Anchorage Public School

Hello, Anchorage Families!  It’s hard to believe but it is time to order school supplies for next school year!  Be on the lookout for a flier in your child’s backpack with instructions on how to order online from School Tool Box, or click here to download the information.  There are some changes to the ordering process this year that you won’t want to miss, including online wishlists and teacher notes!  Check out the flier for additional details.  We hope you will use School Tool Box online ordering to order your supplies online, save time, and support the APTA.  Review the flier then go to www.schooltoolbox.com to place your order before it gets lost in the summer shuffle!   Complete your online order no later than July 20^th to ensure your supplies arrive before orientation.

Remember, all participating athletes, no matter what grade or program, must have a KHSAA sports physical on file, along with up-to-date school health records, prior to participating in any school extracurricular athletic program. The Board approved KHSAA form is available at your doctor’s office, the school office and at the following link on our website: https://anchorage-school.org/parents/school-forms/ . Sports physicals are valid for one year from the date of examination. Get those forms completed this summer for fall sports if your current form is about to expire.

Looking for a camp this summer for your children? Well, check out all of the great camps being offered at Anchorage School this summer. Click here to download the camp brochure. Turn in your registration ASAP to ensure your child gets into the program of their choice.

Preventing your child from being sidelined due to an expired sports physical just became easier!  In order to access the expiration date of your child’s sports physical, just login to your Infinite Campus (IC) from your computer or phone app and navigate to the Sports Physical tab.  There you will be able to view the expiration date of the most recent sports physical on file for your child.

Remember, all participating athletes, no matter what grade or program, must have a KHSAA sports physical on file, along with up-to-date school health records, prior to participating in any school extracurricular athletic program. The Board approved KHSAA form is available at your doctor’s office, the school office and at the following link on our website: https://anchorage-school.org/parents/school-forms/ . Sports physicals are valid for one year from the date of examination.

When viewing the sports physical information for your child please note that the “Date” field indicates the start date of school, not the date of your child’s sports physical.  The “Expiration Date” field is the last date that your child can participate in an athletic competition, activity or practice without submission of a new sports physical.  We hope that you will find being able to access this information from your computer or smartphone helpful in keeping the school record up to date.  Below is a screen shot of the sports physical information accessed from a computer.  Please do not hesitate to contact the school if you need assistance in logging into IC and accessing the record.

Be prepared

Winter weather conditions sometimes prompt Anchorage Public School to cancel school, delay school or dismiss early.  Therefore it’s a good idea to decide in advance how best to keep up with the changes, what child-care arrangements are needed, and how to adjust to a different schedule.  Also, please make sure your child’s school has up-to-date phone numbers and emergency contacts for your family.  

Getting the word out
Announcements are made as early as possible on Louisville news channels (WDRB, WHAS, WLKY & WAVE) and the APS website. Families can register to receive a phone-call, and/or text-message, and/or email through our REACH Alert system.  We do not follow Jefferson County’s decision on school closings.

Students’ safety is a top priority, so on wintry days, district employees begin assessing conditions as early as 3:30 a.m. These leaders consider roads, sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, precipitation, outdoor temperatures, wind chills, current conditions and the weather forecast, with a goal of announcing a decision by 6:00 a.m.

Whenever travel is unsafe, APS has three choices:

1. Cancel school
2. Delay the start of school
3. Dismiss school early

IF SCHOOL IS CANCELED:  Afternoon and evening school sponsored student activities are canceled for elementary and middle school. School Council meetings are also canceled.  APTA meetings, Board meetings, and community sponsored activities held at school may continue at the superintendent and chairperson’s discretion.

IF SCHOOL IS DELAYED:  School starts either one or two hours later than normal. School dismissal times remain the same, and afternoon and evening activities continue as usual unless evening weather warrants a cancellation which would be communicated through REACH Alert and team coaches/club sponsors.

