 Thank you, Pine Spring community, for an amazing first week!
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Are you looking for a way to stay connected to Pine Spring this year? If so, we encourage you to join the Pine Spring PTA. It's an easy way to connect with other families, volunteer, have your voice heard, build new student programs, and stay informed.
This Thursday, September 1, at 7 PM, is the first PTA meeting of the year. It's an in-person meeting, so join us in the Pine Spring library.
This year our PTA has changed platforms to match the Virginia PTA requirements. This change means that all families will need to sign-up on the new platform.
Please take a moment and click on https://vapta-pses.memberhub.com/store. This year a family membership is only $10!
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FCPS’ updated Student Rights & Responsibility booklet is now available online and in the ParentVue section of the Student Information System (SIS). The SR&R booklet explains expectations for student behavior, and adult responses to enhance school safety and to create a fair, equitable, and supportive school environment.
Each year, we ask parents to review, sign, and return the SR&R to their child’s school. In ParentVue, you may now download and digitally sign the SR&R. Every parent/guardian with a ParentVUE account will see the SR&R upon login to ParentVUE until the SR&R acknowledgement has been completed.
Once you log on, you will see the following message:
 Your name in the digital signature box must match the parent/guardian’s first and last name in SIS exactly before the signature will be accepted.
Please take a moment to log into ParentVue in your child’s SIS account to access the SR&R. Signatures are due by September 30, 2022.
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) provides a comprehensive, sequential Family Life Education (FLE) program for students in grades kindergarten through grade twelve. Instruction is seen as a partnership among parents and guardians, the school, and the community in supporting the learning essential to the development of strong families, positive relationships, and a healthy community.
Parents/guardians may choose to opt their child out of all or part of the Family Life Education program. Students who are opted out are provided with age-appropriate, nonpunitive alternative health instruction, and every effort is made to foster respect for family choices. If you wish to opt your child out of all or part of FLE for this school year, opt out forms will be included in your child’s Wednesday Folder and are available online for Elementary (K-6). Please fill in the opt-out form and return it to your child’s school prior to Family Life Education instruction.
Detailed grade-level program descriptions are available online at Elementary (K-6). FLE grade level-specific lessons and media that FCPS has streaming rights for are available for parents online in Schoology. Parents/guardians login to Schoology using the same username and password as their Student Information System (SIS) Parent account. Grade level-specific lessons are also available at the City of Fairfax Regional Library (this location does not have media). Grade level-specific lessons and media that is not streamed online are available for review at your child’s school library. Due to copyright permissions, we are unable to stream all media online.
Program questions may be addressed by contacting Instructional Services at 571-423-4550 or fle@fcps.edu.
The Fairfax County School Board is committed to protecting student and family privacy and wants all parents to be aware of their rights and the ways that information is treated in relation to:
- Parents’ rights to inspect, and to consent or opt out, before their child participates in certain surveys administered to students.
- Parents’ rights to inspect instructional materials used as part of the educational curriculum.
- FCPS’ maintenance, retention, and disclosure rules regarding student scholastic records including parents and eligible students’ rights to inspect such records, to request amendment to such records and to opt out of disclosure of directory information about the student.
- Parents’ right to opt out of any physical examination of their child not required by state law.
- The FCPS school counseling program and parents’ right to opt out their child from participation in academic, career, and/or social or emotional counseling.
- Parents’ rights to opt out of their child’s access to Tutor.com.
- Student participation in the Social and Emotional Learning Screener and the rights of parents to opt out of the Screener.
- The process by which parents and students may file complaints if they believe their rights as referenced above have been violated.
In its Annual Notice of Survey, Records, Curriculum, Privacy, and Related Rights and Opt-Out Forms (Annual Notice), FCPS provides explanations of the rights listed above as well as forms that may be used to exercise opt-out choices. Two versions of the Annual Notice are available—a grades K-8 version and a grades 9-12 version. Parents with children at different grade levels should read each applicable version of the Annual Notice because the notices and opt-out rights vary depending on the student’s grade level.
