Information regarding our Health Related Closure will be collected here in order of MOST RECENT FIRST.

If you need a loaner Chromebook from the district, please contact Mrs. Marsala at Kmarsala@mersnj.us

If you need technology support or assistance with district programs or district devices, contact Mr. Gonzalez at TMSupport@mersnj.us

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May 11, 2020

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The governor's announcement to close our buildings for the remainder of the year has allowed us to begin moving forward on some of our revised end of year procedures and events.  More information will be coming out in the next few days regarding our 5th grade Moving Up and our Kindergarten Stepping Up ceremonies. 

Part of our closing procedures has always been the students gathering their belongings from their classrooms and returning school issued items.  We recognize that this year our procedures for this must be drastically different.

In order to help us create a safe and efficient system for pick up and drop off of materials, medications, etc., we ask that everyone please complete this form by Wednesday, May 13.  

Please click here for the form:  https://forms.gle/AbCT7uwokufnMzor7

Thank you so much for all of your support during this time! 

Regards, 

Mrs. Marsala

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A Message from Mrs. Marsala

April 8, 2020 

Dear Parents/Guardians/Families,

As we head into Spring Break, please let me offer my sincere gratitude for all of your positivity in the face of one of our biggest challenges as a community.  I am overwhelmed by the collaboration and cooperation I have witnessed over the past three weeks. As educators and many of us parents ourselves, we recognize the balancing act you have been faced with as you switch gears throughout the day to juggle work, home, and now co-teaching our classes with your children!  We appreciate your questions and feedback because we know that it means you are doing your best and that you care about making sure your children are getting the most out of the virtual learning experience. We want to remind you that we are here for you and the children as we continue to navigate these uncertain waters together.

 We also want to make sure that you know your family's health and well-being are the most important things to us right now.  For those families dealing with illness, our thoughts and prayers are with you. For those of you who are healthcare workers and first responders, we applaud you and are sending our very best wishes for your health and safety as you work to protect us all.  For our families working in essential businesses, especially our grocery store & other essential store workers, delivery service workers, truck drivers, and so many more, we thank you for being there for us so that we can still get our essential goods and maintain a small sense of normalcy in these strange days. 

We also recognize that now, more than ever, it is important for us to have good communication between the staff and our families. We encourage you to continue to reach out to your child’s teachers  to let them know if you are experiencing difficulty with the work, if you or a member of your household is sick and schoolwork has been tough to complete, or if you are experiencing other difficulties that we might be able to help with.  Remember, we are a strong school community with resources/ideas that might be able to help you! Please reach out to Mrs. Russin, our school counselor, directly at arussin@mersnj.us.  This is especially important if you are struggling with food resources. 

As teachers, we will continue our efforts to make the best out of our virtual learning time together. We are learning new techniques and methods to reach our students every day.  We know you are too!   

Let’s continue our shared efforts to stay as strong & positive as possible in the face of this global challenge.  We look forward to seeing you all when the storm has passed. 

We hope you have a restful and healthy Spring Break. Virtual school begins again on Monday, April 20, 2020. 

Stay safe and be well,

Kerry Marsala

kmarsala@mersnj.us

Principal, Taylor Mills School

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April 6, 2020

If you are in need of borrowing a Chromebook from the district, please complete this survey. 

Please note that processing of Chromebook requests can take up to 5 days or more at this point as we are operating with limited staff on a limited schedule with high demand.

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April 6, 2020

Good Afternoon,

This Wednesday, April 8, 2020 will be a "shortened day" as originally planned on the district calendar.  Taylor Mills teachers will be available between the hours of 9am-11am for student lessons/questions on that day.  The staff will be participating in professional development for the other portion of their day.

Please be sure to get your questions in during the 9am-11am timeframe to be sure that the teachers are available for assistance. 

The Taylor Mills Virtual School will be closed between April 9th-April 19th for Spring Break.  Virtual school will reopen on April 20, 2020.

Stay safe and be well!

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FROM DR. SANTORA: PLEASE READ!

March 27, 2020

Dear Parent/Guardian:

I would like to take a moment to thank you and our dedicated staff for the flexibility, openness, and time it has taken to embrace virtual learning. This process was by no means easy, but as a community we were able to come together and make it happen for our students.

As you are aware, Governor Murphy has closed our schools indefinitely. This means we need to move forward in order to continue to do what is best for our students. For the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District, this entails, permitting video conferencing as an instructional tool.

Video conferencing is an efficient virtual instructional tool, but it does create a doorway between the homes of our students and our staff. We want to ensure that we are opening that door while continuing to maintain a professional environment. We have chosen to utilize Google Meet as our video conferencing tool.

Our staff has acknowledged our professional protocols for virtual learning. We request that parents and students also acknowledge our protocols for video conferencing. It is extremely important that you review these protocols, before your child participates in video conferencing.

