4-3-20 NL
North Branch News – May 22, 2020
Upcoming School Events:
Monday, May 25: Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL
Friday, May 29: Last Day of School
Week of June 1-5 Closing Conversations with teachers
Closing Conversations (Early Primary-Middle School): Please watch your email, on 5/27, for communication from your child’s teacher for a request to set up a “Closing Conversation” with you. We are missing our face-to-face communication with you and want to end the year with this informal chat. The email from Autum will include a link to each teacher’s Signup Genius schedule for these conversations. The office will not have access to the signups or the ability to change time slots. In addition to these Closing Conversations, families will also receive end-of-year Student Evaluations with notes about academic progress and any suggestions for summer and next year.
Please be on the lookout for communication from your homeroom teacher on how items still at school will be returned to you. We are hopeful to have the NBS yearbook tucked in these bags. Thank you to everyone who has shared pictures and stories with teachers and staff over the last 2 ½ months of distance learning for us to include in this year’s yearbook.
Many thanks to the 74% of NBS families who have donated to the Annual Fund so far during the 2019-2020 school year. For many years in a row, we have reached the 100% mark, but this year is different in so very many ways. Donations of any size to the Annual Fund are still gratefully accepted and very much needed. If this just slipped your mind without the usual spring reminders, please send a check to 221 Mickens Road, Afton, VA 22920 or donate via PayPal (PayPal account not needed) at https://north-branch-school.org/fundraising/ Not sure if you gave or not? You can reach Bonnie at giving@nbsva.org or 434-989-2447. If you are not in a position to contribute at this time, we understand!
Honoring our graduating students: We have one way for everyone to help honor our 2020 grads: contribute to a video wishing the group congratulations by clicking on this link – https://app.vidhug.com/celebrating-nbss-2020-graduates/rJQkt5WqL/record. Please do this this weekend! We will give the grads this gift on the last day of school. Our second celebration will be a small one; on June 12, the graduates, their immediate families, and their Middle School teachers will celebrate at NBS so that the grads can receive their Jefferson Cups and have their say. We won’t be holding hands or singing, but you might hear “Pomp and Circumstance” on a single recorder. We can’t open this to the whole community, but we will videotape parts of it and put it on the website.
Look for NBS on NBC29 on Friday evening! You’ll see a feature story about our partnership with Hospice of the Piedmont. Click here to learn more about the project: https://north-branch-school.org/2020/05/nbs-students-create-art-for-senior-citizens/
Plans for the 2020-21 school year:
Smith and the Board are very busy thinking about how and when to open school back up. We very much want to be back at school, and we want everyone to be safe. After the Board has received and considered the state guidelines for reopening schools, they will convey our plans for reopening to our families. As part of this process, as soon as the amount available for distribution is finalized, the scholarship committee will be in touch with those who have requested financial assistance due to economic repercussions from the pandemic. There is still time to apply for tuition assistance for 2020-2021 due to financial hardship from the impact of COVID-19 restrictions by contacting NBS Business Manager, Philippa Proulx at proulx@cfw.com. Summer board meeting dates will be shared once guidance from the state has been received and after the board has been able to formalize education plans for the 2020-21 school year.
