This Week at Brown School
Virtual Scholastic Book Fair continues (through 11/25)
11/16-11/20 Stuff a Truck Food Drive @ Brown
11/17 Virtual PTO Meeting @ 7 p.m. (join us by clicking on this link)
11/18 Late Start Day (arrival at 9:45 a.m.)
11/19 Special Thanksgiving lunch in classrooms today!
11/20 Half-day of school- 12:34 p.m. dismissal (end of the first trimester)
Coming Up...
11/23 Positivity Project launches @ Brown!
This week's character strength: gratitude
11/25 Report cards sent home with students
11/25 - 11/27 Thanksgiving Break - NO SCHOOL
The Scholastic Virtual Book Fair is happening now! Please click here to learn all about it and click here to order directly.
Our Brown School Media Center receives a portion of the profits that go right back to purchasing new books for our students. Thank you for ordering!
This past week, we celebrated World Kindness Day at Brown School.
Check out the celebration confetti shared throughout our school in the photos below.
Stuff a Truck Food Drive
November 16 - 20, 2020
CLICK HERE TO VIEW OUR COMMERCIAL
Brown School is proud to give back to the larger Berrien County community by collecting non-perishable (canned goods, boxed dinner/pasta) food items November 16-20. If you are able, simply pick up an item (or more) at the grocery store, and send it to school with your student to be donated. There will be a donation in the Brown School vestibule if SJVS students would also like to donate. We collect now because there is a greater need for food around the holidays. Thanks for spreading kindness and positivity!
This event is sponsored by 97.5 Y Country and Rogers. Items are donated to the Southwest Michigan Action Agency.
Thanksgiving Lunch
We may not be able to provide our students with the same experience that they have had in years past by providing a Lory’s Place group within the school, but there are some exciting opportunities happening for our students and families who would benefit from support through Lory’s Place!
The purpose of Lory’s Place is to provide grief support services for grieving children, adults and families. Typically they partner with our schools to provide group grief support, but this will look a little different this year. If you have a student who has experienced the loss of a loved one(s) and needs some support working through her/his grief, please contact our school social worker, Bri Van Hekken (bvanhekken@sjschools.org or 269-926-3520) for more information or feel free to reach out to Lory’s Place (269-983-2707) to learn about opportunities for support.
Learn all about Lory's Place here.
St. Joseph Public Schools is hiring!
Upton Middle School is in search of lunchroom supervisor. Please see the details below:
PTO Corner
Announcements
Please join us at our virtual PTO meeting on the 17th at 7pm! Here's the link: meet.google.com/yrm-csmi-acj
We will be hosting our annual Holiday Shoppe this year for our students to purchase gifts. Look for more information for this online event in next week's blog!
Attention all virtual students! We would love to see what you have been learning in your virtual classrooms! Please share your pictures with us on our Facebook page in the Brown Bears Virtual Learning album!
Due to the virtual nature of the fall Book Fair, we won’t be using volunteers. Thank you to all who expressed interest in helping. These events (when in-person) cannot happen without volunteers!
Changes to the PTO bylaws to support virtual meetings, new committees, and the process of changing bylaws will be presented at the November PTO meeting, followed with a vote at the February PTO meeting.
Reminders
Please download the Box Tops for Education app by visiting https://www.boxtops4education.com/.
Box Tops receipts for delivery services, such as Shipt, now work with the digital Box Top collection. For more information, visit https://boxtopsforeducation.knowledgeowl.com/help/electronic-receipts
Upcoming Volunteer Needs
Volunteering will look very different this year, but please let us know events you are interested in by filling out the form at http://bit.ly/VolunteerAtBrown. You will be contacted by the committee with specific needs at the appropriate time. Please note that some positions may not be utilized this year.
We have a number of committees that need chair or co-chair positions filled. If you are interested in any of these, please fill out the volunteer form or contact Kristen Bawks or any PTO board member. We will provide as much assistance or information as possible to get new committee chairs started:
Credit Union - work with Honor Credit Union to schedule and assist with the student credit union. If we don’t implement the CU this year, the ground work could be established for next year.
Mileage Club Chair(s) - similar to our old walkathon format. This will be a larger scale event without the fundraising component. Co-chair positions are welcome, and we have a few experienced members to help get you started. This event will not happen this fall and spring is to be determined, but we would still like to form the committee.
Save the date for these upcoming virtual PTO meetings:
November 17 @7pm
January 19 @12pm
February 16 @7pm
March 16 @12pm
April 20 @7pm
May 18 @12pm
Classroom Blogs
Our Brown School classroom teachers have important information to share with families. Please click on your child's class below to view weekly updates.
ECDD
Mrs. Rank and Mrs. LeClear's Class
Young Fives
Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade
St. Joseph Virtual School 's blog is now available!
SJVS Families, click here to access content from Mr. Pratley. Be sure to bookmark the link: https://stjoevirtualschool.blogspot.com/