- To access the complete Annual Notice opt-out booklets online (requires use of a PDF reader), Go to http://www.fcps.edu, and search for Opt-Out Booklet (Choose the K-8 version).
- Parents may also request a paper copy from the principal’s office at their child’s school. If you wish to opt your child out of any of the activities mentioned above, you must complete and return the appropriate forms to your child’s school.
State assessments measure the extent to which students have learned the content and skills reflected in state standards and may also be used to measure growth in learning state standards.
The format and timing of state assessments vary by grade level and content area, as noted in the table below. These include:
- Fall and winter Virginia Growth Assessments (VGA) standardized tests in reading and mathematics. More information is available on the VGA webpage (https://www.fcps.edu/node/43932);
- Spring Standards of Learning (SOL) standardized tests in reading, mathematics, and science. More information is available on the SOL assessments webpage (https://www.fcps.edu/node/35021);
- Ongoing local alternative assessments (LAAs) including performance-based assessments (PBAs) completed as part of classroom instruction in science, writing, and social studies; More information is available on the LAA and PBA webpage (https://www.fcps.edu/node/45043).
Your student is scheduled to take the standardized Fall Virginia Growth Assessments (VGA) standardized tests during the week of September 19th-23rd. A notification letter will be sent home next week in your child’s Wednesday folder.
The Grade Level Tests webpage (https://www.fcps.edu/student-assessment/grade-level-tests) provides information by grade level about the general assessment schedule and reporting method for each required assessment type in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS).
If you have questions about state assessments, contact Jennifer Ganci at jlganci@fcps.edu.
Keeping students and staff safe is a priority for all of us. Each school has an emergency preparedness plan to respond to incidents such as fires and tornadoes. Schools are required by state law to practice emergency drills, including lockdown drills, each year. Schools are required to notify parents and guardians at least 24 hours before a school conducts a lockdown drill. However, schools are not required to give the specific date and time of the drill in advance.
The first lockdown drill of the school year must take place within the first 20 days of school. Preschool and kindergarten students are exempt from practicing the first lockdown drill.
Your child may come home and talk about their experience during the drill. We encourage you to talk with your child about the importance of being prepared for emergencies. Here are some helpful tips for families to use to support their students before and after school lockdown drills.
Working together, we create a safe, secure environment for students to learn and grow in our schools.
FCPS students continue to have unlimited access to live, 24/7, 1-to-1, online tutoring services through Tutor.com at no cost to families during the 22-23 SY. Student participation is optional and parents/guardians can opt their student(s) out of accessing the services. Detailed information and FAQs are available on the Tutor.com Online Tutoring Services website.
Students will continue to access Tutor.com via a link in Schoology. Information about how to log in and access a tutor is provided in the following instructional videos:
Tutor.com: How it Works Elementary
Tutor.com: How It Works Elementary (Spanish)
On Tuesday, September 13th, we will have our virtual Back to School Night. This is an opportunity for you to learn about the grade-level curriculum, how to access and understand your child’s learning progress, understand how attendance impacts learning progress. More information will be provided as the date approaches.
In observance of Labor Day, there will be no school on Friday, September 2nd, and Monday, September 5th. We will be excited to see everyone at 8:30 AM on Tuesday, September 6th.
FCPS has tools to help parents and guardians know more about their child’s activity on any FCPS device. These tools are provided by Lightspeed, our internet content filtering service, at no cost to families. You may sign up for a weekly Parent Report, which will provide a list of the top sites your child visited. If you want more detailed information, sign up for the Internet Use Parent portal and log-in anytime to see more detail about your child’s browsing and “pause” access to the internet during non-school hours. Find out more and sign up for these services here.
During the school year, you can get real-time information on bus routes via Here Comes the Bus app which you can access from your App or Google Play store.
Click the links below to get started.
Here Comes the Bus! Know when your bus is approaching your stop. Here Comes the Bus® app is a school bus tracking app that can simplify morning and afternoon routines for parents and students by giving them real-time bus location and text or email notification alerts, helping them get to the bus stop on time.
