September 2021 Back to School Newsletter
August 29, 2021
Jack & Jill Families,
We hope you are enjoying the last few weeks of summer before fall weather arrives. Jack & Jill is preparing for the start of the fall school year as our school agers get ready to return to school and our teachers prepare for new classrooms and students. We are excited to provide you with the new updates for Jack & Jill with parents being invited to see their child’s classroom for the first time in more than a year, a new website, fun school release days, and more!
A New, Updated Website & New Forms!
Jack & Jill has unveiled a new website for the new school year! The website has been redesigned from the ground up with a new, streamlined design. It has better mobile compatibility, updated forms and calendars, and a new look for both JJ’s Jam and Jack & Jill. It will also have newsletters (like this one) posted on it monthly.
Jack & Jill has also updated many of its forms. Some of these are linked below. The entire list of these along with a guide to signing them via Adobe Acrobat can be found at the link below: https://www.jackandjilledu.com/forms
Enrollment Forms for new Families
Medical Forms & Care Plans (to be completed by your physician)
Miscellaneous Forms
Updated Calendars for 2021-2022
Our School Calendars are also updated on our website for the fall school year. Our Google Calendar is also in the process of being updated with upcoming events as well.
To view a printable copy of the 2021-2022 School Calendars for each site, use the following link:
http://jackandjilledu.com/calendar/
We have also updated our curriculum calendars for both Infant-Preschool and Pre-K. In the past year, Jack & Jill has updated its curriculum to meet & exceed the Minnesota Early Childhood Standards in learning areas of emotional, social, physical, cognitive, and language development. Our diverse team of early childhood professionals has created a curriculum allowing children to learn in a play-based setting. We take pride in teaching our result driven curriculum. The calendars for each age group are listed below with weekly letters and themes.
https://www.jackandjilledu.com/curriculum
Important Fall 2021 Dates:
Friday, September 3, 2021
Closed: Staff Professional Development Day
Monday, September 6, 2021
Closed: Labor Day Holiday
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Closed: Thanksgiving Holiday
Friday, November 26, 2021
Closed: Thanksgiving Holiday
Kindly note many of our annual family events will continue to take place within your child’s POD/classroom setting. Family participation will be decided on closer to the date of each event and based on the current health conditions at the time of each event.
Friday, October 29th, 2021:
Children’s Fall Costume Parade
Wednesday, December 15th, 2021:
Winterfest Celebration- St Anthony site
Thursday, December 16th, 2021:
Winterfest Celebration – Blaine site
JJ’s Jam Updates
Another summer is almost in the books! Children returned to field trips this summer and had fun both on-site and off-site! A full recap of the JJ’s Jam Summer of 2021 will be unveiled soon on the new website.
Highlights of the Summer Included:
Experimenting with food by making our own pickles, taste-testing them against other pickles, baking bread, making butter, and designing our own sodas
The JJ’s Jam Family Picnic with Giant Chess, lawn games, a Dunk Tank, splash pad, bouncy house, bbq lunch and more
Unleashing our inner engineers by designing mini golf courses, boats, and more!
Exploring and learning about nature at Wargo Nature Center, Tamarack Nature Center & Dodge Nature Center
Cooling off in the water with private rentals of waterparks at Battle Creek Water Park & the Shoreview Community Center
Trying over a dozen different sports through Revolutionary Sports Camp
Biweekly on-site art lessons & field trips to Caponi Art Park and the Rum River Art Center that culminated in the JJ’s Jam 2021 Art Show
Planting & growing gardens and using the ingredients for salsa and pizzas!
Visits from the Works Museum and the Bakken to teach us about electricity and programming!
JJ’s Jam also introduced a new program for children entering grades 3 through age 12 this summer. It included unique programming and field trips that ran alongside the main summer program. Highlights of this program included:
Footgolf at Brookland Park
Golf Lessons at Victory Links Golf Course and practicing our golf skills at Top Golf
Learning survival skills such as shelter building and fire making at Base Camp
We learned to logroll and honed our archery skills with the Three Rivers Parks
Learning strategies for popular games like chess and holding tournaments to crown the victor
This summer was a blast, and we thank all our families that entrusted us with your children! We truly appreciate your support and look forward to a fun slate of programming for this fall and winter.
