Hi Friday School Parents,

We, as your Leadership Team, need to send out a reminder of the two policies that probably make our co-op run more smoothly than anything else. We also want to make sure you have enough time to plan and make arrangements (if needed) before all the busyness of registration. As we continue to grow, we realize that we need to adhere to these policies for the good of the whole co-op. We understand that we have sometimes failed to implement these consistently during all the sessions, and we apologize for any confusion that this may have caused.

The Guardianship Policy in the 2017-2018 Parent Handbook is as follows:

If an emergency arises, and you are not able to attend Friday School, your child(ren) may attend in your absence as long as you meet the following two requirements:

1. You must provide a guardian who is able and willing to fill in for you in your assistant spot, who is not already attending Friday School. (See our No Drop Off Policy).

2. You must turn in the Guardianship Form to Tina Ruble at Friday School.

Guardianship forms are meant to help as a one time occurrence for emergency purposes only, and are not meant to be week to week, for appointments or errands. We are no longer going to be accepting handing the guardianship of your child(ren) over to another fellow Friday School mom without a suitable replacement for yourself. Please run any specific questions about this policy by Tina. If you cannot meet both of the above requirements, please leave your child(ren) at home that particular Friday School day.

The reasoning behind this is quite simple, we are running short on parents almost every week of every term. We are having a hard time keeping the adult to student ratios to the ratio that is required of us by the church, and that we adhere to simply for safe classroom practices, on a weekly basis.

If you'd like more in depth information on the why's or how the decision was made, please contact Zindra Nelson. Anything about your specific situation and guardianship situations needs to be run through Tina Ruble. Please keep in mind, this policy has been in place for years, and at this point we are going to focus on enforcing it.

The second policy (reminder only - info has not changed from Spring term) is the No Student Guests Policy. We are no longer allowing students to come as guests to Friday School. A good rule of thumb is that if the child is not registered for classes at Friday School, please do not bring them. This goes for friends, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, your own unregistered child(ren) etc. Unregistered children will not be allowed to attend classes. Any questions? Please contact Tina Ruble.

Thank you for your understanding,

The Leadership Team

First Class members- I'm working on changing our members login (our website login, not the firmly planted family database login) to an email login... instead of a password only login. I'm hoping that people will like it better. If not, I can change it back. At the moment, if you want to log in to the members section, you'll need to request to be approved. (This is for current members only. ) I will try to respond to approval requests quickly. Thanks, Zindra

Last term, EBC requested that we put class size limits on the K & under classrooms. In times past, some of our classes, for example, say the Three year old class, had gotten noticeably big in student count, for the size of the room. We as the leadership of Friday School, had noticed this happening at different times, and we were just careful to make sure that we had the right Adult/Student ratios in the classes. Yet, for fire safety & liability reasons, they requested that class counts take into account the size of the room, along with the number of adults and students that would need to evacuate in case of emergency. Their concern is valid. And last Fall we adjusted to what they requested. In order to compensate for the changes, we ended up shifting students around as best we could to accommodate them. It "worked" yet, we realized that we needed to figure out a different way to handle it.

Besides just not having enough room in the K&Under classes, this also caused us to turn away multiple families with older students. (There was room in 1-12 classes for their older kids, but not enough room in K&Under for their younger kids.)

As the leadership of Friday School discussed these couple of issues, we realized that our focus as a coop - is to offer classes for school aged kids. So, in order to reflect that, we decided to change the order as of this upcoming registration.

How it will work on registration day:

There will be a separate ticket color for each of the following three groups:

9am Teachers (they may register their own K&unders)

11am Families with 1st-12th graders (they may register their own K&unders)

then Families with only N-K students

**If we have more K&Under kids than available spots, we will waitlist them and will see if we can fit them in after registration.

This change will be noted in the catalog that I hope to have out by tomorrow. It will also be noted on our website & facebook.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me.

Zindra

The leadership of Friday School has been considering making a change to the Friday School Guest Policy, specifically regarding visiting/guest students.

