Dear Families,
Our hearts are broken for the Lewiston community and the State of Maine. We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and your loved ones.
MSAD 49 continues to follow recommendations from law enforcement. In the meantime, our staff met this morning to review our comprehensive plan for our return to school. When students return we will briefly and generally address the "sad event" that happened and reassure students there are many adults at school to keep them safe. We will not be discussing any information about this event. We plan to stick to familiar routines while supporting individual students, as needed.
We know students will be returning with varied levels of information about this event. We will stress students are not to talk about this event with other students. Individual students may request to speak privately with our guidance, nursing, or administrative staff. If your child knows about this event, please help them understand that we need to protect other students - especially our youngest children - from scary information. Please ask them to NOT talk about this event on the bus ride to school.
Our PTO has made the difficult decision to cancel our Trunk or Treat event for this year. We will use donated candy to create treat bags for all of our students. Tuesday is scheduled to be a schoolwide PJ day. We're looking forward to bringing our Benton Elementary community back together again soon.
Sincerely,
Your Benton Elementary Family