News for the Weeks of November 23 & November 30, 2020

Our staff and students were treated to a delicious traditional Thanksgiving feast last Thursday. Thank you to Mrs. Punches and her crew for preparing and serving this special meal. While we certainly missed the energy and community feeling that our parent volunteers provide, as well as hearing our Kindergartners sing "Super Turkey", our staff and students enjoyed celebrating this time of year with classmates in the safe comfort of our rooms. 

On behalf of the entire Brown School staff, we wish all of our families a Happy Thanksgiving. Please know how grateful we are for all of you and your children. 

Please note that this is a two week edition of Brown School News. A new post will be shared on December 6th. Pictures of our Positivity Project launch will be shared on the Brown PTO Facebook page this week. If you are not yet a member, please request to join this closed group.  

This Week at Brown School... 

Scholastic Virtual Book Fair continues - ends 11/25

11/23  Positivity Project (P2) launches @ Brown! 

Positivity Project t-shirts distributed today! Thank you PTO!

11/24  Report cards go home today - please sign the back of the envelope and return it next week

11/25 - 11/27   Thanksgiving Break - NO SCHOOL

11/27   Virtual Holiday Shoppe begins (see details in PTO Corner below)

Coming Up...

11/30  P2 Character Strength: Kindness

12/2    Late start day (9:45 a.m. arrival)

12/4     Popcorn Friday!

12/7     Virtual Holiday Shoppe closes today

            Board of Education Meeting @ SJHS 6:00 p.m.

12/9     Late start day (9:45 a.m. arrival)

12/16    Late start day (9:45 a.m. arrival)

12/18     Winter break begins at the end of the school day

12/21 - 1/1    Winter break - No School

Thank you to our generous school community for your  donations in support of our annual Stuff-a-Truck food drive. Our boxes were overflowing with over 525 items that will warm the hearts and bodies of our neighbors. We appreciate you!

We will officially begin our Positivity Project (P2) partnership on Monday! We are so delighted to join over 560 schools across the nation who have made the commitment to empower our youth by explicitly teaching and discussing the 24 character strengths during daily class meetings. The family letter linked here will explain more about this partnership. Thank you for taking a look. 

We will launch this initiative Monday with the character strength "gratitude".  Speaking of gratitude, we would like to thank our supportive PTO for purchasing t-shirts for all of our face-to-face and virtual staff and students to celebrate the character strengths that we will all learn and exercise this year. You are all so generous!

On Monday, your child will be provided a shirt that he/she will wear to celebrate the school-wide launch. When your child wears it home, it is your to keep. A plan is being developed to get virtual students their t-shirts soon. We will publish dates for P2 Fridays (similar to Bear Wear Fridays) throughout the year. Please plan to have your child wear his/her P2 shirts on these days. 

Want to use P2 resources at home with your child(ren)?  Click here to access their family site complete with videos and character cards related to each week's character strength. The password is "P2". 

Please click here to learn more about the community impact of this project. 

1:1 Initiative Kicks Off Successfully!

We are delighted to have our 1:1 devices for all of our K-5 students! Thank you for you help to ensure student Chromebooks are charged nightly and returned to school each day in the school-issued sleeve. As a reminder, chargers should be kept at home. You can access the family letter and video from our Director of Instructional Technology, Amy Dirlam, by clicking here.

A site was created to answer many questions related to this initiative, please click here to access our SJPS Student/Parent Digital Handbook.

PTO Corner

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Announcements

• Thank you for joining us at our virtual PTO meeting on the 17th at 7pm! We were excited to be able to provide the funds for the Positivity Project t-shirts for every student (in person and virtual) and staff member. 

• We will be hosting our annual Holiday Shoppe this year from November 27 - December 7 for our students to purchase gifts. See the information posted below for more details:

• Attention all virtual students! We would love to see what you have been learning in your virtual classrooms! Please continue to 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!

 

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.

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Save the date for these upcoming virtual PTO meetings:

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

Mrs. Schueneman's Class

Kindergarten 

Mrs. Hooker's Class

Miss Barkovich's Class

First Grade

Ms. Harmening's Class

Mrs. Brown's Class

Ms. Barron's Class

Second Grade 

Miss Grimm's Class

Ms. Zelenock's Class

Third Grade

Mrs. DeVore's Class

Mrs. Lear's Class

Mrs. Nowicki's Blog

Fourth Grade

Mrs. Hassenger's Class

Mr. Hernandez's Class

Fifth Grade

Mr. Lignell's Class

Mrs. Lokey's Class

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/

Thank you for continuing to adhere to our daily screening guide posted on our district's website before sending your child to school. It is imperative that we work together to safe safe so that we can stay in school. 

Check out the positive messages and celebration of our community on the St. Joseph Public Schools Foundation blog.

 Click here to enjoy!  

Looking for fall activities to enroll your child in? 

Check out local offerings by visiting our 

Community Corkboard.

It is the policy of the St. Joseph Public School District that no person shall, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, disability, height, weight, or marital status be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to, discrimination during any program, activity, service or in employment.