A checklist for Ladue school parents and guardians
Buy school supplies;
Meet the teacher / community night (bring school supplies if applicable): mainly say hi to teachers and staff, and for the kids to learn where are the classrooms etc. on 1st day;
Adjust kids sleep routine: from summer (no school or no camp) schedule to school schedule, may take a few days or a week;
Adjust grownup routine: from watching kids + work (or the other way), to do more work and maybe some self care (workout, social etc);
Some apps or emails that are likely relevant:
Parent Square (district and schools to parents communication), iOS, Android. Note PS has website too. But app is a bit more handier and performant. Last but not least please take a look at the notifications customization as well (especially the text messages).
MySchoolBucks (lunch money). From this school year (2022 to 2023) on the free lunch money from the government ran out. There is still the reduced fare lunch and so on, please contact the school as applicable. Note to add money to the meal account, we can do it via credit card (CC) on its website (it seems to me we cannot add money via the mobile app), or via check to school district (which I have not done it, please ask each school administrator as needed). Note MySchoolBucks (heartland payment co.) charges a credit card transaction fee.
Email Ladue Schools e-Connect Newsletter (usually weekly) and the paper Newsletter (usually monthly): district wide information such as lunch or construction, or strategic plan. The content is created by the district Communications Office.
SafeStop (instructions here, note this PDF has the code for the district, the one at the school bus website doesn’t): bus tracking, not the best or most reliable app in the world, but considering constructions in some schools the bus may still be the better choice for many families (maybe on one of those days, I can brush up my mobile app dev skills and create a better app 🙂 Btw, the bus information is here. Last but not least, it seems we only need to put in the code once for one device. || A side note, it seems there is delay of tracking the kids moved up in schools (for example, from elementary to FGC), it’s possible we need an manual update in the backend in terms of kid’s school information. || Another way to track kids, especially younger kids, is to use airtag. It seems it’s working because the main thing it needs is other nearby device’s bluetooth capability. Without today’s popularity of smartphone in the school and in the bus, I think it works most of the time.
Last but not least, for Spoede families, the portal of SSA (Spoede School Association) moved to here. The underlying software is used for the LMSPA website we well.