Ridgeway Community School District 4083

Due to the blowing and drifting snow and poor driving conditions, Ridgeway Community School will have a delayed start on Wednesday, December 10th.
This means the following changes will take place:
* K-5 School: will start at 9:45 a.m. and dismiss at the regular 2:15 p.m. dismissal time.
• Preschool: We start preschool at 8:45 a.m.
• Transportation: Buses will pick students up two hours after their regular pickup time.
• Morning Childcare: Childcare will be offered from 6:30 a.m. until school starts. Families will be charged for childcare until 9:00 a.m. at the regular after-school care rates.
• School Breakfast: A simple breakfast of Pop-Tarts, or a muffin, milk, and juice will be served from 7:00 to 7:45 a.m.

Ridgeway's parent support organization, RPAC, hosted a wonderful Family Fun Night on Friday evening. They provided STEM activities and popcorn, while families enjoyed playing games and visiting with Santa Claus, who stopped by to listen to students' Christmas wishes and share some treats. Thanks to everyone who helped make this event a success! Happy Holidays to all of our families and friends!

Ridgeway Community Veterans Day Program

Monday, Nov. 10th from 10 AM to 12 Noon

Ridgeway Community School is holding its annual Veterans Recognition Program the day before Veterans Day to accommodate the schedules of some of our guest presenters.  This year we will begin the event with a program at 10:30 a.m., which will be followed by a luncheon at 11:30 a.m.  The program will include a song by our kindergarten to 5th grade students, some readings on the history of Veterans Day by our 5th grade students, and a presentation by several veteran community members who recently participated in the Freedom Honor Flight to Washington, D.C..  The luncheon will follow the program and will include a Stinson Ham and Scalloped Potato Meal and Apple Crisp Dessert. The meal will be free for veterans and active duty military members and will cost $5.50 for all other guests.  Community members are welcome to attend this event to show their appreciation for veterans from our community.  Registration for the meal needs to be made by Thursday, November 6th.  To place a meal reservation you can either return the paper form to the school office, call (507-454-9566) or email the school office (office@ridgewayschool.org), or fill out the online registration form:  2025 Ridgeway Veterans Program Luncheon Reservation form.

As we celebrate our 25th year of operation as a FREE public charter school, we will share photos of Ridgeway Community School activities from years past. To get folks in the mood for our annual Ridgeway Community Halloween Party coming up on Saturday, October 25th, from 1 to 3 PM, we want to share some photos of our 2005 Community Halloween Party. Please feel free to shout out to those students you know. We wish to acknowledge that Mrs. Sobeck is still inspiring artists here at Ridgeway Community School, 20 years after these photos were taken! Way to go, Mrs. Sobeck!

Ridgeway's preschool to 5th-grade students have been participating in fire safety lessons this month. The students practiced evacuation to the Ridgeway Fire Hall and participated in fire safety lessons led by Ridgeway Fire Chief Wade Schossow and Asst. Chief Rodney Merchlewitz. The preschoolers even got a chance to sit in one of the fire trucks! Thanks to the Ridgeway Fire Department for keeping our community safe!

Ridgeway Community School hosted our 25th annual Grandparents and Special Persons Day event on Friday, October 10th. Our Kindergarten to 5th-grade students and guests enjoyed a variety of activities inside the classroom and assisted with a cider pressing activity in our outdoor classroom. The afternoon wrapped up with the students singing some songs for our guests, and some fun stories and songs performed by Sandbar storyteller Don White. We want to send a big shout-out to the three educators of Ridgeway who are also grandparents of Ridgeway students: Mrs. Groth, Mrs. Sobeck, and Mrs. Johnson! We also wish to thank Annabel and Colt Larson's grandparents, Brian and Laurie Longhenry, for sharing their cider pressing skills with us! Finally, we appreciate all the grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and family friends who took time out of their busy schedules to spend the afternoon with our students! As you can see by the smiles on their faces, it means the world to them!

The Ridgeway Blue Jays are off to a great start over the past month as we begin our 25th year as a FREE public charter school. We have a number of other Ridgeway Community School milestones to celebrate this year:

• Mrs. Johnson's youngest grandchild is a 5th grader this year, which will be the final year of the 17 year Ewing - Buxengard family reign.

• We hired our first former student as a teacher when we welcomed Caroline (Anderson) Provost as our new Kindergarten teacher for this school year.

• Mrs. Provost's kindergarten class includes two children of former Ridgeway Community School students, and it just so happens that both sets of parents got married on the exact same blustery day in June.

• One of those two students is also the eldest grandchild of our art teacher, Mrs. Sobeck, which now means that we have five staff members who are grandparents of current or former Ridgeway Community School students.

• We also have a record number of staff members, six to be exact, who either attended Ridgeway Community School or our predecessor Ridgeway Elementary School, or the one room country schools that consolidated into the Ridgeway Elementary School District.

  Finally, we want to say that we are grateful for our community who has done so much to support our school over our first quarter of a century. Stay tuned to Ridgeway's Facebook and Instagram pages to see how our community of learners engage in a busy year of work and play.