It’s back-to-school time, and Highland Elementary School is gearing up for new and returning students.
Highland School Principal Chris Trostad says the school is ready, and parents can still register their children. “If there are any parents that haven’t signed their kids up for Highland School yet, if you’re an existing student here at Highland School, they can just log into Skyward, and they can just update it,” said Trostad. “If you are a new student we’ve got to make sure you fill out the enrollment paperwork that you can get from the office here from Crystal or Jana, so get the paperwork filled out as soon as possible.”
Trostad said they have been preparing all summer, “There’s a new six million dollar building addition which was going to be the Pre-K, but is now going to be that the Kindergarten is going to be in that new addition this year.”
Trostad added that there are going to be some changes to the drop-off zone in the morning. “We’ve got a longer drop-off zone with kind of a new two-lane entrance, which will be real nice,” said Trostad. “Basically, instead of parents dropping off in the teacher parking lot where they did before, they are going to have their own driveway entrance and a bi-pass lane.” The new drop-off plan means fewer cars will be out in the street and a longer drop-off area.
The after school pick-up routine has also been changed this year. “We are going to ask parents to wait until the buses have left, and they can park along the tennis courts, or they can park along the baseball field over on Barrett Street,” said Trostad. “Once they see the buses leave Highland School, then, they can enter the teacher parking lot, which is also that long driveway. They’re going to enter and go around by the new addition and come out in front of the school and all students will be picked up in front of Highland School this year as opposed to picked up on the side.”
The school is letting parents and guardians know about the changes. “We will be communicating this via Instant Alert with parents and on Facebook, so parents are going to get bombarded with the new changes for the pick-up and drop-off,” says Principal Trostad.
There is another addition coming to the Highland School grounds, and you could feel the excitement as Principal Trostad started to talk about the new playground that will be constructed soon. “Real exciting news, our new playground, we call it the all-inclusive playground, so all kids can play,” said Trostad. “The purpose was we needed an age-appropriate playground for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and first and second graders because our playground was really designed for more middle school age kids.” There was no doubt the school wanted the playground to be available and accessible to all children, including special needs children. “We wanted to make sure it was all-inclusive so special needs kids could play right alongside all students, so everyone could be together.”
We will be bringing you more on Back to School in Crookston as we countdown to the first day, which for Highland Elementary is Wednesday, September 4.