Normally, we may have one or two students visit per week. Because of different school districts early release days etc, this was considerably more in the fall. So much so, that teachers were asking to verify their enrollment numbers for their classes. I've looked into Mount Vernon's school district calendar for spring, and it is much the same as it was in the fall. This has made us consider what we need to do to deal with the issue.

Some of the reasons that have led the FS Leadership to look at/revise our student guest policy:

*Teachers are not expected to provide materials to unregistered students week to week, yet many have been. This affects their class budgets.

*EBC expects us to know where each person on campus is supposed to be in case of an emergency, this makes it a liability issue

*There have been too many student guests for us to successfully keep track of

*We have had some behavioral problems with multiple student guests

*Oftentimes, we do not have parent permission forms for student guests, another liability issue

*Current policy is that a person can visit one time during any given session. We have had the same students come multiple days in the same session.

*Many of our classes are full after registration, so we really don't have room for student guests

So until further notice, we are NOT going to be allowing student guests at Friday School. Students must be registered to attend classes!

*if you have a student that you would like to be able to come any given week, they must be registered in classes.

*if your family has a public school student that will need to occasionally attend Friday School, they must be registered or you will need to make other arrangements for them during FS hours.

*do not let your kids invite their friends to FS

*if you bring a student guest, they will not be allowed to attend classes.

*if you have friends who are former FS members, feel free to invite them to our public events: Display Night, Graduation, our occasional picnic or our Christmas Party.

This change in policy will not affect:

*Those who want to check out our program (we will give them a basic tour)

*Visiting dads, grandparents, etc. (must check in as a guest with the Friday School Coordinator)

You will want to keep this in mind as you make arrangements for this springs term. Just to let you know, this change has no one person or family in mind. Our desire is not to make things more difficult for you or your family (this affects my family as well), but to help the co-op cope with an issue that we have not had to deal with to this extent before. This information will be addressed on our parent sheet that we all sign at the beginning of the term, as well as in the parent handbook. I will also be posting it on our website and the Facebook page.

If you have any questions, or I did not cover your situation specifically, please send me an email.

Sincerely,

Zindra Nelson and Friday School Leadership

Here are the dates for Spring 2017 Friday School session:

1/16/17 Teacher Applications Due

2/3/17 Catalog should be posted by

2/10/17 Spring Registration

2/15/17 Teacher Orientation

2/24/17-5/5/17 Spring Friday School

10 week Session

Off 3/10/17 No Friday School

3/24/17 Spring Picture Day

5/12/17 Display Night & Graduation

Here are the official Friday School Dates for Fall 2016!!!

9/9/16 Registration

9/23/16-11/18/16 8 weeks of Friday School

Off on 10/28/16 for Harvest Festival at EBC

12/9/16 Christmas Party

Tell your homeschooling friends!!!

Get the dates in your calendar :D

As a member of First Class Skagit County, your students previous class history (through Fall 2007) is now available on our website.

Go to Member Only tab, click on Student Class History.

Must use current members only password.

Thanks!!

Just wanted to let you all know that things will be changing in regards to registration for Friday School for Fall of 2016.

Some changes are happening in our local homeschooling community. (Another local co-op has closed and the local parent partnership program is making changes to their program concerning enrichment classes.) Because of these changes, we are concerned that there may be more interest in Friday School in the Fall than what is currently considered normal.

We are going to suggest that all NON-TEACHERS register IN PERSON, ON registration day. Things will run as normal unless classes fill up. If classes happen to fill up, all paperwork for those not present will be put aside, and those families will be put onto a waitlist. We will add people from the waitlist as possible. (Our current policy is that we do not take registrations by mail.)

This will affect three groups of people: (Are you one of these??!!)

1. Those who send their registration paperwork with other coop members.

2. New & Returning families that come to coop on the first day to register.

3. Families that have only K & Under children, who prefer to come on the first day of classes, in lieu of registration day.

