Arrival, Departure, and Punctuality

K through 6th grade School Hours are from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Parking

The school's entrance is in the front of the building, facing West Main Street. For drop-off and pick-up, please park on West Main or in the parking lot south of West Richmond Friends Meeting. Always use extreme caution when driving near the school.

Bikes, etc

Older students with parental permission may ride their bikes or walk to school on their own. Any student who brings or rides a bike to school must wear a helmet.

Student Arrival

Punctuality for important events is crucial, and successful students view school as an important event. Late arrival affects students’ academic success and our academic program. Students who are late miss critical announcements and academic work and often remain out of sync for the rest of the day. Also, chronic lateness is contagious; when students see other students arrive late on a consistent basis, the problem escalates.

Attendance is reported by individual teachers. If we notice that a pattern of lateness (more than five tardies in a semester) is developing with your family or car pool, we will send a note home urging you to address this problem quickly. If lateness continues with ten tardies in a semester, a conference will be scheduled to address the problem. Remember that you are helping your child establish patterns that he/she will carry into adulthood. Punctuality shows respect and helps ready the child for a consistent day.

Student Departure

Your dependable success in picking up your student(s) in a timely manner demonstrates respect for their teachers, who also have very busy schedules. Students left after five minutes will be sent to After-care, and parents/guardians will be billed accordingly for the time. If someone other than the student’s parent/guardian is going to pick up your child, please leave a note to that effect with the office staff in the morning. For supervision and safety reasons, students not in After-care may not continue to be on school grounds after 3:15 p.m.

Attendance

Regular attendance is critical to success at school. Students should attend school every day unless they are sick. When a student is going to be absent, a parent (or the adult responsible for the student) should call the school between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. to notify us.

We ask that RFS families adhere to our school calendar when scheduling family vacations. If participation in a particular activity requires a protracted absence from school, prior permission should be obtained from the School Coordinator and classroom teacher at least one week in advance. Students who are absent more than five days in the first semester (without prior arrangements with the school) will be asked to attend a conference with the teacher, parent, and School Coordinator.

Please refer to the Policy Section (Section Six) of the RFS handbook for more detailed information.

Family Mailboxes

The family mailboexes are located in the front entrance hall. Please check your box daily, as this is an important means of communication between the school and families. E-mail is also a valuable form of school/family communication. Please keep the school supplied with an up-to-date e-mail address, or let us know if this is not a viable way to get information to your family.

Clothing

We want children to take advantage of all classroom and outside activities without worrying about their clothing. Children are urged to wear clothing appropriate for an active curriculum, which includes sitting on the floor, climbing, running, painting, and other potentially messy activities.

All clothing should be simple, modest, and secure. We do not permit clothing that supports or advertises alcohol or tobacco or related products, violence, the military, and other displays or wordings that are contrary to the values we express and promote in the school community.

Additionally, all children need a complete change of clothes to leave at school. Please make sure that this change of clothes is seasonally appropriate. Remember that when the weather starts to get cool, your child/children will need to dress appropriately and have hats, scarves, mittens, etc. Outside play happens in all kinds of weather!

Birthdays and Invitations

Teachers in each classroom have details relating to the celebration of birthdays in their class, so please refer to their guidelines. Students and parents should be sensitive to inclusion/exclusion issues when planning birthday parties. Please, do not distribute party invitations at school unless all members of your child’s class are invited to the party.

Lunch and Snack

Based on the statement of health and nutrition in the Policies section, we ask that parents follow with these guidelines when providing shared snacks for the primary grades. Snacks should be healthy and meet the school's nutrition guidelines. Examples of good snacks include:

Fresh fruits, such as bananas, apples, oranges, clementines, or melon
Fresh vegetables, such as carrots, celery, cherry or grape tomatoes
Dried fruits and nuts (with no added sugar and low salt), such as apples, raisins, apricots, pineapple, peanuts, sunflower seeds, or popcorn
Crackers, etc. (with no partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated oils, no corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup, low added salt and sugar), such as corn tortilla chips, wheat crackers, pretzels, rice cakes, pita bread, wheat bread, or bagels
Other suggestions include unprocessed cheese, peanut butter, and 100% fruit jam

We encourage parents to be mindful of over-packaging as well when they provide snacks.

Additionally, upper elementary students need to bring a nutritious lunch, drink, and snack each day. Soda pop, sweets, and candy are not acceptable. Parents are free to take children home or out for the lunch period, which is from 12 to 1 p.m. for all grade levels.

Extracurricular Activities

With such a small student body, there are currently few extracurricular activities and no organized sports offered by the school, though we always welcome the introduction of new ideas and possibilities. Because of RFS's position as an independent school, our students have the right to participate in any extracurricular activity offered by the public school system that RFS does not offer. Older students in particular have participated in plays, sports teams, and bands attached to the public school system, and we encourage participation as part of creating well-rounded students. Please contact your child’s teacher or the School Coordinator with any ideas you may have for enhancing the extracurricular activities offered by/at RFS.

Standards of Behavior

We expect students to conduct themselves according to the statements of Quaker Principles and Beliefs.

Attitude

To come to school with an open and generous attitude towards fellow students, their curriculum, and faculty and staff, and to see the positive in all situations, even the difficult ones.

Respect

To respect not only the people at the school, but all people in the students life, their grounds, and possessions.

Preparedness

To come to school prepared for the day, well-rested with proper nutrition,.bringing all supplies and/or articles that are required for that day.

Homework

To come to school with homework assignments up-to-date. If you do not understand an assignment, you are to contact your teacher in the way he/she has set forth in class before the assignment is due. Communication with your teacher is key to learning. Waiting until the assignment is due can hinder you and affect the entire class.

Naturally, we ask each student to become fully engaged in his or her education by being responsible for assignments and continually striving to give his or her best effort. But we ask more. We ask each student to wrestle with questions of conscience, to appreciate simplicity, to choose a healthy, substance-free way of life, to develop healthy habits in work and play, and to become a positive member of a close-knit and caring multi-generational community.

Medicine, Health, and Illness

In order to keep our school community healthy, please observe the following guidelines:

Parents will be called if their child develops a fever, vomiting, or other symptoms that interfere with the student’s school work and/or could be contagious during school hours. The student should be supervised in a space away from other children until they can be picked up by a parent or guardian.
Students should remain at home with an illness until they have had no fever, vomiting, or diarrhea for 24 hours without medication. If a child has been prescribed an antibiotic, such as for strep throat or conjunctivitis (pink eye), she/he should take the medication for 24 hours before returning to school.
Students with unexplained rashes (especially if accompanied by fever) should remain home from school until cleared by a health care provider to return.
In the case of head lice, please treat live lice and have all nits removed from your child's hair promptly so the outbreak does not spread. However, children need not be excluded from school if only nits are still present. The health department has pamphlets and more information if needed.
As a reminder, if your child is well enough to come to school, your child is well enough to go outside during any scheduled outside activity time. We do not have the capacity to supervise children who cannot join their class outdoors. Please dress them appropriately and remember to always have a change of clothes at the school.
Parents are expected to use good judgment in discerning whether a student’s cough, headache, congestion, etc. will interfere with their ability to concentrate in the classroom or be disruptive to others and make appropriate decisions regarding whether their child should be in school that day.
If you need to send your child to school with any medication (prescription or over-the-counter), it should be placed in a bag with instructions attached. This bag should be given to the office manager, who will administer the medication.

Richmond Friends School

General Guidelines