Good morning,
It seems that there are many complaints and some confusions about our new arrival and dismissal procedures. We absolutely don’t want students walking through the parking lot at arrival or dismissal for obvious safety reasons. I encourage parents who have concerns to discuss them with me as I believe that everyone who has approached me with an issue we have been able to accommodate with a solution.
Just for the record, this is not something that is being mandated by the Superintendent or the Board. It came about as a result of parent and teacher complaints about the lack of orderly arrival and dismissal procedures, particularly last year. After reaching out to other principals, including observing their arrivals and dismissals, and talking to our staff, I decided to try this approach. As some have noted, many of the other Dearborn schools, particularly on the west side, do it this way. We also experimented with it at summer school.
It has only been 4 days and this is a pretty big change. We announced some tweaks to the procedures on Friday in order to address a couple of problems. I anticipate that we will make more as we all settle in to the routines.
I would like to convene a Task Force of interested parents and staff to work with me to develop solutions that will work for everyone. Once I get some volunteers, we can find a meeting time that would work one evening this week or early next week. Please email me at groover@dearbornschools.org if you’d like to participate in the Task Force.
Enjoy the beautiful weather and we’ll see you tomorrow.