Thank you again for your patience and understanding as we continue to transition back to normal, in-person Religious Education classes here at COTLF. I know well the frustration of having to wait in extended pickup lines and remain hopeful that, as COVID numbers continue to drop, we will once again be able to invite parents onto campus so you can pickup your students at the doors of the classrooms and meet your child’s catechist personally. While our dismissal/pickup times have sped up each week, I’m happy to announce today an adjustment to the Rel.Ed. pickup procedures, effective immediately. I’d also like to take this opportunity to address our end of class procedures taking place in the classrooms, so as to minimize additional frustrations as you wait for your children to come outside after checking in.

New Pickup Procedure

While parents cannot yet enter into campus, we can now allow all parents to park in the Sevilla Ave parking lot or anywhere in front of or around the church, office center, and/or school (see RED zones in map below). There is an additional, little known parking lot located behind Comber Hall which is typically empty and will allow for quick and easy access to the pickup zone.) All parents can then walk over to the cafeteria door (YELLOW zone) for dismissal. You are welcome to wait in your cars until the children begin coming outside once their name is called, and then you can meet them just outside of the dismissal door, under the canopy. Parents should not be entering into the cafeteria at this time, so as to keep that doorway free and clear for all students coming outside.

This new procedure should help cut down overall waiting times, car lines, and the blocking of traffic on Sevilla Ave, past Palos Street.

I will still need each of you to check out your children upon arriving with your designated pickup code. Your child’s individual pickup code helps to speed up the dismissal of students, as entering it into our system automatically verifies you and the student you are picking up, signs them out of the session with the date and time stamp of entry, and signals our volunteers inside to call the children outside to the pickup area. Though I typically begin checking out students about 10 minutes before the bell rings to get a head start on the calling out of names, the children are still in class at that time and they will not be dismissed to you until they have returned to the cafeteria a few minutes after the ringing of the bell.

End of Class Procedures

The ringing of the bell (5:15p, 7:45p, 11:15a) indicates the end of the formal instructional class period. As our classes are spread throughout the school campus, it does take a few extra minutes for all the students to collect their belongings, tidy the classrooms, and make their way back down to the cafeteria so we can begin dismissing them. Each of our catechists is keeping an eye on the clock so they can wrap up class and have the kids back downstairs as close to the bell as possible, but they are under no obligation to finish class any earlier than our advertised 75 minutes of class/instructional time. I can certainly appreciate everyone’s anxiousness to get home (including that of our teachers and staff, myself included!) but kindly ask that you exercise a few minutes of extra patience if the kids are not coming out of the door within a few seconds of the bell.