ECHO INFO – February, 12th 2021

Dear Parents,

A year ago, our lives were turned upside down. Up against seemingly insurmountable challenges, you placed your trust and confidence in us. Undaunted, the school responded with a bold vision. With the choice to learn either on campus or at home, our students are back in school. Whatever lies ahead, SDFAS remains unwavering in its commitment to deliver an exceptional bilingual education.

As we enter the re-enrollment period for next year, I am more excited than ever about our school’s future. The Board, working in close partnership with the school’s senior leadership team, has taken great care to evaluate the need for additional resources while remaining mindful of the financial commitment of our families.

To manage the budgetary implications of Covid-19, the school is drawing significantly from its reserve funds. These pre-Covid reserves have enabled the school to make necessary investments and absorb extra costs. We will continue our commitment to the prudent financial planning and stewardship that enabled us to weather this crisis.

Tuition levels for 2021-2022 are detailed below. They were carefully considered to enable the school to progressively recover from Covid-19 impacts on expenditures and enrollment without having to forego planned improvements to the academic program and SDFAS student experience. For example, next year the school will implement its Covid-delayed vision to offer Spanish as a third language to all students in PK0 – 4th grade. This new curriculum sequence will feed into the school’s existing Spanish program in grades 5-8. These tuition levels represent an increase of 4% for PK and 6% for other grades.

Consistent with last year’s increase and in alignment with our Strategic Plan, additional tuition revenues will enable the school to deliver an exceptional bilingual education while managing additional Covid costs through fundraising and reserves. 

Re-enrollment agreements are now available on your FACTS family portal.  In order to secure a place for your child(ren) in the rising grade, your signed enrollment agreement(s) will need to be submitted with the tuition deposit by Friday, February 19^th, 2021.

If you have any questions about re-enrollment, please contact Isabelle Gilet at or (858) 456-2807 ext. 306.

As always, thank you for your ongoing trust and support. Offering your children an SDFAS education is, more than ever, a gift of enduring value.

Sincerely,

Mark Rosenblum, Head of School

Kyndra Leach, Chair, Board of Trustees

Peter Westlake, Treasurer, Board of Trustees

We are hosting our annual school science fair between April 5 and April 7, 2021. During these days, we will have student display boards set up on campus, and we will also have a virtual science fair for students who wish to share slide presentations about their experiments. Seventh graders will be presenting their projects. Participation for all other grades is optional. Science fair is an opportunity for students to use research and experimentation to explore topics of interest. As such, we invite and encourage all interested students to develop and share a science project. Students who participate will conduct an experiment and gather data in a journal. They will then compile their information into a slide presentation and/or display board. For safety purposes, experiments must be conducted off-campus. As such, parents and guardians are responsible for supervising and procuring materials. We would like students to make their own discoveries, so we encourage them to work as independently as possible. Between the days of 4/5/21 and 4/7/21, SDFAS community members will have the opportunity to look at all submitted projects, either virtually or in person. In addition, students will vote on the projects they found to be most interesting. If you are interested in participating in our annual science fair, please reach out to your student’s homeroom teacher. We will follow up with additional information. Some helpful resources for project ideas and guidelines are sciencebuddies.com and gsdsef.org. If you have questions, please contact Suneeta Cohen, scohen@sdfrenchschool.org.

• Tous différents
• Oreilles papillons
• Homme de couleur
• Quatre petits coins
• Splash (en anglais Mixed)
• Mon ami
• Tous pareils
• Petit cube chez les tout ronds
• Families
• Massamba
• On n’est pas des moutons

• Mae Jemison
• Michelle Obama
• Simone Biles
• Harriet Tubman
• Kamala Harris
• Madam CJ Walker
• Edmonia Wildfire Lewis
• Oprah Winfrey
• Katherine Johnson

• Our Children Can Soar: A Celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change 
• She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World
• Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• 5th: Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
• 4th: Granddaddy’s Turn by Michael S. Bandy
• 3rd: Hidden Figures: The true Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• 2nd: I Am Rosa Parks by Brad Meltzer
• 1st: Ice Breaker by Rose Vina

• Mae Jemison
• Michelle Obama
• Simone Biles
• Harriet Tubman
• Kamala Harris
• Madam CJ Walker
• Edmonia Wildfire Lewis
• Oprah Winfrey
• Katherine Johnson

• 8th grade: Stamped from the beginning (Young Adult version)by Jason Reynolds/Ibram X. Kendi – Book Club with Ms. Mitchell and Mme Addo
• 7th grade: Born A Crime (Young Adult Version) by Trevor Noah– Book Club with Mme Addo
• 6th grade: Ghost by Jason Reynolds– Book Club with Mr. Faure and Mme Toudic

• Why we must confront the painful parts of US history | Hasan Kwame Jeffries
• Using your voice is a political choice | Amanda Gorman

You will find here the registration links and schedules for the next Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTC). The meetings will take place on Zoom and the links to access the teachers’ zoom rooms will be sent directly by mail on Monday, February 8th. If there are no time slots available for a teacher, please reach out to them directly to discuss another time for a meeting. Ahead of the PTCs, we will be reviewing students’ progress with them. We encourage you to review their grades with them, available on FACTS.

