Hello Viewlands Families!

We are excited to welcome students back to Viewlands Elementary for the 2024-2025 school year and to greet our new students and families. We are looking forward to a wonderful year of learning and growing together in our Viewlands Community Orca Pod!

At Viewlands our focus is on relationships and community, so all students, families and staff members feel known, valued, and empowered. When students feel known, valued, and empowered they can be their authentic selves and can thrive intellectually, socially, physically and emotionally! When families feel known, valued and empowered, they will be strong partners in their child’s educational journey and feel engaged and welcome in our school community! When staff feel known, valued and empowered, they can be collaborative in their instructional practices, feel successful and supported in growing their teaching craft, and will be dedicated to building strong relationships with students and families.

With each new school year, we hope to continue to build on successes, reflect on any challenges and strive to enhance our school community connections! We are excited to partner with you for the 2024-2025 school year. Go Orcas!

Please see the tabs for information regarding start-of-school. We will continue to send reminders via email. I look forward to our partnership this year. Please reach out with any school questions.

In Partnership,
Carrie Wheeler | Viewlands Principal

Wednesday, September 4 – First day of school for Viewlands Grades 1-5.*

Monday, September 9th – First day of school for Viewlands Kindergarten, Head Start Preschool and Creative Kids Preschool.**

*NO early dismissal on Sept 4.
**Early dismissal starts each Wednesday starting Wednesday, Sept 11. 

Kindergarten teachers will host family connection conferences September 4th-6th for our kindergarten students.

7:55 am – 2:25 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday

7:55 am – 1:10 pm Wednesday (Starting the second Wednesday of the school year, Sept 11, all Wednesdays will be early dismissal)

Class assignments will be shared with families on Thursday, August 29th, in the afternoon by 5:00pm.

You will receive a welcome email from your student’s teacher. Our staff have taken great care in creating balanced classrooms for students through the input of our staff that considered all shared information from families about their child throughout the last school year. We are not able to take family requests for specific teacher assignments or classroom shifts. Thank you in advance for your understanding and support of our process as we try to best support all our students.

Please plan to share with the classroom teacher your pick-up plan for your child daily. The classroom teacher will need to know if your child will be a family pick-up, bus, or other after school program pick-up Monday through Friday. This is critical information. Some students will be assigned a bus but may not be riding it. When you receive your welcome e-mail from your classroom teacher on Thursday 8/29, please respond with your child’s daily pick-up plan.

Older students, 4th and 5th graders, can walk home independently with written parent permission.

The school supply lists can be found on our Viewlands website under resources.

Viewlands Supply Lists for 2024-2025

If your family is not able to provide these supplies, we completely understand. We don’t want supplies to be a hardship. All supplies will be shared classroom community resources. If your family is able to donate extra of the supplies, we also we come those!

We ask that families provide each student a backpack and water bottle. If your child needs a backpack or water bottle, please reach out to our office team at (206) 252-4400 and we will provide one!

Student Drop Off and Pick-Up (by Family), NOT School Bus or Walking or Biking

If your child rides a bus to or from school, staff members will supervise students getting on and off busses at arrival and dismissal.

Family members that plan to bring their child(ren) to school rather than using bus transport will be greeted at the front entry Pavilion along 3^rd Avenue. We highly encourage walking and riding bikes when possible, but know that car drop off or pick-up will be necessary for some families. Here are the options:

• Families can pull up along 3^rd Avenue to drop their child off or meet their child, but this is a no park zone, it is drop off only, not parking. You can pull up, help your child out where staff will be there to greet students in the Entry Pavilion, then head out so more families can pull up in this zone. At dismissal, you can pull up, meet your child in the Pavilion area and then leave. Please remember this is not a parking zone, only a 5 minute drop off/pick-up zone.
• You can also do short term parking on the north side of the campus along 107^th (15 minute parking) and walk your child to the entry Pavilion for drop off or meet them in the Entry Pavilion at pick-up. This allows 15 minutes for the drop off or pick-up.
• You can park east of the school in the neighborhood streets and walk your child to the entry Pavilion. Last year the crossing guards remained unfilled so we didn’t have crossing guards daily or at both intersections. We hope to have crossing guards at 3^rd and 105^th and 3^rd and 107^th but it is highly likely these will not be filled positions daily.  If you park in the neighborhood, please make sure you park appropriately, do not block driveways, in no parking areas, or in front of fire hydrants.

Please do NOT:

• Park or pull into the parking lot. The parking lot is for staff parking and school bus drop off ONLY. Please do NOT pull into the parking lot during arrival and dismissal. The parking lot is off limits from 7:30-8:15 Monday through Friday and 2:00-2:45 Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and 12:45-1:30 on Wednesdays. This is for school busses and other district transportation vehicles ONLY during arrival and dismissal. This is critical for a safe arrival and drop off process. If your child or the family member picking up or dropping off has a critical safety or medical need that would require parking lot access, please reach to Ms. Wheeler so we can develop a pre-approved plan.
• Drive down or drop off on the south side of campus along 105^th. The dead end street, 105^th (west of 3^rd) is a no parking/no entrance zone for school community, staff and families. Please avoid using 105^th (west of 3^rd) for parking, drop off, or pick-up. This includes Creative Kids pick-up and drop-off.
• Please do not park on the east side of 3^rd Ave between 105^th and 107^th and run across 3^rd Avenue, there are no sidewalks and this can be unsafe. In addition, there are no parking areas on the east side of 3^rd on this block.

At dismissal students will walk out as a classroom community.