Bus Delay Notification System - Stay up-to-date on school bus arrivals with FCPS' bus delay notification system. This system provides parents with timely notification of late bus route information.
Office of Transportation Services - 703-446-2000
Last week, FCPS sent an update on COVID-19 layered prevention strategies that will continue to be in place this school year. While we had hoped that the pandemic would be behind us, it seems that COVID will be something we must manage as a community for the foreseeable future. FCPS will continue to follow the guidance of national, state, and local health experts when determining the layered prevention strategies that are needed to keep our schools safe and open for learning. It is important that we all work together towards this goal.
Highlights from that guidance include:
- FCPS continues to require families to review the Daily Health Screening before sending students to school.
- The 5 Day Isolation Period will continue for COVID positive students and staff.
- The CDC recommends the COVID vaccine as a safe and effective way of significantly lowering your risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death if you get infected. Vaccines are now available for our youngest students. However, COVID vaccines are not part of the required immunizations for school entry.
- At this time, masks are not required. The current CDC COVID-19 Community Level for Fairfax County is low. However, should the community level rise to “high,” FCPS would then require all students, staff, and visitors to wear a face covering when indoors on school property (to include the buildings, school buses and other school provided vehicles; except while actively eating/drinking). The Code of Virginia allows parents/legal guardians to elect for their child not to wear a face covering while on school property.
- Diagnostic testing will be available beginning Tuesday, August 16, for FCPS students and staff who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in close contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19. Information on diagnostic testing will continue to be updated on our website.
- FCPS will no longer send a daily or weekly COVID case update. Parents/Guardians will only receive an email from their child’s school when several cases of COVID-19 occur in a single classroom, sports team, or extracurricular activity within a 14-day period. Individual case reports will be available on the FCPS COVID-19 Dashboard on our website.
To stay up to date, please continue to review our Health and Safety Guidance on our website.
The Title I Central Office will facilitate a virtual “What is Title I” Town Hall for all 42 Title I schools on Tuesday, September 20th from 7 PM- 8:15 PM . Families are invited to learn more about Title I and what makes our school unique.
Connect here: Title I Town Hall
Your child attends a school receiving federal Title I grant funds under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015. As part of the federal guidelines for Title I, your child’s school has specific expectations for student performance and teacher qualifications. You can find information on how your child’s school is meeting these expectations by viewing the http://schoolquality.virginia.gov/. To access your school’s profile, type the school name in the search field. If you would like a paper copy of this profile, please call your child’s school.
ESSA allows parents in schools receiving Title I grant funds to ask for information about state and local policies regarding student participation in required tests and about parents’ rights to refuse testing for their children. Information about required tests at each grade level can be located at https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/performance. Information about parents’ rights related to testing can be located at https://www.fcps.edu/node/34277.
Additionally, ESSA allows parents in schools receiving Title I grant funds to ask for certain information about their children’s teachers. Parents may ask for the teacher’s:
- College and graduate school preparation, including degrees and major fields of study for each degree; • Licensure status, including subject and grade level endorsements, and whether those licenses meet the requirements for teachers of their child’s subject or grade level.
Parents may also ask for information about the qualifications of any instructional assistants who provide services to their children.
If you would like to receive any of this information about your child’s teacher or instructional assistant, please write to the FCPS Human Resources Licensure Office at the address below. In order for your request to be fulfilled, you must include: your child’s full name, the name of your child’s school, and the name of the teacher or instructional assistant about whom you would like information.
Fairfax County Public Schools De
Human Resources Licensure Office
8115 Gatehouse Road
Falls Church, Virginia 22042
More information about the Title I grant in FCPS can be found at https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/performance and accountability/title-i, including details about teacher quality in schools receiving Title I grant funds (found under the “High Quality Staff in Title I Schools” link). If you have questions about how the Title I grant supports your child’s school, please contact the school’s administration.
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