We will NOT guarantee getting your kids into classes if you do not come in person to registration, even if all of your children are only in K & Under classes. If you cannot come to registration, you may send Dad or Grandma or a friend to come in your place.

We have not yet worked out all of the details regarding all of this. But we would say, if you have interested friends, please pass this information along. When the details are finalized, it will be posted here and emailed through our email group.

This shouldn't affect many of you, since our policy has been an in person registration to begin with. But we would like to take the opportunity to get the word out. And, just in case we happen to need to put together a waitlist, that if/when that happens, that you all are not surprised.

In the past, we haven't had to turn away homeschooling families that have wanted to sign up after registration. Class availability is limited after registration, but we can usually work something out. Yet, we do have a structural limit. This spring, we actually hit this limit, and had to turn a few families away. (If we have class availability after registration, and no waitlist, we will still take in person registrations on the first day of Friday School.)

FALL 2016 REGISTRATION: September 9th. 9am Teachers, 11am open to everyone.

Please get this date in your calendars & schedule your vacations around it!!!

This WILL NOT affect our Admin or our Teachers. (There are so many benefits to teaching, this happens to be one of them!) We do ask Teachers to be present unless there is an emergency

If you don't register on registration day and want to know what the situation is, and if we have room for your family, please zip Zindra Nelson an email and she'll get back to you!

Thanks,

Your FCSC Leadership Team

Just wanted to let everyone know that we can take no more registrations for the Spring term. Classes are officially FULL! Please keep an eye out for the Fall Registration date - and you'll want to come on the day of!!!!

You may become a member of First Class Skagit County ($30) but you will not be able to register for classes until September.

The Friday School Business Directory is now on the Mobile App!

Just wanted to let you all know, we are done with the Class Change requests. It's time to let teachers & students get settled in their classes. Thanks!

Spring 2016 Picture Day is March 11th! Come get your photos done! whether you are buying them or not - we'll be using them for the yearbook. Babies to Students to Adults (whether you are a mom, a teacher, or a volunteer!).

Day of - please sign up for a picture time slot at the Welcome Table in the foyer of the Worship Center.

Fun Day @ Friday School! This coming Friday is Pajama Pants Day! See you in your pajama pants!!

If you are interested in changing any of your childrens classes, you need request it by the end of the second week of Friday School. Please contact Zindra. Thanks!

Here's a screenshot of the mobile app. Good for Android, Apple & Windows!

The membership directory has been updated since registration on Friday. Password is the same as before. Click on Members Only page, or it is listed in the drop down on the Members Only tab.

Directory is for members only. If you need the password, email FirstClassSkagitCo@gmail.com

I have figured out how to add an Apple version of the First Class Skagit County mobile app!

Here it is!! Click on the QR code or take a picture of it with a smartphone QR code reader!

Get it HERE.

In the app, you'll find:

*Members Only (need login)

*Friday school & Activities Calendar

*Current version of the Friday School Catalog

*Member Directory (need login)

*Blog

*Parent Handbook

*Database (need login)

*Friday School Library

*Friday School Information for new folks

*Facebook page

*Facebook Teen group

*About Us

*Contact Us

This app is open to anyone to download. Only current members will have the current website passwords. All personal information is behind a login screen. This version is not ad free.

Questions? FirstClassSkagitCo@gmail.com

I have figured out how to add an Apple version of the First Class Skagit County mobile app!

Here it is!! Click on the QR code or take a picture of it with a smartphone QR code reader!

Get it HERE.

In the app, you'll find:

*Members Only (need login)

*Friday school & Activities Calendar

*Current version of the Friday School Catalog

*Member Directory (need login)

*Blog

*Parent Handbook

*Database (need login)

*Friday School Library

*Friday School Information for new folks

*Facebook page

*Facebook Teen group

*About Us

*Contact Us

This app is open to anyone to download. Only current members will have the current website passwords. All personal information is behind a login screen. This version is not ad free.

Questions? FirstClassSkagitCo@gmail.com