Graduation is Wednesday, June 10th 2:00 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. and Thursday, June 11th 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Please find your times on the list provided this week during supplies pick up.

8th Grade Graduation information... Please see the attached letter that you will receive when you pick up your child's belongings this week. The two attachments (times and map) will be available then.

Just a friendly reminder...This is the last week for students to complete their packets. Please take a picture of the completed checklist and text/email a copy to your child's teacher by Friday, May 22nd.

***IMPORTANT 8th Grade Information for HS Cheer/Dance*** This is a message from Linda Kueker. "I am one of the cheer coaches at Mt. Vernon High School. We are trying to get the word out to incoming Freshmen about tryouts for the cheer and dance teams. We want to get a message to all 8th grade students about our Facebook page named Mt. Vernon Rams Cheer and Dance. Go to the page & leave a message for us indicating what team you would like to try our for and leave your contact information. We are currently in the planning stages for 2020-2021 tryouts, and the page will be updated as we have more information."

Student belongings will be available for pick-up on Wednesday, May 27 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm and again on Thursday, May 28 from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Please write your child's name on a sheet of paper and place it in the passenger side window. Please stay in your vehicle and drive through the car-rider line. ALL textbooks and library books MUST be turned in on these days as well when we bring the belongings out to the vehicles.

We will continue to offer the grab and go meals at Rome School and at Rolling Meadows from 10:00 am to 11:30 am. We will serve on the following dates: May 4th, 7th, 11th, 14th, 18th, 21st, with the last day being the 26th.

On Monday, May 4th, we will run our buses to collect any packets you have at home and deliver the last set of packets. The new packets will have work for the school days of May 4th - May 20th. These packets will not be returned to the school. Each student will have a checklist within their packet. Parents will check and sign when the work is completed. You may then take a picture of the completed checklist and text/email a copy of it to your child's teacher by May 22nd.

***Peewee*** Please have your uniforms bagged up and ready for pick up on Monday, May 4th. When the remote learning packets are dropped off, we will also pick up your uniforms. Thank you.

On Monday, May 4th, we will run our buses to collect any packets you have at home and deliver the last set of packets. The new packets will have work for the school days of May 4th - May 20th. These packets will not be returned to the school. Each student will have a checklist within their packet. Parents will check and sign when the work is completed. You may then take a picture of the completed checklist and text/email a copy of it to your child's teacher by May 22nd.

***Girls Basketball*** Please have your uniforms bagged up and ready for pick up on Monday, May 4th. When the remote learning packets are dropped off, we will also pick up your uniforms. Thank you. If there are any other students with uniforms, please turn those in as well.

We will be ordering t-shirts for our 8th grade students. The order form is attached and will also be mailed home The students shirt will be paid for by the money they raised for their class trip. Any other shirts ordered should include payment. You can turn these in on Monday, May 4th when we deliver the last remote learning packets.

*****SAVE THE DATE***** We will be holding an 8th grade Graduation on June 11, 2020. We still aren't sure what this will look like yet. It will depend on whether the "Stay at Home" order has been lifted or not and if so what stipulations come with it. We will let you know by the last day of school what the plans will be. Go Rome Hornets!

Good afternoon from your Rome Superintendent. Today we have received the news from the Governor and State Superintendent that schools will remain closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. This is not the news we hoped for, but the safety of our children and community is priority number 1. With this announcement, I would like our families to know that we will continue our Remote Learning Packets and meals through the last Thursday in May. When the Governor announces the end of the stay at home order we will be able to make a decision about a possible graduation ceremony in June or July. Please know we are working diligently to provide the services our students need. If your family needs additional meals please let is know ahead of time so we can provide them. Stay safe. Mr. Estill

Good morning. On Monday, April 20th the next set of learning packets will be delivered to your mailboxes and the current packets will be picked up. Please make sure your child’s name is on the packet and available for pick up. We will continue this process until we are about to return to school. On this day we will also be delivering the meals too, so our normal locations will not be open for meal pick up on Monday. Stay safe and continue social distancing. We miss all of our Rome here community.

Due to COVID 19, we will be having our April 21st Board Meeting through the use of Zoom. If you would like to attend, please request the invitation from Mr. Estill at eestill@rome2.net.

