May 7, 2021

Dear Lower School Families,

A big thank you for all of the lovely and heartwarming displays of appreciation faculty and staff have been receiving in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week. Your support, kindness, and generosity was felt by everyone!

I am excited to announce that beginning Monday, May 10th, we will be able to have two homerooms (pods) play together at recess time! This was recently approved by our nurses, and we know our students will be excited with this news. Faculty will be arranging the two pods that will be able to play together at recess time. Due to contact tracing, the two homeroom classes paired together will remain the same pairing for the remainder of the school year.

I am also very pleased to announce that we will be offering our Celebration of Accomplishments both in-person and online. Details and signups were sent home by teachers on Thursday for you to select whether you wish to conduct it in-person or by Zoom. We will share our safety protocols for this event the week before. Thursday, May 20th, is a full day for students, and there is no school on Friday, May 21st, during Celebration of Accomplishments conferences.

We finish our annual Rising Parent Evenings this coming week. These 45-minute meetings are an opportunity for you to see the academic program and highlights of the year your children will be going into next year. There is also an opportunity to ask questions. Homeroom teachers will be sending out Zoom links to you for the event, and we encourage you to join and learn more about next year’s program. All meetings below will begin at 7:00 p.m. For those unable to attend, we will be sending links of the recordings to you once all of the meetings have been completed.

  • Tuesday, May 11th: Rising Grade 2 Parent Evening
  • Thursday, May 13th: Rising Grade 1 Parent Evening

We will be conducting our annual ERB standardized tests the week of May 17th with makeup exams on the following Monday (24th) and Tuesday (25th). Please do not schedule any appointments, unless they are an emergency, for students in grades 3-5 during those mornings. Testing starts promptly at 8:20 a.m. and finishes at approximately 10:30 a.m. Fourth-graders will have a slightly modified schedule due to their musical performance (more details will be shared with fourth grade families soon). A letter with additional ERB details was sent home to parents in grades 3-5 on Thursday.

To help with your year-end planning, please see the list of upcoming lower school events below:
  • May 17th-20th: ERB Tests (Grades 3-5)
  • May 19th: Fourth Grade Musical (Zoom link will be shared with families)
  • May 20th-21st: Celebration of Accomplishments (regular school day on May 20th and no school on May 21st)
  • May 24th-28th: Shakespeare Week for Fifth Grade
  • May 24th-28th: Move-Up Days (students will have the opportunity to learn about the program in their next grade)
  • May 31st: Memorial Day (no school)
  • June 3rd: Lower School Closing Program (9:00 a.m. via Zoom)
  • June 3rd: Last Day for Students (school ends at 3:15 p.m.)
  • June 4th: Fifth Grade Closing Celebration (in-person for families at 9:00 a.m)

This week’s parenting article is entitled “How to Support Your Shy Kid” and is from The New York Times parenting section. It can be found using this link.

Be well,

Head of Lower School