Ensuring a Good Start to 2024-2025 for Students and Families
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Olga Hugelmeyer, Ed.D. |
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Superintendent of Schools |
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Dear Elizabeth Public Schools Families,
On behalf of Elizabeth Public Schools, I am excited to welcome you back to a new school year and to continue the successful partnership among team members, students, and families once again in 2024-2025.
I wanted to personally reach out to you to share several important steps to take to ensure a good start to the school year for you and your children.
POWERSCHOOL
A vital tool in creating that partnership between our schools and families is the PowerSchool Parent Portal. The parent portal account enables parents and caregivers to play an active role in building and sustaining family support for their children’s learning and academic success. Having an account and accessing it on a regular basis provides families the opportunity to communicate with their child’s teachers and track educational progress, including access to information such as absences, tardiness, grades, test scores, assignments, transportation information, school activities, and student schedules. It is imperative that at least one parent/guardian in custody of each student of Elizabeth Public Schools creates a PowerSchool Parent Portal Account. If you do not t already created a parent portal account, please
If you need assistance with creating or accessing a PowerSchool Parent Account, you may visit our PowerSchool Access Page which includes links for logging on to your PowerSchool account, video instructions on how to create a PowerSchool parent account, a PowerSchool Access Guide, and PowerSchool FAQ document.
CONTACT INFORMATION/ EMERGENCY CONTACTS
The PowerSchool Parent Portal is also essential because it is the place to go to update your contact information, including emergency contacts. Equally critical to creating the Parent Portal account is that your child’s PowerSchool account contains updated contact information, especially an email address, phone number, and emergency contact, so the district can ensure family members or designated emergency contacts of each and all of our students can be reached in the event of a potential crisis or emergency situation. If you already have your parent portal account or once you have created a parent portal account, please log in to verify that all of your contact and emergency contact information is updated and accurate.
DISTRICT FORMS
Another important process that is mostly completed on the PowerSchool Parent Portal is filling out district forms. These forms include Emergency Information Form, Notice Regarding Physicals, Media Release Form, Student Internet & Network Permission Form with Elizabeth Internet Use Policy, Acceptable Use For Technology – Electronic Mobile Device Form, Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), After School Dismissal Form, and Title 1 Compact Form.
Please log in to your PowerSchool Parent Portal to complete these required forms for each of your children. If you need help to access to the required forms that are indicated above, please visit the EPS
Back to School Resources webpage, click on the “Forms and Applications for
Your Child” tile, and follow the instructions provided.
The Lunch Application, which may also be found in the “Forms and Applications for Your Child” section mentioned above, is completed on a dedicated webpage provided by the district via NutriCloud.
IMMUNIZATIONS
The New Jersey Department of Health Services requires that students receive certain immunizations to attend public schools. All prekindergarten students attending licensed childcare centers and
Preschools are required to receive an annual flu vaccination. Please provide proof of your child’s required flu vaccination as soon as possible and no later than December 20, 2024. Students who do not provide the required documentation by December 20 will be excluded from school as of January 2, 2025.
All children born after January 1, 1997 and enrolled in sixth grade are required to receive a booster dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (Tdap) as well as one dose of meningococcal vaccine. Documentation that your child has received the required sixth grade immunizations must be turned in to the school nurse no later than Friday, September 6, 2024.
Students entering sixth grade with birthdays on or after Friday, September 6, 2024 must provide written confirmation from your child’s healthcare provider of the vaccination appointment. This appointment should be within two weeks of your child turning 11 years of age.
Children who do not meet immunization requirements or do not have documentation of a scheduled appointment within two weeks of turning 11 years of age will be excluded from school beginning the first school day.
MY RIDE K-12
The safe commute of our students from home to school and from school to home is paramount. For those who meet the eligibility for using district transportation, Elizabeth Public Schools is providing families with the MyRide K-12 software from Tyler Technologies to offer access to secure data for bus stop location, route, and pick up time via mobile phone app or desktop computer. Convenient access to this information and rapid communication via push notifications helps reduce parent calls to the district’s transportation department for everyday updates. My Ride K-12 is capable of sharing real-time bus ETAs, reducing time spent waiting at the stop and helping students never miss the bus again.
Find more information about My Ride K-12, including how to access the software by mobile app or desktop computer, by visiting the My Ride K-12 page on our district website. The My Ride K-12 mobile app is available both on Google Play and the Apple App Store.
As a reminder, students are eligible for transportation if they either are in grades PK-8 and live more than 2.0 miles from their school, are in grades 9-12 and live more than 2.5 miles from their school, or have transportation services included in their IEP.
I hope you find this information helpful as we start another successful school year. Taking care of these important steps will help put you and your children on the pathway to excellence.
For additional back to school information, including specific information about your child's school, please visit our Back to School Resources webpage at https://www.epsnj.org/backtoschool.
Best wishes for a rewarding 2024-2025 school year.
Sincerely,
Dr. Olga Hugelmeyer