• Our K-3 students will be walked with an adult to the bus pick-up area or wait with an adult at a designated family pick-up area marked with a cone for each grade level in the Entry Pavilion. Our K-3 students will stay together as a class, while they go to each designated bus loading area and family pick-up in the Entry Pavilion.
• Our youngest K-2 students need to stay with the teacher, until their pick-up adults are visible, near the area, and ready, letting the teacher know before they leave the group.
• Our 4-5 students will walk out as a class, then students riding the bus will walk to the bus area on their own or wait with the teacher for family pick-up.

It becomes a safety issue, when families are picking up students from various locations or taking kids out of their class line before the Entry Pavilion area. I know that the first few days may take time, especially at dismissal. Safety is our main priority. We have support staff at arrival and dismissal outside. On arrival, there will be staff helping direct students both inside and outside.

Why Do We Ask Families to Drop Off and Pick-Up in the Entry Pavilion Outside, Not Inside at Classroom Doors?

The first primary reason is safety. When there are large groups of people moving in and out of the building during arrival, it is difficult to maintain safety and track who is entering the building. It is important we closely monitor and track who is entering the school building during regular school hours. During arrival time, the best way to do this is by doing our drop off process outside. If there are special circumstances that require you to come in at arrival on a specific day, we can accommodate this through the office, but we need to do this in advance. If you need to come in for business with the office team, we can do this, but when possible prefer it not be during arrival.

The second reason is a smooth transition for students. After years of doing it both ways, we have found that it works best for students when we have drop off occur outside, not inside the school building. When the goodbyes happen outside, most students can transition into their school routines easier. We make sure to have lots of support staff outside and inside the school to greet students, direct students and help everyone find their way. Classroom teachers are in the classrooms and can greet students thoughtfully with this type of arrival. This is an important time for staff to get to know students and create relationships as we welcome them into the school environment. This is not the best time for family connections as it takes away from those teacher-student or staff-student interactions. We prioritize other times for family connections. Families are important! Classroom teachers want to develop connections with families, arrival and dismissal just isn’t the best time!

We will welcome family volunteers for field trips, needed times in the classrooms once teacher’s develop their classroom routines, as well as library helpers and office volunteers. More information about becoming a school approved volunteer soon. 

Thank you for helping us create a safe and smooth school day for our community. Thank you for your understanding!

Transportation/School Busses

Students who qualify for transportation will receive an email and/or hard copy mailed letter from Seattle Public Schools with your student’s bus stop and route information next week. All Viewlands students that live outside the 1 mile walk zone will be eligible for transportation. Some students that live close to a mile away may also be eligible depending on your location. If you have questions about transportation or have not received bus information by August 30th, please contact the Transportation Department at 206-252-0900 or through Let’s Talk. 

Our bus drop-off zone for all busses will be the bus loop located in the parking lot. This is a no park or entry zone for family pick-up and drop off. Staff will support students getting off busses at arrival and on busses at dismissal.

Please note our busses for the last few years have been running at high capacity. This means the busses are very full. There are not staff on the busses with students. Students ride the bus with only the bus driver. Given the high bus capacity, there are often 2-3 students in seats on the busses, especially at dismissal. For students that are riding the busses, we need families to help support students in following bus expectations. The critical bus expectations are:

• Stay seated in their seat at all times until the bus is stopped at their bus stop or the school!
• Follow all bus driver directions!
• Keep hands and feet to themselves.
• Use kind words.
• Do not yell or scream as that can distract the driver.
• Do not throw items from the windows.

Students that struggle to follow these expectations on the bus repetitively may not be able to continue riding the bus.

School lunch and breakfast will continue this year to be free for all Viewlands students that want or need to access school breakfast and/or lunch. Seattle Public Schools can continue to offer free lunch and breakfast for all students at Title 1 Schools, including Viewlands, for the 2024-2025 school year. The breakfast options are highly limited and not a robust breakfast but available to students that need to eat at school when they arrive. Students can bring a lunch from home or get the school lunch options. Please note there are limited lunch options, so if your child does not eat or prefer many foods, school lunch is not always something they will eat.

Students that choose to eat school lunch are required to get a full meal. Students can NOT just get a milk. That is a requirement of the funding for the meal program.

Here are our guidelines for maintaining a healthy school together:

• Children with any symptoms are required to stay home. For fevers, children need to be fever free for 24 hours without medication prior to coming to school. For vomiting or diarrhea, children need to have no symptoms for 24 hours before returning to school without medication. Kids with cold symptoms should also stay home unless it is part of another diagnosed condition, like allergies. 
• Students that develop symptoms/become ill at school will be cared for in our health room by or office team while they wait for family pick-up. Students that are ill at school will have to be picked up by a family member or emergency contact.

Please remember that while it can be challenging to keep your child home, this is the best way to keep our school community healthy! It is hard on the child when they come to school sick, but it also impacts the other children and the educators. Thank you for your partnership with this and helping us keep our Viewlands community healthy!  

Please report all absences, planned or not, and early dismissals to the main office at (206) 252-4400 or viewlands.attendance@seattleschools.org

Please report any dismissal plan changes to your child’s classroom teacher and the main office IN ADVANCE. We know occasionally there are emergency changes that are last minute, but outside of that we ask you to let us know in advance, if possible, the day before, but at the latest the morning of the change. This is critical. We are trying to keep all Viewlands students safe, so knowing any changes to the dismissal plan in place for pick-up in advance is important. Please remember we have 270-275 students to track, so last minute changes or unknown dismissal plans are difficult. Families will communicate the dismissal plan with classroom teachers prior to the start of school.

School attendance is critical for learning. Please limit absences to illnesses and other critical needs as much as possible. When a student is chronically absent (more than 10% of school days) or chronically tardy they miss instruction and learning. We need kids at school. We understand illnesses and ask you to keep them home with sick, but please limit trips, vacations, or absences for other reasons. When a family trip is unavoidable for a family event or need there is a pre-planned absence form that must be completed in advance.