IF SCHOOL DISMISSES EARLY:  The decision will be made as early as possible to allow families time to make arrangements and all student after-school and evening activities are all canceled.  Elementary school families are asked to email their child’s teacher or call the school with instructions about how they want their child to go home if they want to alter procedures.  If families don’t make contact, the school will try to reach them. Students will be supervised until the last child is picked up.

Weekend activities

Canceling or dismissing school early on a Friday does not cancel weekend activities.  All school activities scheduled on the weekend are subject to cancellation under the following conditions:

• When there is clear and present danger for automobile travel on local streets and roads. This condition may be assumed whenever local governmental agencies or the local police have issued warnings against unnecessary travel.
• When there is a high probability of storms or other conditions that would most likely restrict safe travel on roads and streets during the next several hours.

Student activities scheduled on the weekend are subject to being placed on hold under the following conditions:

• When the present weather conditions are not conducive to safe travel, but the local forecast indicates the condition will likely end within the next three hours.
• When it is expected that streets and roads might become unsafe for travel during the time period that students, parents and sponsors will be traveling to or from the event.

If student activities are canceled or placed on hold, the club sponsor will contact the parents of student participants.  In the event that a large number of students are impacted a message will be sent via our REACH Alert system.

Make-up days

State law requires school districts to ensure at least 170 days and 1,062 hours of teaching and learning.  Cancellations and/or delays can result in days or hours added into the school calendar.  APS announces an adjusted calendar at the end of the winter snow season.

Registering for REACH Alert Notices

One way the Anchorage Independent Board of Education supports school/parent communication is through the purchase of REACH Alert, which is an emergency parent notification system.  In the case of severe weather, unexpected closings, delays, dismissals or emergencies the superintendent will enable the REACH Alert System that sends school alerts via text messages, phone calls (cell or landline) and/or emails.

To register for REACH Alert, simply follow the following steps:

• Go to reachalert.com and click on MY ACCOUNT and then select CREATE ACCOUNT to establish your initial account.
• Follow the prompts.
• When prompted for Network Name, enter Anchorage School and click on the school name when it appears in the dropdown list.
• When prompted for a role select parent
• Upon joining the school network you may also want to click on JOIN and select the City of Anchorage. Individuals that only join the “Anchorage School” network will not receive City of Anchorage notices.  We recommend that you join both networks in order to receive all information that may be related to road closures or emergencies.

If you opted to receive text alerts, REACH Alert will send a text message to your cell phone immediately upon completion of your registration. Please enter the 4-digit number on the registration screen and then click the word VALIDATE. If you do not receive this message, please call REACH Alert at (877) 307-9313 for assistance. After you have completed the registration process, you may add other phone numbers and email addresses. From your dashboard page, click on the second tab at the top of the page – CONTACT INFO. From this page you will see where you can add and delete numbers and addresses.

If you already have registered for REACH Alert through the City of Anchorage, your place of employment, child care center, another school, or any other organization you can skip the registration process and simply go to www.reachalert.com and login to your current account and click on JOIN NETWORK on the right side of your dashboard page. Enter Anchorage School and click on our name in the dropdown list and follow the prompts.

At their December meeting the Anchorage Board of Education approved the 2018-2019 school calendar which had been recommended by the Calendar Committee.  A link to the 2018-2019 APS calendar has been added to the school webpage which can be found at www.anchorage-school.org under the parent tab.

Because safety is our first priority during drop off and dismissal time at Anchorage, please follow the procedures below when your child is a car rider or golf cart rider:

• DROP OFF

Students may be dropped off at school beginning at 7:30 a.m. Car riders will be taken to the gym or auditorium to wait until 7:55 a.m. Drop off will continue until 8:00 a.m. Any students arriving to school after 8:00 a.m. must be signed in at the Front Office by their parent.

Remember, front carpool should use Walnut as your pick-up/drop-off route. You should not turn left from Ridge Road to enter the pick-up line. Right only!

Parents/Drivers should not exit the vehicle when in the drop off lane. Should you need to get out of the car, you are asked to park in the parking lot and come into the building.

Walkers should ALWAYS use the cross walk. Please do not walk down the drive where cars are entering.

