Excused absences will be granted for illness or emergencies. The Middle School Office should be telephoned at 503-768-3127 by 8:00 a.m. if your child will be absent from School. If the absence is not excused by 8:30, the administrative assistant will phone the parent to check on the student.
Students who have been absent one day are asked to call a friend for the following day’s assignments. For longer absences, assignments and books may be picked up at the Middle School Office with advance notification by telephone.
“ELECTIVE” ABSENCES
We ask your help with a concern we have about nonmedical, non-emergency absences. Excused absences, of course, are granted for illness or other emergencies. In these cases, students will be allowed time to make up work and the faculty will offer help although it must be recognized that it is impossible to reconstruct the classroom learning situation once it has been missed.
As we hope you understand, “elective” absences are not condoned by the school. We do, however, recognize that there are rare situations when the educational benefit of the absence would convince us that the absence should be excused. In these cases, please call well in advance of the absence so that special assignments can be made. If the trip is not considered educationally valuable, we cannot ask teachers to prepare assignments in advance. Of course, the homework will be available to students upon their return, but it will be the student’s responsibility to make up any course requirements at the convenience of his or her teachers. If extra tutoring is required to bring the student to current status with the class, it will be the responsibility of the family to arrange for and provide the service.
As you schedule family trips and other excursions, we greatly appreciate your cooperation in not scheduling absences for your children during the school year. In an effort to help families plan vacations, we include the school year calendar in enrollment/re-enrollment packets. Please remember to avoid early departures and late returns from scheduled vacations as well. We appreciate your support in this most important matter.
MEDICAL AND DENTAL
Medical and dental appointments should be scheduled during vacation periods or after school hours. However, if absence from school is unavoidable, a note from parents to the Middle School Office indicating the reason for the absence and the time of departure and return is necessary. The student should give the note to the Middle School Administrative Assistant upon arrival at school the day of the appointment. Students are asked to check in and out with the Middle School Office.
The School requires every family to have a complete and updated Emergency Authorization Form on file. The Form indicates relatives and friends to be notified and other important information in case of emergency. If any of the names or numbers change during the year, please call the School immediately so that records can be updated.
In case of accident or illness, a student is seen in the Middle School Office. If the injury or illness is minor, the student is allowed to rest for a short period of time. If the student is not able to return to class after that time, he or she is seen by the nurse to determine the next appropriate intervention. If a student is too ill or injured to continue with the school day, parents will be contacted and asked to take their child home. It is important that parents are available to consult by phone and to respond to the health needs of their child in a timely manner.
All students are required to have the Field Trip Permission Form signed by their parents and on file in the Middle School Office. This form allows participation in all school hours field trips.
Additional permission forms will be required for afterschool hours, weekend or overnight trips and will be distributed as needed. OES reserves the right to deny a student’s participation in any trip if the Division Head, in consultation with the school counselor and the school nurse, feels that the student is not physically or mentally prepared to meet the challenges of the trip and/or may pose a threat to his/her own safety and/or the safety of others.
The School also requires the parents to sign and return the After-School Plans Form which explains what the student will do when dismissed from school at 3:00 p.m. This form is also on file in the Middle School Office.
The OES parking lot and driveways are congested areas that are shared by both vehicles and pedestrians. To make the campus as safe as possible, please drive slowly (10 mph) and with caution. Always yield to foot traffic.
Parking and standing is prohibited at all times along red curbs, and at other areas as marked. Standing is allowed along yellow curbs marked as drop-off and pick-up zones, if the driver remains with the vehicle. Please do not leave your vehicle unattended in yellow zones, even if you intend to be there for “only a minute”—it disrupts the flow of loading and unloading.
Please load and unload only at the curb in the drop-off zones. After picking up or dropping off your children, please leave promptly so others can get in behind you. Do not double park or do anything else to block traffic or draw your child off the curb and into traffic.
Middle School dismissal time is fifteen minutes later than Lower School. PLEASE DO NOT COME TO PICK UP YOUR MIDDLE SCHOOLER UNTIL 3:05. This will be a great help for our traffic problems.
To ensure the safety of our children and families, as well as families in the Montclair neighborhood, please strictly observe the 25 mph speed limit on Nicol Road. As we wish to be good neighbors, we ask that you not cut through the neighborhood by using Willowmere Drive or Westgate Way.
Students attending off-campus activities who have arrived with the School group are expected to return to OES with the group or leave with their parents. For an OES student to leave a game or School-sponsored or sanctioned activity with someone other than his or her parents, written parental permission is required.
Children who plan to go home with students or parents other than those listed on the After-School Plans form need written permission sent to the Middle School Office. Phone confirmation will be accepted only in special circumstances.
These rules are required for School insurance purposes. Please help us by following them. Remember to send written permission when your student will leave with someone other than you!
Lighters, knives, or other weapons or weapon like objects, cassette players and tapes, radios, CD players, electronic games (such as Gameboy or Sega), and other “toys” will be confiscated. Please do not bring candy or soda to school.
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