Norup Principal Weekly Newsletter
August 15, 2022
I hope you are all continuing to enjoy your summer time. School starts in two weeks and we are working to be ready for you. We have had a string of late enrollments and will be very close to 700 students once again. This is a healthy number and very positive for our future outlooks as well.
This summer has been very busy and I haven't really been around at all. For most of July I was not in the metro Detroit area. We decided to take a nearly two week trip on a boat on the Canadian side of Lake Huron in late July and a week long trip up north in early July. The boat trip was a really great trip and we stayed in some very quaint and beautiful lakeside towns throughout our trip (Kincardine, Port Elgin, Tobermory, Goderich, Bayfield). For what little time I was around, I spent that time in my Detroit neighborhood down by the river. I've lived there for just over a year now and still really love it.
This week we will have some hours open for any parents/students who want to see where their classrooms are, test out lockers, and just get a feel for the building. Please check the schedule below. I do want to emphasize that any teacher in their room with their door closed is strictly to be left alone as they are politely telling you they need that time to prepare for the first day of school.
PARENT VOLUNTEERS - we are looking for a few parent volunteers to help with picture day. We could use 1-2 parents per session listed below. Let me know if you would like to help out!
Have a great week this week and enjoy this much milder weather! Thank you for choosing Norup and we will see you soon.
WEEKLY CALENDAR
Monday August 15
Summer Office Hours (8:30-3:00)
Tuesday August 16
Summer Office Hours (8:30-3:00)
10:30 Paul to BHS for middle school athletics meeting
Wednesday August 17
8:30 AM Paul to district principals meeting
2 - 6 PM - Building open to parents/students. No office services available
Thursday August 18
8:30-4:00 Paul & Kaitlin to meetings all day
Friday August 19
Building open to families/students 9 AM - 3 PM. No office services available
Middle School Picture Day (Ordering instructions under flyers section)
- 8th grade - 9-10:30 AM
- 7th grade -12-1:30 PM
- 6th grade -1:30-3 PM
Future Dates to be aware of:
8/29 Students' First Full Day (1/2 day Kindergarten)
8/30 PYP Picture Day & Middle School Make-Ups (1/2 day Kindergarten)
8/31 K/1 Curriculum Night - 6:30 PM
9/2-9/5 District Closed
9/7 2nd/3rd Curriculum Night - 6:30 PM
9/8 4th/5th Curriculum Night - 6:30 PM
9/8 Scotland Trip meeting - media center
9/21 Middle School Curriculum Night - 6 PM
HELPFUL LINKS AND FLYERS
- Norup Middle School Picture Day ordering instructions - See attachment below
- Free and Reduced Lunch Form - See attachment below
- Kindergarten 1st day morning coffee and donuts - See attachment below
- Kindergarten Play Dates - see attachment below
- Elementary Summer Reading Challenge
- Middle School Summer Reading
- Video - How to open a combination lock - very helpful for middle school students who may not know.
- Middle School Sports Physical Form
NEWEST NEWS
For those families who would like to come in and see the building, find classrooms, and test lockers, we are offering the following days and hours:
- Wednesday 8/17 2-6 PM. Secretaries are not available, admin may or may not be.
- Friday 8/19 9 AM - 3 PM. Office personnel not available as they will be managing picture day.
- Thursday 8/25 3:30-6:30 PM. Limited office services available
- Friday 8/26 8:30 AM - 3 PM. Office services available
- Sunday 8/28 - hours TBD.
For families/students dropping in to visit, we will have a table in the front hall for locker issues or anything else you need someone to contact you about. Simply write your contact information and what you'd like to discuss or what the locker issue is and we will contact you back.
Teachers may be in the building during this time. If their door is closed, that means they are saying respectfully that they need this time to get their rooms ready and they are not to be disturbed. If this becomes a problem, we will close the building.
Personnel Updates - attention all
We have made some recent hires but also had two unexpected departures today. That's the nature of the school job market.
Newly hired:
* Ericka Rogers - middle school paraprofessional
* Jessica Minor - elementary paraprofessional
* Belinda Shaw - elementary paraprofessional
* Amanda Rogers - 7th grade girls basketball coach
Departures:
* Office secretary Rachel Bayer will be leaving us on 8/30 as she got an offer in the private sector she could not turn down. We are hoping to be ready to go with a new hire ASAP.
* Categorical special education teacher Amanda Glappa will not be returning this year. She was recruited back to her previous district. We have her position posted and also hope to have someone in place when the students arrive.
Middle School Schedules/Lockers - attention middle school families
Schedules are pretty set now in MISTAR for 99% of students. Answering a few questions that are being repeated:
* Visual Arts 6 is now a 10 week class and will be part of most 6th graders schedules. We dropped Health 6 as the science classes teach the health units with the new district health curriculum.
* We unfortunately had to offer Advanced Art 8 and Choir 8 the same period. This affected 4-5 students.
With regard to lockers, students who are returning in 7th and 8th grade keep their same locker. 6th graders and students new to Norup - your locker information (number, combination) should be viewable in MISTAR by Wednesday morning this week.
Norup Food Services 2022-23 - attention all
School meals are no longer free this year. Here are the prices from food services:
Breakfast is $1.50 per; 30 cents if a student qualifies for reduced
Elementary Lunch is $3.00 per, 40 cents if a student qualifies for reduced
Middle School Lunch is $3.25, 40 cents if a student qualifies for reduced
For those families who want to file for free/reduced lunch, the form is attached in the above flyers section.
We have placed timers on all the vending machines to only vend during lunch and before/after school.
Lastly, we are continuing to ban all individual food deliveries from Norup (GrubHub, UberEats, DoorDash, etc.) for school safety reasons. We do not need additional unassociated adults at the building.
Middle School athletics - attention middle school parents
You can see I have a meeting on Tuesday this week to get everything finalized for the fall. Later this week I will update the athletics website for Norup. Here are our offerings for this fall:
* 7th and 8th grade football combined with Anderson
* Cross Country all grades combined with Anderson
* Girls Tennis combined with Anderson
* Girls Basketball
REPEATED NEWS
Middle School Student Devices - attention 7th and 8th grade
All 7th and 8th graders will be getting new laptops to swap out with their old ones on the first day of school. Students need to bring their laptops from last year to get the new ones.
6th graders will also be getting new devices - they did not have them as 5th graders so no need to bring old ones.
Elementary Curriculum Nights - attention elementary parents
Curriculum night dates are listed above. We are going with a different format this year to make it a more welcoming and community building event. Staff members will be pre-recording their presentations and sending them out in advance. The curriculum night in person will be a FREE dinner provided by Norup and then Q&A with the teachers based on the curriculum night videos. We hope it is a chance for parents to get to know each other as well.