Dear Bulldog families,

Hope everyone is well in the snowy weather.

Please, see the attached Bulldog Bulletin, Parent Emergency Preparedness guide and Richmond Equity Diversity and Inclusion newsletter.

Thank you for returning to the office the pink notice of your child’s Intent to attend at Diefenbaker next school year.  If you have not brought it back, please drop it off to your child’s teacher or at the main office as soon as possible.

Basketball season with its practices for Grade 6 and 7 students is well under way thanks to our amazing coaching staff: Mr. Pantaleo, Mr. Kerby, M. Martyniuk, Ms. Morgan and Mr. Vines.  Please, see the attached game schedule.

Online safety sessions

Safer Schools Together is offering Social Media awareness sessions for families.  If interested, please register at this link:https://pages.saferschoolstogether.com/erase-family-session

Emergency preparedness drills

Next week we will have Hold and Secure and Emergency Preparedness drills.  Please, see the attached information on how Richmond School District schools practice to prepare for emergencies year-round.

Hold and Secure drill on Wednesday afternoon at 1 pm

Hold and Secure is called in a situation that occurs outside the school building, for example a coyote has been sighted or a robbery happens nearby.  In this case, the exterior doors are locked until the situation outside is resolved and safe.  The exterior doors are monitored to allow students and staff to enter. Once inside, no one leaves the building. School activities continue inside the school as usual.

Emergency Preparedness - Reunification drill on Friday, January 26th afternoon at 1:30 pm

During this drill, we will practice what to do in case of emergencies when our school building is unsafe such as during earthquake, gas leak, flooding or lack of toilets. Staff will access the items in our Emergency bin (located by the parking lot) and set it up on the field while our classes are waiting in the designated area by the playground. Please, see the attached photo of the inside contents of our emergency bin: tents, tables, blankets, non-perishable food, water and first-aid kits.

For this drill, we would like to ask for ten parents to volunteer to pick up your child on the field at 1:30 pm on Friday, January 26^th. Our ten parent volunteers will be kindly asked to park in the neighbourhood streets and walk straight to the ID-check desk beside the playground. We will then safely guide the ten volunteers to reunite with your child.  If interested in this opportunity, parents, please, email our school principal, Ms. Vosahlo at rvosahlo@sd38.bc.ca . First ten parents to email will have an opportunity to take part in this practice next Friday afternoon.  Thank you so much!

As we prepare for emergency situations, we are asking all parents, caregivers and anyone likely come to pick up your child in case of emergency to make sure that you remember your child’s division number.

We wish you all great weekend, 

Regina Vosahlo and Kevin Vines