Families

If your student is staying home sick, you must notify the front office by 8:30am for attendance purposes and to ensure that your student is accounted for. Please call (651-917-0636) or email (frontoffice@fsmn.org) the school and provide the reason for the absence.

If your student is experiencing a respiratory illness and/or an influenza-like illness, they should stay home and away from others (until for 24 hours both symptoms are getting better and they are fever free without medications). At this time, students may return to school and take extra precaution for the next five days. This will include wearing a mask and extra hand washing. Respiratory illnesses include diagnoses such as RSV, COVID-19, influenza, etc. This policy is aligned with current CDC guidelines. 

If a student tests positive for a respiratory or influenza-like illness as described above, the family is expected to follow current guidelines, and we ask that the school be informed. When the school is informed, this information will be shared (preserving student anonymity) with the cohort, but no additional school protocols will be activated. 

Masks will always remain optional and welcome, but will not be provided by the school.

Arrival
Students should enter through the front door unless enrolled in Extended Day.

Students should be dropped off as close to 8:15* as possible, but no later than 8:25 AM. If you arrive before 8:15, we ask you to wait outside. 

Students may go to their lockers/cubbies or classrooms at 8:15 AM.

Students who arrive after 8:30am must come to the front office for an attendance slip to give to their teachers.

*Unless students are in Extended Day or are participating in a before-school activity, they may not be dropped off at the school before 8:15 AM. Students arriving before 8:15 AM and not enrolled in the Extended Day program will be brought to Extended Day and the family will be billed at the drop-in rate. 

Dismissal – If Plans Change, Call by 2:15pm
Families are asked each year to complete a Dismissal Transportation Plan form for each student. It outlines how students will return home each day and helps FSMN ensure student safety.

If your regular dismissal plan changes in any way on any day, you must contact the front office by 2:15 PM so that faculty and students can be appropriately informed. Notification must be from a parent/guardian, not a student, either by phone or email. If we are not contacted by a student’s family prior to 2:15 PM, the student will be dismissed according to their regular dismissal plan. 

Picking Your Student Up Early
If you pick up your student prior to the end of the regular school day, please notify the front office and your homeroom teacher. Students will sign out in the front office. Please inform us of this change through the front office. 

Students who have permission to walk, bike, take public transit home alone may leave the school at the end of the school day. FSMN does not provide crossing guards nor other support for these students.

Students are expected to observe the following guidelines:

• They may not stay on school grounds unless they are participating in Extended Day or a planned activity.
• They may not return to the school or school grounds by themselves, including the playground, after they have left for the day.

If you are picking up your student by car, you have two options

Option 1- Carpool Line:

Line up along the east side of Albert Street and go north toward the school parking lot.

This line wraps around the front of the school on to Englewood to avoid blocking the intersection.

For this reason all cars should approach the school on westbound Englewood. Please make use of the bus lane to avoid blocking the westbound lane of Englewood. 

A staff person with a walkie-talkie will meet your car before you reach the parking lot entrance. Drivers tell the staff person who they are picking up. 

Option 2 – Meet your student in the lobby:

Park on Englewood or Albert.

Don’t park in the bus zone in front of the school on Englewood Avenue or the carpool line on Albert Street.

When the doors open at 3pm:
Students in grades K-2 can be picked up at their classrooms. Students in grades 3-8, families should come into the school and meet their student in the front lobby. 

FSMN follows the decisions of the St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS) regarding building closures. In the event of several school closures, we may choose to provide at-home learning rather than canceling school. If SPPS are closed, our building will be closed. Local media outlets are the best places to find announcements regarding SPPS closures. We also send notices via email and text, and we update our website’s homepage. 

There may be instances where decisions about our before and after school care and programs differ from SPPS.