It has come to my attention that someone within the school has been sending emails to students from a hotmail address using other people’s names. We believe this is occurring outside of school grounds as all MSN/Hotmail/G-mail/Yahoo addresses have been blocked from within the school. This is Internet Fraud. The situation is being investigated, but in the meantime, I would like to assure all families that any communications that are genuinely from staff members will be sent from their Panamerican addresses (For example,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
). Also, as there have been cases of students having emails sent in their names to staff as well, all student-teacher communication will now need to be performed via phone or face-to-face meeting until further notice.
In accordance with the Brazilian Minister of Health, if flu symptoms exist within any member of the family, then all members of the family must remain away from school during the period of transmission (7-10 days for teenagers and adults and 14 days for children under 12 years of age) regardless of whether a person has traveled to infected areas within or outside Brazil.
It is with great happiness that I welcome each of you back to our new school year. I hope that everybody enjoyed a well deserved break and that now everybody is ready to continue where we left off on July 03rd. With each new school year, we have the opportunity to begin anew by correcting past shortcomings, to reflect on our successes and plan for additional growth as we continue to build the ideal school for all of our children. I am certain that the 2009-2010 school year will see The Pan American School reach its vision of being the leading educational provider in Porto Alegre. Working together, we can achieve this vision and much more.
This note is to inform you that classes will resume on Monday, August 17. We are currently writing up the final recommendations that were shared at today’s SINEPE meeting. They are being translating into English and Portuguese. All H1N1 flu recommendations will be included in this week’s Newsweek article along with other important information for the entire PAS community.
This message is to notify you that after analyzing all available information related to the H1N1 virus and discussing this information with the Board, the unions, and local experts, we have decided to postpone the beginning of classes until August 17th. While we are aware that not everybody will be in agreement with this decision, we feel it is important to be more conservative than liberal in our decisions when it comes to safeguarding the health and welfare of our children.
Many of us are hearing information regarding the H1N1 virus also known as swine flu/Influenza A epidemic that is occurring . The public Health Services (Secretaria Municipal de Saude do RS), led by the Health Department of Brazil, (Ministério da Saúde), have been monitoring the situation and continue to observe this epidemic very closely. Here at school, we have also spoken to many doctors in the city and have been monitoring information published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It is important for us to have accurate information from reliable sources and not to listen to “gossip” that is spread from person to person.
