G. Kerkstra Elementary School Home

As always, we greatly appreciate your continued support and wanted to continue to reach out with important, specific information regarding the end of the first quarter, the beginning of second quarter, and a phase change to Phase 3 of the District 142 Reopening Plan.

Thank you to the entire Forest Ridge School District 142 community for your unwavering support as we started what has been the most challenging school year in recent memory. From the creation of our Return to Learn Reopening Plan, where we determined how to educate our students in the safest way possible while still adhering to the academic integrity of our work, to the implementation of putting our plan into practice, we have made informed decisions, necessary adjustments and could not have done any of this without our entire school community. We are seeing amazing academic and social emotional learning happening across the District, both with our In-Person Hybrid model and our Fully Remote learning plan.

Now that we have an entire month of In-Person Hybrid and Remote Learning successfully behind us, our team thought this would be a good time to reach out with an update. The success of our school year relies on the strong partnership between our schools and our families, together we are truly accomplishing extraordinary things!

We want to take this opportunity to remind families that our school district greatly values the wellbeing, mental health, and emotional wellbeing of our students. Mental health development starts at a young age. Our district is proud to utilize Second Step, an evidence-based PreK - 8 social emotional learning curriculum, to teach important age-appropriate coping skills and strategies to help build resiliency from a young age.