next year, so if you could please do that. This is your weekly reminder to fill out the free-and-reduced application.

Did you know that since January 4th, we have served 25,034 meals to all the students in our district? That's 7,881 breakfasts and 17,153 lunches.

This week's shout-out is to the staff at Highland Elementary. 30% of all breakfasts served daily in our district come out of Highland Elementary. Yesterday alone, Lisa Reichert and her staff served 203 breakfasts. She delivered them to the classroom, and when the kids got there to start their day, they had a fresh and ready breakfast to start the day off right. So we want to just thank Lisa and her staff for starting the day off right for our kids at Highland Elementary.

Thanks a lot. See you next week.

A conversation with the Mini-Mayor of Sunlight Mountain

So April, tell me... Let's start with being the mini-mayor. Why did you want to become the mini-mayor of Sunlight?

April:

Because Sunlight is my favorite mountain and, hmm, my favorite one is Ute.

Speaker 2:

Oh, Ute run is a really good run. I like that one too. What's your favorite thing about Sunlight Mountain?

April:

Hmm. Skiing.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that you said you wanted to do as mini-mayor is that you wanted to do a coat drive. Why is that important to you?

April:

Just in case people don't wear a coat, and they would be cold and get the chill and probably get ill.

Speaker 2:

What are you asking people to do to help you with your coat drive?

April:

I'm asking them to put things out so people can get the coat. One of them is at Clark's Market [inaudible 00:02:40] and one of them is here. I don't know where.

Speaker 2:

At FirstBank in Glenwood Springs.

April:

Mm.

Speaker 2:

And the Western Garfield County Chamber of Commerce in Rifle.

April:

Mm, yay.

Speaker 2:

I know. There's four of them. So people should be able to find a location to drop off a coat, huh?

April:

Oh, and then we're... I got some papers, and it's about my coat drive, so we're going to hang those up in our neighborhood.

Speaker 2:

Do you have a dream of how many coats that you would like to collect?

April:

One million.

Speaker 2:

A million coats? That's a lot of coats. That would help a lot of people, wouldn't it?

April:

Yeah. I want people to bring us lots of coats.

Theresa Hamilton

April, I am so happy to meet you. I am honored that the mini-mayor of Sunlight Mountain gave me some time to talk to her, so I thank you very much.

April:

You're welcome.

Hello, Garfield Re-2. We are back with another video podcast feature for this week's newsletter. Remember that everything we talk about here will be available in the Garfield Re-2 News so that you can refer back to it later. In this week's Garfield Re-2 News, you will find information about the new dates, times, and locations for COVID-19 testing, our Season B spectators plans, and the top five from this week's school board meeting. Right now, let's hear from our director of nutrition services, Mary McPhee, and our director of facilities, John Oldham.

Mary Mcphee:

Hello, I am Mary McPhee, the director of nutrition services here at Re-2. As you know, all kids are eating breakfast and lunch free until the end of the year. I thought you might want to know that if a child is eating breakfast and lunch every day from the beginning of the school year until the end of that semester, the savings is $410. If you have two or three children in our district, the savings could be to your family over $1,200. Isn't that great? Please encourage your children to eat at school and take advantage of this wonderful savings for your family.

Mary Mcphee:

We had four people download the free and reduced application after last week. Just a reminder that those applications need to be filled out because they fund more than just meals. Please fill this application out as soon as you can, turn it into your school, and it will help our whole district out a lot. We are serving lunches out of a reusable green clamshell, like this. This keeps the food hot and it can be washed and reused, and by doing this, we have diverted thousands of pounds of styrofoam out of the landfill and we have saved this district over $100,000 in disposables.

Mary Mcphee:

We are starting a weekly shout out to our food service staff this week, and today we are honoring Ms. Krystal Magee at Coal Ridge High School. Krystal has done the work of two people in her kitchen and worked all alone since Thanksgiving. The staff at Coleridge has helped us get the students fed, and we'd like to give a big thanks to Dr. Davis and her team. Yesterday, Ms. Krystal served more than ever before and we want to thank her for her hard work. Remember, download the application, pick one up from your school, and we'll see you next week.

John Oldham:

My name's John Oldham. I'm the facilities director for Garfield Re-2. This past week and a half, we've been working on spectator plans to have our parents be able to watch their youngsters play sports and the wrestling and basketball in season B. We've had a great set of parents helping us with this throughout the process and giving us input, and our athletic director has been working tirelessly to get this accomplished in such a short time. You can find this in our newsletter and you can find our newsletter on our website for Garfield Re-2. I really appreciate everyone out there in this trying times. Our number one goal is to keep the kids in-person, because we all know that's what's best for them and for Garfield County in general, and looking forward to a great basketball and wrestling season. Good luck, Titans, Bears, Vikings, and Cubs, and have a great season. Everyone stay safe and stay well.

Hello Garfield Re-2. This week, we're adding a new feature - messages from our directors with some key information about their departments by video. We hope that you will enjoy hearing from our staff. The information of course will also be available in the Garfield, Re-2 news so that you can refer back to it later. In this week's news, you'll find great information about the new quarantine regulations. We've been able to reduce the time down to 10 days. There's also COVID-19 testing information, zoom links for the January 11th school board meeting and more. But now let's hear from our director of nutrition services, Mary McPhee, and our director of transportation, Penny Cooper.

Hello, Garfield Re-2 to. My name is Mary McPhee. I'm the director of nutrition services for Re-2. I try to bring your kids the healthiest meals possible every day. We've had a lot of questions about the universal free meals program. And I wanted to let you know that we will continue to serve your kids breakfast and lunch for free till the end of the school year, we wanted to remind all those virtual and students quarantining and at home that we can also provide free breakfast and lunches as well. Just call your school by 9:00 AM. And we will have a warm lunch waiting for you and breakfast for the next day. Don't forget. We are still taking free and reduced applications. These forms are very important for more reasons than just school. Lunch applications are included in the newsletter. We need your help. If you haven't already, please take a minute to fill out those forms and return them to your school.

Thank you. My name is Penny Cooper and I'm the director of transportation. I'm in charge of bringing your kids to and from school safely every day. I want to say thank you to all of our families out there who are making sure that their kids have their bus pass when they get on and off the bus every day when kids use their bus passes, it makes it so much easier for us to find them. If parents are missing them, if the student was on the bus, we can tell very quickly where they got off. And at what time this gives parents a valid place to start looking almost immediately and lends a feeling of empowerment to parents to have a starting place when they are very worried. It also gives our drivers and our district so much more peace of mind knowing that every single student is being accounted for. It makes me feel so much better as the director, in case of an emergency that we have a way to quickly pass, accurate, needed information to appropriate authorities. If needed to expedite emergency care, we need to be able to identify every student that it is that is on the bus every day. And if a driver were to be incapacitated, we need an accurate list of kids. Huge, thanks to all of our parents, district leaders, teachers, and community members for helping us transport our students in the safest way possible.

Heather Grumley was named Superintendent of Garfield Re-2 School District in April 2020. She is a lifelong Garfield School District No. Re-2 educator and has "grown up" in the district she now leads. Listen as she shares a little bit about herself in the very first "Re-2 is You" Podcast.