To help expedite the process, please pull all the way up to the front spot.

• PICK UP

Parents/Drivers should not exit the vehicle when in the pick-up lane. Should you need to get out of the car, you are asked to park in the parking lot and come into the building.

Walkers should ALWAYS use the cross walk. Please do not walk down the drive where cars are entering.

Carpool runs most efficiently when you pull all the way up to the car in front of you- even though you might be tempted to stop along the driveway where your child is standing. We can load about five cars safely when everyone follows this procedure.

To better help the flow, please display your car rider tag with your last name.

Children are not allowed to load on the road at Bellewood. You must enter the school parking lot.

We are a CELL PHONE FREE car rider line.

Download our free school app from the App store (Apple) or Google Play (Android) on compatible iPhones, iPads, Android phones and Android tablets.  The app was created by two Anchorage Alumni, Logan Beaver and Nick Huls, Class of 2016.  It provides a tool for students, families, and teachers to easily access Infinite Campus as well as the school’s website, lunch menu, email, calendar of events and sports schedules.

To download the app via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, go to the store for your device and search for “Anchorage Public School.”  We hope that you enjoy the additional means for accessing Anchorage Public School information and news!

Collecting ‘Box Tops’ is as an easy way to earn extra money for our school!  Whenever you find this label on many common products, just cut it off and start saving them.  You or your child may drop them in the collection box located in the mail room near the front desk. We will be counting and sending them off in both November and in March, so bring in your collection soon! Each label is worth 10 cents – and that will add up fast.

The APTA thanks you for your support!

Download your Amazon Smile and Kroger Apps showing APTA as your designated charity before orientation to easily enter to win up to $100.00 in Amazon and Kroger gift cards!!

Have you recently checked to make sure the school has the latest contact information for you and your emergency contacts? Phone numbers and email addresses change a lot, and the district makes every effort to keep its databases accurate. You can help by sending changes to webmaster@anchorage.kyschools.us or, if your students are in 3^rd-8^th grade, by updating your information using Infinite Campus.

For 3^rd-8^th grade parents, instructions for checking and updating contact information is below.

From your computer (not the mobile app), log in to Infinite Campus. On the left side of the screen, click “Family,” to display the names and contact information for parents and siblings. Please review the phone numbers and email addresses. If a change is needed, click the Update button and edit the appropriate information. Remember to click “Send Update” when finished. If you have questions, please direct them to webmaster@anchorage.kyschools.us.

Thank you for helping us stay in touch!

You can access our school calendar by clicking on the “Calendar” link found on our main webpage at www.anchorage-school.org.  When you access the calendar you will notice that in the upper right corner there are options to switch the view between “week”, “month” and “agenda.”  Be sure to try out the “agenda” view as it is the most popular and offers a less cluttered overview of upcoming events and student activities.

The school calendar can also be added to many mobile devices and personal computers as well.  If you would like to load school events onto your device, click the following link and follow any prompts:  https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/anchorage-school.org_t16nd3040fobtj0cofs0kivqj4%40group.calendar.google.com/private-9e04ec71b6a7925a4d1d9c7f68a2eae9/basic.ics.  Some devices make the addition without any prompts, but may require a restart of the device.  Once the calendar is added to your phone, calendar events that are added to the school website (www.anchorage-school.org) will automatically sync to your device. The first sync may take a few minutes.  We have noticed that occasionally mobile devices fail to detect updates to the calendar.  An occasional reboot of the device is generally the easiest way to resolve this issue.  We do want to alert users that loading the school calendar onto your phone will load multiple daily school events into your calendar.

We recommend if you use the mobile device calendar feature to set the school calendar to a different color on your device than your work or personal calendar in order that your personal appointments do not get overlooked.  Also, please note that your mobile device offers a feature which allows you to turn the school calendar off and on once it is loaded, which allows you to choose when you would like to view events.

If you have any questions or need assistance with accessing our school website or calendar information please contact Karen Steltenpohl at karen.steltenpohl@anchorage.kyschools.us for assistance.