Happy Mother's Day to all of our Orchard School Moms! Despite being with your kids all the time, we hope that you can take some time away during the Physically-Distancing time!

I also want to give a shout-out to all of our staff during National Teacher Appreciation Week. Everyone (total staff) has been working extensively to make this school year work and I want to shout out and say how proud and appreciative I am of the whole Orchard Staff! I got a chance to sit in on a few Morning Meetings this week. I am totally impressed with how well teachers, staff members and students are keeping that connection together - they are a lot of fun!

We received a lot of positive feedback from last week's All-School Morning Meeting and School-Wide Hat Day Celebration. Morning Meeting will be back next week but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy these two little video treats.

Part 1 is a guest singer of the Orchard School song! Here is the link: https://youtu.be/sQTFu11eZT4

Part 2 is this principal reading aloud of an old favorite book - Trouble with Trolls. I hope you enjoy it, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9fs7DohSf8

Big News: our Core Project (aka PBIS - Positive Behavior, Interventions & Supports) now has a Home Edition! Please check out Ms. Abby's video (link: https://www.wevideo.com/view/1691786866) to explain how to use the Core Project at home and how to use downloads right below. I urge all our parents to check out the video and attachments, they could be really helpful to our Home Classrooms!

Finally - we are beginning preparation for next year and need your help! I am including a survey for parents to complete for placement for next year. We traditionally send a paper copy home but an electronic one will work much better this year. Please complete the survey this next week and do it for each of your children attending Orchard School next year. Please note that teacher requests cannot be accepted, thanks.

Speaking of prepping for next year, we are basically on hold until we know what the outcome of the budget vote will be. Please see the information below regarding the May 28 vote.

Happy Mother's Day to our Moms! Be safe, be well, and take some time to read with your child.

Mark Trifilio

Voting on the revised proposed FY21 budget is still on track to occur May 28. Please see the latest information in a note from City Clerk Donna Kinville here. Even though our regular polling locations are planning to be open, we are strongly encouraging people to request absentee ballots through the My Voter page on the Vermont Secretary of State’s website. As of this writing, Donna Kinville has reported that ballots should be ready to go out by Monday, May 11th. You can find more information about the revised proposed FY21 budget here.

Since March 16, 2020, SB Mentoring has transitioned to supporting mentoring friendships remotely while students and mentors are away from the school building. The student leaders of SB Mentoring and their mentors have been missing their in-person weekly meetings in our schools. In order to maintain their mentoring friendships while away, mentors have been invited to write weekly notes to their young leaders and send the notes to Susie and Becky via e-mail. Susie and Becky then send them to student leaders directly (usually grades 6 and up) or to mentoring families (usually grades K-5) through e-mail or snail mail. We will continue to work with our mentors and the families of young leaders to send letters until the end of the school year. Connection and friendship are at the heart of SB Mentoring, and it is our hope that transitioning to letter writing serves to honor our student leaders and their friendships with their mentors.

Hello Orchard families! Despite the change in venue for the last 3 months of school, we are still collecting photos for the Orchard School Memory Book. We are looking for photos of classroom activities, field trips, special school events, and your valiant efforts at homeschooling. Please send photos in their original or large size for optimal resolution. Photos can be emailed to MemoryBookOrchard@gmail.com. Thank you! Laura Smith and Carrie Lyon

Hope you all are well, look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above!

Be well!

Laura & Carrie

Did You Know?

Did you know that Orchard School is on Instagram and Twitter? If you've been following us, you've seen, for example, lots of pictures, shared by families, from Hat Day celebrations, and found out that the entire first Harry Potter book is being read aloud by various people at https://www.wizardingworld.com/.

We'd love to share more with you here:

https://www.instagram.com/orchardschoolvt/

https://twitter.com/OrchardVT

Did you know that there are currently 2,141 books checked out of Orchard School's library? You may return books to a bin in the school lobby weekdays between 9 AM and 2 PM.

Did you know that Orchard School students have voted for their favorite Red Clover and Dorothy's List Award books? Both of these are Vermont's student choice book awards. SMALL SPACES won for favorite Dorothy's List book and the Red Clover winner will be announced next week.

Enjoy!

Donna

Donna Sullivan-Macdonald

Library Media & Instructional Technology Specialist

Dear Orchard Community,

Many of you have kindly reached out to the PTO to ask how you can support our community and families in need during this challenging time.

Orchard has a well established 'Community Helpers Fund'. This fund has traditionally been used to support families in need in a variety of circumstances. A team at school including guidance counselors, our social worker and principal, among others, assesses family need and uses the fund to assist families.

Any contributions to the Community Helpers Fund are gratefully accepted at this time; please trust that our team at school will use these funds to help where it is most needed in our school community.