Marion Visual and Performing Arts Magnet

Hello Patriots! The Marion School District phone system is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Your phone calls may or may not make it through to our buildings today. Please be patient as our technicians are working diligently to correct this problem. Thank you for your continued support!

We appreciate your flexibility and understanding during these uncertain times. We are working to navigate the changing data and guidance on what our schools will look like for the 2020-21 school year. The health of our students, staff, and families is our number one priority. These pages will be updated regularly to keep everyone informed on what we’re doing as a district to combat the effects of COVID-19 (Coronavirus). We continue to closely monitor reports and information shared by the Arkansas Department of Health and the CDC regarding COVID-19, and we are in contact regularly with health officials from the city and county. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has raised many questions regarding how the district will start for the coming school year. We have created these web pages to help provide context to our decisions as we prepare for the 2020-2021 school year. The information here will be updated to reflect changes as they are made. https://bit.ly/32iREcV

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Good evening Patriots! If you missed your device pickup this week you have another opportunity tomorrow morning from 7am to 10am at the Patriot Arena parking lot. Students must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. See you there!

Looking for your child’s bus stop? You can search it on our website. Simply go to www.msd3.org, then click Menu. Under District Departments, click Transportation, and the Find My Bus Stop. Type your address and select your students school to see when and where your student can expect to meet the bus each day. You can also click the following link: Infofinderi.com/ifi/?cid=MSD3BBH7VFUW

8-21-20: Weekly COVID-19 Update Staff reported positive for COVID-19 this week: 1 Staff quarantined due to exposure to COVID-19 this week: 1 Students reported positive for COVID-19 this week: 1 Students quarantined due to exposure to COVID-19 this week: 0 Total staff positive for COVID-19 since 7/24/20: 12 Total staff quarantined due to exposure since 7/24/20: 14 Total students positive for COVID-19 since 7/15/20: 7 Total students quarantined due to exposure since 7/15/20: 10 For the privacy of all students and staff, Marion School District will not be sharing any personal information publicly. We remain firmly committed to providing a safe environment and will follow the guidance provided by the Arkansas Department of Health, CDC, and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education -- Kelly Fogleman, BSN, RN, NCSN Coordinated School Health Coordinator 870-739-5140 kfogleman@msd3.org

Happy Friday Patriot Nation: The attached graphic is a screening process that parents need to conduct on their child each day prior to coming to school. All of our facutly and staff are looking forward to see you starting Monday! GO PATRIOTS!

Join our team!

We were very happy to see Dr. Fenter’s smiling face last night at MST’s device pickup. Glad you’re feeling better!

Thanks again to our VPA parents and students for a smooth device pickup day. We appreciate all you do for your students and school. If you were unable to pickup you device today you have another chance Saturday from 7am to 10am at the Patriot arena. See you there. 😁

8-19-20 The Marion School District received notification of a confirmed positive case of COVID-19 concerning one of our student-athletes in the MJHS Football program. Health Department officials will determine the appropriate action for the student-athlete. The positive student-athlete was last on campus on 8/18/20. The facility and equipment have been properly disinfected and no closure of facilities are required. For the privacy of all students and staff, Marion School District will not be sharing any personal information publicly. We remain firmly committed to providing a safe environment and will follow the guidance provided by the Arkansas Department of Health, CDC, and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. -- Kelly Fogleman, BSN, RN, NCSN Coordinated School Health Coordinator 870-739-5140 kfogleman@msd3.org

THANK YOU VPA PARENTS & STUDENTS! This morning's device pickup process went smoothly. If you missed this morning's VPA pickup time, you have another chance from 5pm to 8pm this evening. We look forward to seeing you then. GO PATRIOTS!