Please find our most recent communication regarding the extension of school closure and immediate changes to school business at Rome.

Update: We will be passing out new learning packets on Tuesday, March 31st through our bus routes. We will start the routes at 9:00 a.m. as if we were running our normal routes, so please be on the look out for the bus in order to receive your child(ren)'s packet(s). We will also be passing out meals on this day at the same time, so please be available on Tuesday. We will not have our normal locations open on this day. As we navigate through this closure, we will continue to keep you updated. The use of Google classroom and other apps will be coming soon, once we have a more information from the State regarding the process for "Remote Instruction." Please feel free to email me or Mrs. Mellott with any questions. eestill@rome2.net or smellott@rome2.net

We will continue our Grab and Go meals through Friday April 3. If the school closure continues past our Spring Break of April 6-13, we will resume the meals on the 14th. Our families have been utilizing this service well and we are so happy we can provide it. Starting today, we will be at our locations from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. This has been the most utilized times for pick up.

Parents and Guardians, please look for the letter that was sent home today with updated information about Spring Break. After receiving confirmation from the State Saturday evening that these are officially Act of God days, we are able to put our Spring Break back to the regularly scheduled dates. The Jefferson County Schools at this time are going to continue as planned with our current calendars. Break will be April 6-13.

Our Volleyball competitor, North Wamac, has cancelled our matches for tonight. Due to this change, we will be recognizing our 8th grade girls in volleyball and music at 2:30 today in a school assembly. There will be no practices after school today.

Rome will be doing Grab and Go meals starting Tuesday, March 17 from 9 a.m. to noon each day. We will have two locations. The school near the cafeteria door and we will set up our van at Rolling Meadows for students on that end of the district. Please let your child’s teacher know on Monday if you would like to participate. We want to make sure we have enough food. All students will be welcome.

We have now been informed that we will return on the Tuesday, March 31! Sorry for the confusion, but the Governor has made two different statements. Due to this situation Spring Break will now be Friday March 20-March 27. April 6-13 will now be regular student attendance days.

IMPORTANT We have just received word from the Governor that we must close school from Tuesday, March 17 through Friday, March 27 returning on school at this time on Monday, March 30.The Governor office has stated this date may change. We are to remain posted for more information.

Rome Administration and Staff would like to congratulate Mrs. Anne Brands on her promotion as the Pre-K Special Education Coordinator for ROE 13. After serving our students for 18 years this is sad news for Rome, but a great opportunity for Ms. Anne. She will be starting her new role on March 9th with Ms. Tana taking over as the substitute for the remainder of the school year. Best of Luck to Ms. Anne!

Letter about Friday attached. Sorry about the confusion. The first page did not attach to the original post.

The 5Essentials Survey is open for all our Rome Parents and Guardians. The survey is designed to generate a detailed picture of the inner workings of our school. To take the survey, please use the following link: https://survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/ Thank you!

Rome Board of Education and Administration would like to announce that Mr. Stephen Phillips was approved as the new Superintendent at the regular board meeting last night effective July 1, 2020. He is coming from Mulberry Grove CUSD 1 and we are all excited about this choice.

Congratulations to our December Extraordinary Employee of the Month nominated by the Rome staff for her dedication to our students. Thank you Miss Michelle for all you do!

Congratulations to our November Extraordinary Employee of the Month nominated by the Rome staff for her hard work in the Library. Thank you Mrs. Simmons for all you do!

Rome Staff and administration would like to share our appreciation for the Rome Board of Education and their stellar governance on this School Board Members Day. Thank you Amanda McKee, Kelly Tinsley, Wes Schumm, Steve Down, John Burkett, Micheal Kroeschen, & Aaron Woodrome.

Congratulations to our October Extraordinary Employee of the Month, Mrs. Fults. She was nominated by her students for her fun, challenging, and respectful classroom. Thank you for all your hard work!

We're excited that the van came back today with our name on it. Great job T-Ham Signs. We love it!!

Congratulations to our first Extraordinary Employee of the Month - September, recognized by our Board of Education at our September Board Meeting. We are pleased to recognized Celeste Brumbaugh for her hard work each day making meals for our students and for her efforts to insure healthy and safe eating for ALL students.