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| 71 Mount Hebron Rd Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 Phone: 973-783-4535 |
| Watchung Cooperative Preschool |
| Where you can be part of your child's preschool experience |
School Policies Go ahead to: School Closing/Delayed Opening Policy
All of the Watchung Co-op's policies, practices, and answers to parents' frequently asked questions are included in the Parent Handbook. That document is distributed in the Fall to each Co-op family, or you can view a PDF version online by clicking here. For parents' convenience we have listed below two of the most frequently referenced policies, as well as our Emergency Evacuation policy.
Emergency Evacuation Information
If the Watchung Cooperative Preschool is forced to evacuate its building, its staff and co-oping parents will seek shelter for the children at Bradford Academy elementary school, located just west of the Watchung Co-op at 87 Mt. Hebron Road.
Ill Child Policy - When to Keep a Child Home
These are guidelines for when to keep a sick child home from school. This is reprinted from the Watchung Co-Op Parent Handbook.
Health – Illnesses, Contagious Diseases, Other Considerations
We strive to provide a school environment that is as safe and healthful as possible. However, such a goal depends upon understanding, cooperation, and communication between home and school. By conscientiously adhering to the health guidelines below, the spread of illness and infection can be significantly diminished.
On occasion, it may be necessary for a teacher to send a child home if the child’s condition warrants it; in this situation, the teacher would use the emergency contact information provided to contact a parent or other authorized person to pick the child up.
Child’s Illness
Please keep your child home if any of the following circumstances are present:
- first stages of a cold, accompanied by runny nose, persistent cough, or sneezing.
- fever (elevated oral temperature of 101.5 degrees F or over within the last 24 hours)
- rash or cold sore (within the last 24 hours)
- if you are waiting the results of a throat culture.
- severe pain or discomfort
- acute diarrhea, characterized as twice the child’s usual frequency of bowel movements with a change to a looser consistency within a period of 24 hours.
- two or more episodes of acute vomiting within a period of 24 hours
- sore throat or severe coughing
- yellow eyes or jaundiced skin
- red eyes with discharge
- infected, untreated skin patches
- difficult or rapid breathing
- skin rashes, excluding diaper rash, lasting for more than one day
- weeping/bleeding skin lesions not been treated by physician or nurse
- swollen joints
- visibly enlarged lymph nodes
- stiff neck
- blood in urine
Contagious Diseases
In accordance with State guidelines, contagious diseases that require a staff member or student to be excluded from school are:
- chicken pox
- German measles (rubella)
- flu
- measles
- meningococcal meningitis
- mumps
- typhoid
- tuberculosis
- whooping cough (pertussis)
- giardia lamblia
- hepatitis A
- salmonella
- shigella
- impetigo
- lice
- scabies
- pink eye (conjunctivitis)
- ringworm
- diphtheria
- small pox
- haemophilus influenza
- polio (poliomyelitis)
- strep throat(streptococcal infections)
- staphylococcal disease
It is important that you notify your child’s teacher when your child has contracted a contagious disease. (This is particularly true of German measles, so that pregnant mothers may be cautioned.) It shall further be the policy of the Watchung Co-op to notify, in writing, each parent whose child may have been exposed to a contagious disease if such an outbreak should occur at school.
Other Medical Conditions
The school should be informed of any ongoing medical condition concerning a student, e.g., orthopedic, allergies, asthma, etc.
Emotional Factors
Please tell the teacher when your child has had a difficult night or weekend, if there has been a death in the family, or of any other situation that may be upsetting to the child. The staff can be better able to help the child through their day.
School Closing/Delayed Opening Policy
Watchung Co-Op generally follows the Montclair Public Schools in regards to snow/emergency closings or delayed openings. Your class delegate will call you if school is closed. Please DO NOT call the teachers.
Other ways to determine if Montclair Public Schools are closed or delayed: In the event of an
emergency school closing, 5-second blasts of civil defense sirens with
5-second no-sound intervals between blasts will be heard at 6:30 am and again at 7:00 am
in Montclair.News of school closing or delayed opening will also be broadcast on WINS 1010 AM radio beginning at 6:00 am. Parents may also call the WOR Radio Station School Closing Hotline at 877-871-9208 or visit their website at www.wor710.com.
In the event of a delayed opening for the Montclair Public Schools, all of the Co-Op's morning classes will run from 10:00 am until noon, all afternoon classes will start at 12:30. On such days, the lunch program for Creative Play or Discovery students will be cancelled. Pre-K students will still have a lunch program on delayed opening days.
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