Friday, February 19th / 1 pm to 4 pm :

• Andrew Ericson (7b advisor / 6th-7th-8th US Science)
• Cara Mitchell (8b advisor / 7th-8th Social Studies and ENG Language Art)
•  Marion Addo (7a advisor / 8th French Language and Literature)
• Julie Ducloux (6th-7th-8th FR Science)
• Barbara Regan (6b advisor / 6th Social Studies and ENG Language Art)
• Oliver Prud’homme (6a advisor / 6th-7th-8th History and Geography)
• Sylvie Toudic (6th-7th French Language and Literature)
• Suneeta Cohen (6th-7th-8th US Math)
• Nicolas Giot (8a advisor / 6th-7th-8th FR Math)
• Yuriko Patino (6th-7th-8th Spanish)

WEJOININ PAGE to register: https://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/mwbty

• 6th Grade
• 7th Grade
• 8th Grade

This year, SDFAS students will have the opportunity to measure their public speaking skills by participating in the Ambassadeurs en Herbe international contest. We wish good luck and light words to our contestants! If they are chosen to go to the next round on the 15th of February, they will measure themselves to students from all the North American French Schools.

We are pleased to invite all students interested in entering the Math Olympiads (MOEMS) competition to please sign up here. The contest will take place online after school and is open to all students, on-site and DL. We will determine the exact date of the contest based on feedback from interested participants.

Our Lightbox 1-year subscription is active now: https://sub.openlightbox.com/Lbxaccess/Login?tokenId=6ffa8fcb-b993-48a2-9756-00ee4d9f872e

There is no school uniform at SDFAS; however, the school does have a Dress Code, as outlined in the Parent-Student Handbook. For the 2020/21 school year, we are excited to partner, again, with Land’s End, a provider of high-quality school clothing and spirit wear.

• All Preschool students must wear their red polo during field trips and school events.
• All students from Grade 1 through 5 must wear a red polo during field trips and school events and a navy-blue T-shirt for Physical Education classes.
• All students Grade 5 through 8 must wear a navy-blue T-shirt for Physical Education classes.

Here is the Land’s End SDFAS webpage (900190869) where you will order:

• Red polo with the SDFAS logo (required for grades PK0 through 5) 
• Navy-blue PE t-shirt with the SDFAS logo (required for grades 1 through 8). The school will reimburse one navy-blue PE t-shirt per child if purchased before September 30th.  Your FACTs tuition account will be credited in October.  

More Info here. Please remember to label your child’s clothing and personal belongings.

• How to be a safe, strong digital citizen!

Grades 3-5

• News & Media Literacy 
• Digital Footprint & Identity 

Grades 6-8

• Quick Conversation Starter – Teen Voices: Friendships and Social Media
• Cyberbullying, Digital Drama & Hate Speech

Helpful reading for adults

• Raising Digital Citizens – Teach your children to become good and safe digital citizens

Responsive Classroom teachings remind us that in order to be successful in and out of school, students need to learn a set of social and emotional competencies – cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control — and a set of academic competencies – academic mindset, perseverance, learning strategies, and academic behaviors. Overview of the SEL Program at SDFAS

All parents with children enrolled at SDFAS for the 2020-2021 school year are required to review and acknowledge with signature the following documents using this ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FORM:

• SDFAS Parent-Student Handbook 2020-2021 (Revised and Updated on 09/12/20)
• SDFAS Covid-19 Addendum to the Parent-Student Handbook 2020-2021
• SDFAS Acceptable Use Policy (Technology) only for Grades 3-8. Click here for an overview of the SDFAS Chromebook Program.

**URGENT Action Needed!**Click here for the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FORM to print, complete, sign, scan to pdf, and return by email to Stephanie Humbert at shumbert@sdfrenchschool.org.

• Go to your Family Portal
• In the menu on the left: Select the “Family” drop-down
• Click “Family Home”
• Within the “Contact Info” click the edit pencil to update “Emergency Contacts” and “Transportation (Pick-up) Contacts”.
• You may add as many “Transportation (Pick-up) Contacts” as necessary.

We would like to limit the number of visitors to the main office. If you wish to pick up your child earlier than regular dismissal time for a medical appointment or any other purposes, please email Stéphanie Humbert at admin@sdfrenchschool.org with the date and time of pick-up. Please also copy the teachers so your child will be ready to go. When you arrive in front of the school, please call the front office and we will escort your child to your car. Thank you for your cooperation!

Instructions to install Magnus App For the upcoming school year, parents will use the Magnus Health Mobile App to complete a daily COVID-19 screening assessment for each SDFAS student from a smartphone in just a few clicks. This screening will need to be done every morning, at home, no later than 7:30 am, before departure for school. On August 27, 2020, parents will be able to set up a Magnus Health account via FACTS. After activating your Magnus Health account via FACTS you will install the Magnus Health Mobile App on your smartphone.  To log in for the first time please follow the instructions below:

1. Log into your FACTS account
2. Go to the Family Portal
3. Under the “Student Tab” Go to “Medical”
4. Click on MAGNUS Login button
5. Hover over your name within Magnus (top left of screen) and choose Change Credentials
6. Enter a Username & Password that only you know and will remember. This should be the same username & password you use for FACTS
7. You will see this phrase daily to remind you to complete your Covid-19 screening.
8. Download the “Magnus Mobile V2” App from the Apple Store or the Google Play store, and log in using your username & password.

At the completion of this initial process, you will be able to download the Magnus Mobile App for free on your smartphone and log in through the app to complete the screening assessment each morning. If you need additional help, you can always reference the parent tutorial. You will access the screening via the button titled “COVID-19.” We thank you in advance for your cooperation in this daily screening as it will be an imperative function of our safety protocols. Upon completion of the quick survey each morning, you will receive a message for the student’s attendance giving instructions for that day.  If your child arrives at school and the screening has not been completed, we will ask that you complete it before the student exits the vehicle. A parent must be the one to fill this out. Thank you for your cooperation in helping us keep the school operational during this pandemic.  Use of this App will help us create the safest possible environment for your children, our faculty, and staff.  For any technical issues with the mobile app such as login problems, or problems completing the screening please contact customer support at Magnus Health SMR by phone at 877.461.6831 or by email at service@magnushealthportal.com.