School Release Days Registration is Now Open!
We are excited to bring back school release days for fall 2021 with field trips and programming planned by our summer school age team. Children get to see their friends from summer, go on field trips, and participate in fun on-site programming on days they are out of school. The calendar and registration for October School Release days are now available and can be found here.
Phone and Email Communication
Our offices are synced with our phone and email systems at both locations to better serve your needs. To keep Jack & Jill informed of any questions, concerns, and absenteeism, please email us at info@jackandjilledu.com. You may also call the offices directly:
St Anthony: 612-455-8955
Blaine 763-784-1451
Secure Fax: 763-757-2942
For specific requests or inquiries, please contact the following people:
For vacation and invoice questions, email Carol: Carol@jackandjilledu.com
For credit card payments and updated card information, email Cade: CadeMc@jackandjilledu.com
For any school age inquiries, email Giles: GilesK@jackandjilledu.com
All family newsletters and updates will be sent via Mail Chimp using the info@jackandjilledu.com email. Please be sure to add this email to your contact list so that you consistently see emails in your inbox.
In the coming weeks, Jack & Jill will be testing out a new SMS system for both locations. This will allow Jack & Jill to contact parents about closures due to inclement weather, emergencies, or any other timely updates that needs to be sent out during the day. Test texts will be sent out sometime in September. If your cell phone number has changed recently, please email GilesK@jackandjilledu.com.
Tuition and Payment
Invoices will continue to be emailed monthly. Jack & Jill operates on a 4-5 week billing cycle, depending on the month. The Jack & Jill calendar linked above specifies which months are four-week billing cycles and which months are five-week billing cycles. For current rate information, please use this link to our website: https://www.jackandjilledu.com/tuition
Jack & Jill accepts the following credit cards for payment: VISA, Mastercard & Discover. Please follow the link and complete the credit card form and return it to our office. You may call and provide us with your secure card information too. Credit cards are run monthly at the beginning of the month and billing cycle. Receipts are emailed and processing fees are not charged.
Meals/Food Program
Jack & Jill continues to serve nutritious and delicious meals and snacks that are prepared daily in our on-site licensed commercial kitchens. Our menus aim to exceed USA standards for both quantity and quality of the food we serve. Weekly menus are accessible on our website: http://jackandjilledu.com/nutrition/
FAQ on COVID-19 and Updated Guidance from MDH
As we gear up for the start of the fall school on September and a goodbye to the school age children, many questions have arisen regarding COVID, masks, and indoor pickup, especially with rise of the Delta Variant in recent weeks.
We are pleased to announce 95% of our staff are fully vaccinated. Currently, children within the program are still unable to get vaccinated. If there are positive cases of COVID-19 within the program, we will report them to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and notify families who have been exposed to COVID-19.
The surge in Delta Variant cases has led to increased cases in early childhood centers throughout the state. As a result of this, Jack & Jill has extended curbside drop-off and pick-up at least through the month of September. To allow families to meet their teachers and see the program, we have arranged for a Fall Meet & Greet of teachers. Information on this meet & greet will be included in the classroom placement emails, sent separately via email.
We appreciate your understanding that this decision was made with the best interest of the health of our families & staff in mind. We truly miss seeing parents in the building daily and hope to invite you back into the building soon!
A full list of these updated recommendations can be found in the links below:
o What to Do if You Have COVID-19(8.3.21)*
o What to Do if You Have Had Close Contact With a Person With COVID-19(8.9)*
o https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/schools/exguide.pdf
o https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/facecover.html(8.12.21)
Jack & Jill has compiled a master list of available resources regarding recommendations for childhood centers in the ongoing pandemic. If you would like access to these resources, please email carol@jackandjilledu.com and I will forward these resources on to you.
For anyone experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19, they will be excluded from the program.
We hope you enjoy the last week of August and the start of September. Fall weather will be here before you know it. We again had another summer like no other and we appreciate the continued support of all our families.
Warm Regards,
Carol L. Arens,
Owner/Administrator
carol@jackandjilledu.com