Back to School HUB

Welcome to our Back to School HUB, your resource for all the important things you need to know to have a successful school year. We will be updating this page regularly to keep you informed so please visit often.

Upcoming Events

Aeries Parent Portal

At the beginning of every school year, parents are required to complete the data confirmation in the Aeries Parent Portal. Through your parent portal account, you will be able to review and update contact information and approve the annual authorizations. The parent portal will open for families on August 1, 2023. If you need help accessing the portal and completing the data confirmation process, please contact our main office at 530-895-2650.

DIRECTIONS FOR ACCESSING THE PARENT PORTAL

Open the Aeries Parent Portal HERE
After logging in you will see the following message on your screen:

Follow the "click here" link to begin your data confirmation. It's that EASY!
Parents with multiple children enrolled at CCDS, you will need to complete this process for each child. After the first data confirmation is complete, click on the "change student" tab along the top to switch to another student's account. Follow this same process for all students.

School Calendar

CLICK HERE to be directed to our 2023-23 school events calendar

Bell Schedule

Below is the bell schedule for the 2023-24 school year:

We are continuing with our early release Mondays. Every Monday, students in Tk/K - 3rd will be released at 1:30 pm, and students in 4th - 8th will be released at 1:45 pm.

The first morning bell rings at 8:25 am, and students need to be in their classrooms/attendance lines by the 8:30 am bell.

Drop Off/Pick Up Procedures

Students may arrive on campus as early as 7:45 am. Please do not drop your students off any earlier. All students - including middle school students - must go to the elementary campus in the morning; students are not permitted to wait outside the elementary school gates. Middle school students may not wait in the middle school. The only exception to this is if they have pre-arranged to meet with a teacher before school starts.
Students and parents are expected to utilize our crosswalks. We will have staff assisting with crossing duty at our crosswalks for both drop off and pick up times.
Our loading/unloading zones are along W 11th Street and Broadway Street. Do not leave your vehicle unattended along the loading/unloading curbs. It's helpful to have your children gather their belongings together before they exit from your car to keep traffic flowing smoothly.
If you need to park to walk your child onto campus or meet them at pick up, you can find a parking space along the neighborhood streets. Please respect our neighbors and refrain from blocking, or turning in, their driveways.
For school dismissal, all students are walked by teachers to the loading/unloading curb for parent pick-up. After 10 minutes, students who have not been picked up yet are "swept" from the curb into the main office, where we will attempt to contact parents. Every attempt to contact parents will be made, but any students remaining 15 minutes after the bell rings may be checked into ASP and you will be charged for ASP services. Please contact the office if you are running late due to an extenuating circumstance.

Lunch Program

Good news: ALL STUDENTS qualify to receive free school meals this year. The menu for Fall 2023 is available on our Lunch Program page.

Please take a few minutes of your time to complete the critically important Free & Reduced Meal Application available on our Lunch Program page. Why does this matter when everyone gets a free meal? These completed applications determine the amount of federal funding we receive. If only a few families complete it, our student's needs are not accurately represented and we miss out on critical funding. If every family completes this form - regardless of need - our school will get the funding it needs to support our students. It's a pretty big deal! Visit our Lunch Program page to learn more.

School Supply Lists

As the new school year approaches, individual teachers will often send out communication to their families with information on specific supplies needed for their classroom. Another way to support your teacher's classroom needs is to check out their Amazon Wish List. These can be found on our staff directory page - just click on a teacher to learn more about them and access their wish list link. If your teacher doesn't have a wish list linked yet, check back soon!

Attendance Procedures

If your student needs to miss school, please call or email the appropriate office as soon as possible to let us know. If you do not call by 10:30 am on the day of your child's absence, you will receive an automated text/email/phone call from Aeries Communication (ParentSquare). Parents/guardians have three days to report an absence to the school, after which the unexcused absence becomes a truancy.

TK/K-5th Grade Students
sferguson@chicocountryday.org
895-2650 ext 868

Middle School Students (6th-8th grade)
jbeauchane@chicocountryday.org
895-2650 ext. 865

After School Program (ASP)

If you are interested in using our after-school services, please review the ASP Handbook and download and complete the grade-appropriate contract below (below). Complete contracts can be emailed to sferguson@chicocountryday.org or delivered to the main office. Hard copies of these forms are also available in the main office. Check out our ASP webpage for more details on the program.

2022-23 ASP Handbook - coming soon!

2023-24 TK Contract

2023-24 Kindercare Contract

2023-24 1st-8th Grade Contract

Required Forms

Please check back often as we are continuing to update our forms for the new school year

Athletic Waiver - required for your student's participation in our sports programs
Sports Release - required for your student's participation in our sports programs
Volunteer Forms - please visit our Volunteer page for details on our volunteer process
Medication Authorization Form - required annually if we need to store/administer medications for your student
Free & Reduced Meal Forms - English and Spanish
2023-24 Student Family Handbook

School Communication

ParentSquare

ParentSquare is a web and app-based program that we use to quickly and easily communicate with all families at CCDS. This is the primary way the school and your individual teachers will communicate with you. ParentSquare (also referred to as Aeries Communications) provides a free and secure way for families to:

receive school newsletters and teacher updates
receive forms, files and pictures from teachers
get attendance alerts
get urgent updates/safety text alerts
sign up for conferences
and much more...all in one centralized place

Our goal is to make sure every household has at least one parent/guardian as a registered user of ParentSquare. It’s the best way to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

New families are automatically enrolled in ParentSquare, and you’ll begin receiving communication from the school and your teacher(s) around late July/early August. There are a couple important steps you should take to make things easier on your end:

Activate your account: Around late July/early August you will receive an email and/or a text message from ParentSquare inviting you to activate your account. The process is quick - just follow the prompts and you’ll be set!
Download the app: While the ParentSquare app is not necessary, it is highly recommended to keep school communication easily accessible. The app is free for both iOS and Android:

Once you activate your account you’ll be able to set your account preferences under the My Account tab. Here’s where you can set your language and notification preferences.

This Getting Started video and help page is a great place to get acquainted with ParentSquare: https://parentsquare.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203414049-Getting-Started-

Your contact for any ParentSquare questions is Irene Henkens. Please reach out with any questions at ihenkens@chicocountryday.org.

Newsletters

Miss a newsletter, miss a lot! The CCDS Weekly News will be sent to families every Monday via ParentSquare. This digital newsletter will provide all the information you need to stay in-the-know at CCDS. Current and past newsletters can be accessed in your ParentSquare account, but you can also find them in our newsletter archive HERE.

Social Media

Our social media channels are another great way to stay informed on all things CCDS, and they're a fun way to see what our students are up to! Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.