At this time, the use of video conferencing will remain an optional tool for staff to use during virtual learning. If your child’s teacher chooses to utilize this tool, they will be providing your child with specific directions, including available times.

Additionally, if your child is in grades 3-5 and you have more than one child in the Manalapan-Englishtown School District and a limited number of electronic devices, we do have some loaner Chromebooks available. If you are interested in borrowing a Chromebook, please complete this survey.

Sincerely,

Nicole Santora, Ed.D.

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March 23, 2020

Good Evening,

As we enter our second week of virtual learning, I'd like to repost some important information:

1. Our teachers are available to help students and parents between the hours of 9am - 1pm. We ask for your patience during that time, as teachers are helping a number of students and responses will not be instant.

2. Student work should be completed between the hours of 8am and 2:30pm so that your child gets credit for attendance for the day. If work is not completed between those hours, your child will be marked absent. Additionally, your child must log into Classlink to record his/her attendance. If for some reason, that is not possible, you MUST communicate with the teacher!

3. Now more than ever, it is important for you to check YOUR email for updates and information from the school and the teachers. Many of the questions that we are fielding can be answered by checking your email and looking at the documents that have been sent previously. Important instructions can be found in many places including our TM homepage, the Genesis Parent Portal (documents tab) and previous emails. Many teachers are also sending daily emails to help you work with your child; make sure you look for those!

4. Special subject (art, music, library, PE, computers) assignments have been posted for the students as well. Students should pick ONE special subject assignment to do PER DAY. Students can follow their normal A-F cycle if they choose (Click HERE for the cycle day) OR just choose the special that they want to complete that day. By spring break, students should have completed TWO lessons in computers, THREE lessons in art, music, library, and SIX lessons in PE. There are no lessons for guidance classes. If your 4th or 5th grader has band or orchestra, make sure they practice and look for their lessons!

5. Students who receive RTI, ELL, and other student services should follow the directions that those intervention teachers have sent them regarding these additional services. This is work that supports students' individual goals and plans! It is important that we not leave this out of the daily routine.

6. Our school counselor, Mrs. Russin, has posted many resources on her website which can be found HERE.  

We hope that this information clarifies some of the virtual learning questions you have. We are here to help you during these difficult and unprecedented times; please reach out to us via email.

As we enter a new week, we wish all of our families and all of our community good health as we move forward, and we look forward to the time when we will see you all again. Until then, let's all do what we can to minimize the spread of the virus and maintain our strong sense of community.

Warm regards,
Kerry Marsala
Principal

March 19, 2020

Click HERE to get to CLASSLINK.

Follow instructions below (from March 16) to log into Classlink and then into your child's Google Classroom for each subject.

Click HERE to get to our Staff Directory if you need to get in touch with your child's teacher.

Email TMsupport@mersnj.us if you need technical assistance. 

March 16, 2020

To access the letter with directions, information, usernames, and passwords, you MUST log into the Genesis Parent Portal!

To troubleshoot the most frequently asked questions today, please see below:

If my email address is 30mgenesis@mersnj.us and my password is 12345:

Log into Classlink like this:

username: 30mgenesis

password: 12345

Log into Google Classroom like this:

email: 30mgenesis@mersnj.us

password: 12345

If you need tech support, please email TMSupport@mersnj.us . We will do our very best to respond as quickly as possible!

Thank you,

Kerry Marsala

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March 15, 2020

Some notes about tomorrow's VIRTUAL LEARNING ITEM / MEDICATION pick up:

-Pick up of the items that your child's teacher prepared for virtual learning OR medications in the nurse's office will be between 8am - 12pm on Monday 3/16.  These are the ONLY items available for pick up tomorrow!
-Classrooms will NOT be available for access during this time. All materials have been left on a table outside the classroom labeled with your child's name. (Why?  Classrooms are being cleaned and sanitized throughout the day, and we don't want pick up interfering with that process.)
-Access tomorrow is restricted to those who were NOT in school to take home their materials on Friday.
-Only one person will be permitted to enter the building from your family, so please don't come in groups! (Why?  We are trying to limit the number of people in a given area.)
-All available staff will likely be helping with the pick up process, so if we are not immediately available by phone, please leave a message or email Mrs. Marsala.  I promise we will get back to you as soon as possible!

We appreciate how AMAZING you have all been so far, and we appreciate your patience throughout this unprecedented situation.

Thank you and be well!
Kerry Marsala

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March 13, 2020

Dear Parents/Guardians,

By now you are aware that our district schools will be closed for the next two weeks.  Your teachers and all of our staff members have worked very hard to prepare for a virtual/digital learning environment so that our students can continue to make progress and maintain the skills/concepts they have learned this year.

I know that many of you will likely have questions and may need assistance of some kind during this period of time.  Please take a minute to review the information in the attached document which may answer some of your questions.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vw16qhqcoGoFQl1dJakvA5dSIGWUOeIdG92t8yvnfaU/edit?usp=sharing

Stay safe and healthy,
Kerry Marsala