October 2, 2020

Dear Parents/Guardians, Students & Staff,

First let me thank everyone for your part in getting us off to a great start. From our remote instruction to our Drop-in Program, we are well underway to another strong year for our school district. In fact, aside from the recent $500,000 Federal School Safety Grant awarded to our district, we received some great news this week that the new State budget will enable The Forum to continue providing services for our teenage students throughout this school year.

Of course, the end of the first marking period will be here before you know it, and I want to assure everyone that we are diligently planning for how we will proceed beyond November 12. Over this next week, I will be meeting with key stakeholder groups (parents, faculty, and administration) to determine how we might gradually return specific student populations back to school over the next three marking periods. Although I am not ready to announce any specifics at this point, it is my intention to make a decision about the second marking period by October 15 so that everyone has enough time to plan accordingly.

In the meantime, I want to remind all of our families that we have a weekly meal distribution program that is available to all district students under the age of 18; and we are pleased to announce that we will now be providing meals for the weekend as well starting Friday, October 9, 2020. NOTE: The October pickup dates/times for breakfast and lunch will now be on Tuesdays and Fridays at the following schools: Bryant Elementary School- 10:45 am - 1:45 pm, Whittier Elementary School- 10:45 am - 1:45 pm and at Teaneck High School (Please note that the location has changed from the Cranford Avenue parking area to a drive-up area on Elizabeth Avenue by the Gym) from 10:45 am - 1:45 pm and 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm. On Tuesdays the meals will be provided for Tues-Wed-Thurs AND on Fridays the meals will be provided for Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon). The same dates and times apply for our Chrome Depot services. Please see the attached flyer.

Additionally, please note that our District Assessment Calendar is now available on our district website: District Assessments. This calendar will be followed throughout the 2020-2021 school year and if you have any questions, you should reach out to your school principal.

Finally, as part of our new Internal & External Communications Plan (a goal within our District Strategic Plan), we are in the planning phase of a complete redesign of our district website. Since we will begin this process with the homepage and parent sections of the website, we invited our parents/guardians to participate in a survey to provide us with their feedback. Our goal is to launch the “new and improved” homepage and parent sections by spring 2021, and then will continue to move forward improving the inner pages of the website including the Board, Student and Staff sections.

Again, thank you for a very productive September. With the fall upon us, please continue to follow best practices for social distancing, washing hands, and wearing a mask, in order to keep everyone healthy and safe.

Sincerely,

Dr. Christopher Irving, Superintendent of Schools