Monthly Archives: September 2022

The Administrators of the Waterloo Catholic District School Board would like to say a huge THANK YOU to all our Board Custodians and Maintenance Workers.  Sunday, October 2, 2022 is “National Custodial and Maintenance Worker Recognition Day”.  The role of the school custodian has changed immensely over the course of the past couple of years. We can’t thank our custodial staff enough for their hard work, their dedication to the job and their continued role in the safety of all.

We would also like to thank the many board maintenance workers that work hard in all our schools, to keep things running smoothly.  Many times, your work is done in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of the evenings, and we don’t even see you in the building.  We do however, benefit from your hard work everyday and recognize today, your important contributions to the success of our schools and our students.

On behalf of all of the administrators in the Waterloo Catholic District, THANK YOU to all of our Board Custodians and Maintenance Workers.

Picture day is tomorrow, Dragons! Bring your most beautiful smiles with you to school tomorrow.

Hello Dragon families. We are expecting rain tomorrow and we don’t want to dampen the fun for our Terry Fox event.  We will now be walking and running for Terry on Thursday!  That gives us more days to collect donations – go to CashOnline to contribute today. Our goal is for each student to donate $2 – what a difference that could make!

Hello Dragon families.  Please check out the attached note Terryfoxletter2022.docx for the information for our annual Terry Fox run.  It will be held next Tuesday, the 27th, with the hopes of helping to continue Terry’s determination to end cancer.  Thanks for your support!

Dear Parents and Families,

We want to share an important update about school buses. Due to the ongoing bus driver shortage and lingering impacts of the public board’s cyber attack on our shared bus planning software, some routes will need to be temporarily cancelled.

Most bus routes are operating normally. However, some routes are experiencing more frequent and prolonged delays (30 minutes or greater).

This temporary measure will be effective Monday, September 19, 2022 and will continue until Christmas, at which time our need for cancellations will be reviewed.

We understand the significant impact this decision will have on our students and their families and caregivers. Student Transportation Services of Waterloo Region (STSWR) does this only as a last resort. We hope that this proactive message will allow families and caregivers to better prepare for and react to the cancellation of bus routes.

Please note that delays have not been caused by our current bus drivers.  When they are late, it is because they are trying to support students on bus routes that have no driver, with the best of intentions.  They do not have to do this.  They are trying to help.  Please be kind to them!

What Happens If A School Bus Route is Cancelled?

Effective September 19, 2022

A school bus route will be cancelled when the driver shortage causes a route to be late by more than 30 minutes consistently. Affected students and families will be informed immediately of the cancellation period.  Cancellations are done on a week to week basis.

Supporting Student Learning

If a school bus route is cancelled, families are responsible for transporting their children to and from school each day.

Where this is not possible, students should access asynchronous learning materials posted by their classroom teacher on their Learning Management System (LMS), either D2L or Google Classroom. Additional activities can be found here: .

Families should contact their school to let them know if they are unable to get to school.  The school can also help families to sign out a Chromebook if necessary.

Stay Informed

Families will be informed the day prior to any cancellation. Cancellations will be posted on the STSWR website with an expected return date.

Register for notifications on the STSWR parent portal

Check the Bus Delays page on the STSWR website

The Bus Delays page will be updated with cancellation information each afternoon by 4:30 PM.

Questions?

Please contact Student Transportation Services of Waterloo Region (STSWR).

Open House:

Thank you to everyone who attended our open house last night, it was great to see so many students and parents and share an opportunity to come together as a community.

Bussing:

If your child takes the bus, you’ve probably heard about the cyber attack on the WRDSB. This attack has affected Student Transporation Services ability to plan bus routes and has lead to technicians building routes one student at a time, creating a large backlog. We apologize for that! Transportation services is also experiencing driver shortages as some drivers are leary of returning to work in a post Covid world, managing up to 72 energetic students on a bus is challenging, and some drivers are faced daily with frustrated parents as many routes are running late. Please understand that many of our drivers are actually running extra routes on top of their regular routes to help ensure our students can ride a bus home. Please help us show our drivers compassion and thanks as they are really doing the best they can.

End of the day pick up: 

Do you pick your child up at the end of the day? If you do, you’ll notice that the streets surrounding St. Dominic’s are packed with cars. Is it possible to have your child walk a block and then meet you? This would alleviate a lot of congestion and make it safer for our students. If you are parking, please do not park on Victoria St. (it’s actually a no stopping zone as well) and please do not park on the outside of BeechRoyal pl as driveways are often blocked and by-law is ticketing (please park in the inside of the cul-de-sac).

Kiss N Drop

The kiss-n-drop, located off Victoria St. is a busy place in the morning. This area is really intended for parents to drop off students with special needs or our early learners (JK/SK, gr. 1 or 2) who are unable to walk due to safety concerns. When dropping off your child, please follow the direction of staff, please do not park (drop off only – we have staff there to assist JK/SK learners get to their designated areas, and please drive slowly as we don’t want anyone to get hurt. Thank you for your help with this.

Hey Dragons! Tomorrow is our Open House and BBQ event at the school.  Join us between 5-6pm for food ($7.50 for a meal) and then we will open the doors of the school for you to visit from 6-7pm.  Visit your class – show off to your families what a wonderful school you have!  We are looking forward to a fabulous evening of food, friends and good cheer.

See you tomorrow!

Good afternoon Dragons 🙂

Mother nature gave us a quick reminder today that summer sunshine cannot last forever.  Please ensure your student is dressed for the variety of weather as we are committed to spending as much time as we can outside.  Raincoats, hats, an umbrella – these are great additions to the cloudy day backpack.  A little sprinkle will not impact our outdoor fun, so ensure everyone is dressed for the weather.  Fresh air and exercise are necessary for our learning brains and bodies to be regulated all day, so we will try to be out if at all possible.

A reminder as well, that our bell is 9:15 so please come as close to the bell time as possible on wet mornings.  It makes supervision indoors (if required) a little easier.

We look forward to seeing you all at the Open House and BBQ on Wednesday.

Be well and be happy!