UPDATE: Pandemic-EBT Assistance for Families Whose Children Get Free or Reduced Lunches The federal Food and Nutrition Services under the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved Arkansas’s plan to provide Pandemic EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer card) assistance to families with additional grocery costs as a result of school closures. For each child enrolled in the National School Lunch Program, a family may receive a one-time benefit of $319, which is the value of the average cost of a school meal ($5.70) multiplied by the number of days missed in March, April, and May. This is not a cash benefit but rather a card that families can use at any grocer that accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The Arkansas Department of Education worked with local school districts to obtain lists of student names and addresses for those participating in the program. Below is an overview of benefits provided to-date, initial and ongoing challenges and solutions, and a timeline of the program. Overview The Department of Education submitted a list of about 306,000 students that received free or reduced priced meals. The total benefit amount issued for Pandemic EBT was approximately $99,224,950, which is paid entirely with federal funds. Of those eligible: • 101,999 children were in families that already participate in the traditional SNAP program. o DHS already had addresses for these families in our eligibility system. o The additional $319 per child was loaded to EBT cards starting June 29. • 205,000 children were in families that are not participating in the traditional SNAP program (or who were in SNAP but the address at the school did not match the address in their SNAP case). o Because these families are not in the DHS SNAP eligibility system, the Department of Education got lists with the latest available address from schools, and DHS used that list to mail out EBT cards. o Cards began going out on July 9. o 151,000 of these cards have been activated. Challenges and Solutions Because this is a program that has never implemented in Arkansas prior to 2020, there have been some challenges both at the outset and ongoing that we have or are working to overcome. • Initial Challenges and Solutions o Change of Address – For many of the families who were not SNAP participants, the addresses were months old, and it is likely that many had moved without notifying their schools or DHS. By the time DHS provided the list of addresses to the vendor on June 25, it had processed 3,000 address changes but not all address changes submitted were able to be processed by that time. o Length of time to distribute initial benefits –There are only a small number of vendors that create and mail out EBT cards across the country. That meant that once DHS submitted the names and addresses on June 15, the vendor first had to mail out cards for other states that were approved before Arkansas. This delayed the mailing of cards by two weeks and resulted in DHS changing dates for distribution of benefits. • Ongoing Challenges and Solutions o Eligible children not on list – Since we issued benefits on June 29 for existing SNAP clients and July 9 and 17 for non-SNAP clients, families have reached out to say they either received Pandemic EBT for some but not all eligible children OR that their child is eligible but did not receive Pandemic EBT benefits. To address this, DHS is working with the Department of Education, which is in turn working with school districts, to confirm eligibility and issue cards for these families. o Large volume of emails asking about card status –Because of the delay in issuing benefits, the need for address changes, and the issue related to eligible students not being on the list, we received a large volume of emails from families and are behind in processing them. To address this, DHS is pulling staff from other areas within the agency to help quickly process emails and determine what action, if any, needs to be taken. We expect to process all the remaining emails within the next two weeks. o No return address – The vendor hired to mail out the EBT cards for non-SNAP families failed to include a return address on the envelopes. To date about 26% of these Pandemic EBT cards have not been activated. This week, we will ask families to promptly activate their cards as we will soon de-activate all cards that have not been activated and then re-issue them with correct addresses. New cards will be issued between now and September 30, which is the federal deadline for issuance of P-EBT benefits. The vendor, not the state, will incur the additional cost to re-issue the P-EBT benefits. If a family has not received a card for a participating child or otherwise needs to contact DHS about P-EBT, they should email pebt@dhs.arkansas.gov. As noted above, we are dedicating additional staff to process and respond to emails to address client issues and concerns more quickly.

Parents: Please take a look at this helpful infographic: How to Help your Child Adapt to Wearing a Mask.

FEELIN' GOOD | The VPA Administrative team is celebrating a fantastic week back on campus! We cannot wait until our halls are filled with students, and we are counting down the days until we see you! #teamVPA #SettingtheStageforSuccess

Attention Patriot Nation: Please read the following message from Dr. Glen Fenter regarding virtual learning and device pickup. Thank you for your support of the Marion School District.

8-14-20 The Marion School District received notification of a confirmed positive case of COVID-19 concerning one of our student-athletes in the MHS Football program. The student is currently following guidance and directives from the Arkansas Department of Health. The student-athlete has not been on campus since 7/23/20 and no probable close contacts were identified. In addition, we will strive weekly to report the number of active students and staff positive for COVID-19 or in quarantine due to exposure to the virus. Faculty currently positive for COVID-19: 5 Faculty currently in quarantine due to exposure: 9 Students currently positive for COVID-19: 2 Students currently in quarantine due to exposure:0 Total staff positive for COVID-19 since 7/24/20: 11 Total staff quarantined due to exposure since 7/24/20: 13 Total students positive for COVID-19 since 7/15/20: 6 Total students quarantined due to exposure since 7/15/20: 10 For the privacy of all students and staff, Marion School District will not be sharing any personal information publicly. We remain firmly committed to providing a safe environment and will follow the guidance provided by the Arkansas Department of Health, CDC, and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. -- Kelly Fogleman, BSN, RN, NCSN Coordinated School Health Coordinator 870-739-5140 kfogleman@msd3.org

Please fill out the lunch application for the 2020-21 school year. It's now available at https://bit.ly/38joQnt Everyone should apply today. Even if you are choosing the MSD online learning option, your child is still a district student and your eligibility counts. If you've already applied for the 2020-21 school year you do not have to reapply. Thank you for your support of the MSD Child Nutrition Department.

VPA MEET THE TEACHER: 1st-6th Grade Returning Students 1st-6th grade returning students will have the opportunity to visit with their teachers virtually. See below for details.

VPA MEET THE TEACHER: Kindergarten and New Students We are excited to meet our Kindergarteners and new students next week. Please see below for detaisl.