Dear Bulldog Families,

I hope that you and your family were able to spend some time outside this past weekend - playing, laughing, and observing nature. Trees and flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing, and children are hopefully able to take in a little more of the fresh air. As the daylight lasts longer, we sense the end of the school year approaching, and plans for the upcoming year are starting to unfold.

With our new year comes a renewed excitement and some familiar routines. We just hosted our Kindergarten Open House last Tuesday, and it was inspiring to return to that yearly ritual. If you have a student who will be joining us for kindergarten for the upcoming year, please be sure to enroll him/her - help us get the word out to your neighbors, too!

We are unsure of the continued impact of the Pandemic on our mitigation and increased health and safety measures, but we do know several important pieces of information about the 2021-2022 school year:

• A 2021-2022 draft calendar was introduced at the last Board meeting (see below). Please note that there are 4 eLearning Days built in for district professional development. The Board will vote on this calendar at the next meeting.
  
• Students will be attending school in-person Monday through Friday.
• We will be switching to an earlier start-time. The elementary day for students will be 7:40-2:10.

To assist us with planning, we are asking families to complete an Intent to Return form that will be sent via email on Wednesday (4/21). We appreciate you completing this information so we can have a good idea of the number of classes needed to meet our learning community's needs.

As always, thank you for partnering with us in education!

Sincerely,

Lori Mankin, Principal

This draft calendar can be accessed by using this link and selecting the April 14th meeting (View Agenda, Information Items).

We would like to thank those of you who provided input regarding the first book selection as well as the date and time for our first virtual, family book club. We are excited to announce that our first book will be I Am Every Good Thing. We will meet via Zoom on Thursday, April 29 at 6:00p.m. If you are interested in joining us, please complete the form below by this Thursday night (4/22), and we will get the book and more details to you. Several families expressed interest in reading Sulwe; that will be the title for our next book club.

May 3-7

Please help the PTO make the teachers and staff at New Britton feel appreciated during Teacher Appreciation week, May 3-7. You can sign up to "Sponsor a Teacher" using the Sign Up Genius link below. We will use this money to provide a lunch, small gift and other goodies during the week. We appreciate your support. If you have any questions, please contact me at gretchengonso@gmail.com

Sign Up Genius

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0D4BA4AF22A4F94-teacher2

As I have previously mentioned, several HSE Foundation grants were written and awarded first semester. Much of the student learning and work is occurring this 9 weeks. Below is a draft piece of writing that was spurred by our Nature Lab grant. This letter was not teacher-directed, rather, it was student-generated to inform our school audience of the work that is about to occur. The students are so excited about this work and sharing their progress with the NBE community is an essential part of the project, even before their writing has been taken through the complete publishing process. We will share more as the planning and work continue and as final pieces of writing have been developed. Some new outdoor developments (in a few areas) are coming soon!

Please join us for a Zoom PTO meeting tomorrow night!

Join Zoom Meeting

https://hseschools-org.zoom.us/j/97859334677?pwd=TU5OOFpqQm0xNUQxVml5aytTV1hKdz09

Meeting ID: 978 5933 4677

Passcode: Bulldogs

ILEARN is Indiana’s online computer-adaptive assessment designed to measure your child’s proficiency of the Indiana Academic Standards for Grades 3-4. ILEARN fulfills both state and federal accountability requirements and is Indiana’s summative accountability assessment. Students in Grade 3 will be assessed in Math and Reading while students in Grade 4 will be assessed in Math, Reading and Science. The ILEARN assessment is taken over multiple days in-person at school. Virtual students are encouraged to join their class in person, however, an option to test on Fridays will be communicated to virtual families next week.

Tools for Schools assists qualified families that live in Hamilton County with back packs, school supplies and other important school needs according to your children's supply list(s). We will also assist with new shoes, socks, and underwear. Kids Coats will provide a new book for every child. We also give fresh foods for the entire family!

https://mercifulhelpcenter.org/undie-sunday

An online reporting form has been added to the HSE Schools website [ COVID-19 Self-Reporting Form - Hamilton Southeastern Schools (hseschools.org) - also below ]. This tool was created as an additional reporting option to allow parents to alert a school(s) about their student’s COVID-related situation over breaks and during non-school hours. Please partner with us by sharing any Covid-related symptoms, quarantines, or positive results that occur over break. Thank you for your help with this important process.