As we watch the alarming rise of local cases, I want to continue to emphasize the importance of everyone following all of the COVID protocols, especially our requirement that you keep everybody home in the case of a potential exposure or a sick individual in the household. This includes even minor sniffles. 

Our goal is very much to remain open for in-person learning, but if there are too many cases in our community (even if they don’t reach our campus), we may have to go remote for a period of time. We prefer to be here with your children. For that reason, I’m imploring you all to be extra diligent over the next few weeks about masking, spacing, hand-washing, and avoiding gatherings.

Students will begin computer-based standardized testing this week. Please help them understand that this should not be stressful and will not have direct results that affect them. It is simply one tool Riverside uses to understand what students know and can do, and the results can help us to be better teachers and to target needs and goals for some individual students. Encouraging them to focus and to do their best will help us get the most accurate results.

We hope you are “Spring Cleaning” your attics, basements, cupboards and closets to donate items to our Spring Yard Sale. Here is some guidance for donations:

It would be immensely helpful to our sorting and set-up volunteers if you could pre-sort your donations into the categories above before you pack them into your car or truck. Volunteers will be at Riverside to help you unload and sort donations on the following dates:

In anticipation of a successful Yard Sale (this is an important fundraiser for our little school), we hope that you will volunteer to work a shift for the event:

Thank you in advance for any help you can give. You can sign up to volunteer here.

We also need the following items for the sale; please let Nelia know if you can donate or lend any of the following (please label items with your name if you’d like your items returned to you):

The organizational committee will be meeting this evening, March 30 at 8:00 pm via GoogleMeet. Anyone who's interested in helping is welcome to attend. https://meet.google.com/muv-rnmz-coj or call 802-277-0845. 

If you have ANY questions about what to donate and when to drop off, you can contact Arcelie Reyes (preschooler Cassius, 3rd grader Phoenix, 6th grader Kingston) or Fiona Shackleton (8th grader Trixie).

Personalized order packets have arrived and are going home with students today! This fundraiser, organized by our art teacher Suzanne and parent Nicki Reimert (7th graders Camryn and Lydia) will help parents meet their fundraising goal of $25,000 for this year. The stickers are yours to keep! Orders can be submitted via the paper order forms or online. All orders are due no later than April 7th. Products will arrive by the end of April. All online and paper orders will ship to the school and will be sent home with your students. If you have any questions, please email Nicki Reimert.

Thursday, April 1st at 4:30 PM, Riverside’s Latin club will be hosting and competing in an academic competition, called a certamen (pronounced ker-táh-men). This event will have teams from VT, NH, DC, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Spectators are welcome and may tune into this link at 4:30

We have two, used, Samsung Chromebooks "for sale" by donation. They are approximately 8 years old, don't support the VCAP testing platform, and were in rotation for replacement. They can be used to access all Google applications. If you are interested in having one of them, please email Krystal.

Contracts for returning students were mailed home last week. If you would like a financial aid application for next year, you can email Krystal. Please return contracts, deposits, and financial aid applications promptly by Friday, April 9. This deadline is extremely important as we have a waitlist situation in many grades, and would like to offer those spaces as soon as possible to those applicants if they are not going to be filled by current families.

Information about St J Rec's spring lacrosse program is forthcoming for boys, and 1-2nd grade girls. All the details about 3-8th grade girls lacrosse, which begins this week, are in this flyer.

Register online here. Scholarships are available. Email Joe Fox, recreation program director, for more information. 

The Fairbanks Museum is offering Astronomy Camp-in-a-box for April Break. Get ready to blast off with games, puzzles, kits and more to spark excitement and discovery in young astronomers! Each Astronomy Camp-in-a-Box is put together by Fairbanks Museum educators with activities that will engage your child with crafts and ideas for more exploration.The box includes one hour of astronomy activities for one child age 7-12 for each weekday of April vacation. The cost is $25 for museum members and $30 for non-members. Sign up by Friday, April 2 by emailing parent Karina Weiss (1st grader Peregrine and 3rd grader Julian) to be sure to get your Camp-in-a-Box. Families can pick up their Camp-in-a-Box at the museum during the following timeframes, or Karina can drop it at Riverside.

Catamount Arts has opened registration for SOCAPA’s eagerly anticipated annual film slam. SOCAPA’s Tap Into Film 72-Hour Family Film Slam, scheduled for the weekend of April 22-25, invites both novice and experienced filmmakers alike to write, shoot, and edit a short movie, from initial concept to final cut, in a single weekend. Learn more here, and register your family as a team here.