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New Groningen News
February 21, 2025
THANK YOU to our BUSINESS SUPPORTERS!
A special thank you to Countryside Greenhouse and Distinctive Group Inc. for generously supporting New Groningen students for the 2024/2025 school year!
If you know a business owner or are a business owner and would like to support our school this year, please see the flyer below on how you can do that!
Thank you, Countryside Greenhouse!
We appreciate your donation and support!
Thank you, Distinctive Group, Inc!
We appreciate your donation and support!
Christopher Nelis, DDS
Mark Your Calendars for these EVENTS!
2024/2025 Important Dates to Remember
Culvers Restaurant Night🍔: February 25, 5pm-8pm
Early Release/Staff PD: Feb. 27
No School (students)/Staff PD: Feb. 28
5th Grade Creekside Student Visit: March 4, 9:30a-11a
Donuts with Dudes🍩: March 5th (A-H), 6th (I-Q), & 7th (R-Z), 8am-8:30am
Early Release/Conferences (1p-7p): March 6
Early Release/Conferences (1p-3p): March 7
5th Grade Cityside Student Visit: March 10, 12:30p-2p
Creekside Parent/Student Visit/Presentation: March 10, 5:30p-6:30p or 6:30p-7:30p
2nd Grade-5th Grade Roll-X-Scape Skating Night: March 24, 6p-8:30p ($10/skater, includes rental)
Culver's Fundraiser Night!
Come on out for a delicious butter burger, chicken strips or fish sandwich on February 25 between 5pm-8pm. We will also have a balloon artist to amaze your kids with his balloon animal making from 5:30pm-7pm!
2025/2026 Transportation Forms!
It's time to begin preparations for the 25/26 school year! First up, TRANSPORTATION! The online form can be found HERE or by going to Zeeland Transportation and clicking on the forms link. The deadline for all transportation forms for the upcoming year is July 1, 2025. Busing information will be posted the second week of August through the MyRide K-12 App (instructions can be found here). Forms are required by all enrolled students (even if they will not be utilizing school transportation).
Dux Winners!
Y5-2nd Grade Star Dux!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Y5's & Kindergarten
Ryleigh
Jason
Issac
Axton
1st Grade
Kaydence
Tressa
David
2nd Grade
Liam
Alaina M
Azalea
Kendrik
3rd-5th Grade Star Dux!
CONGRATULATIONS!
3rd Grade
Aurora
Porter
Analisia
4th Grade
Lydia
Peyton
Clark
5th Grade
Liam
Grayson
Lelyn
Sylvie
STAFF STAR DUX!
Congratulations, Mr. Lee ! THANK YOU for supporting our children so well!
PE Golden Sneaker Winners!
Congratulations to our January Golden Sneaker Winners in PE!
Sra. Daly's class and Mrs. McCarty's class!
New Groningen Happenings
Total Trek Quest!
TTQ starts in a few weeks! If you haven't already, sign up, you won't want to miss out on the fun!
March Is Reading Month Author Visits
As part of our March Reading Month, we are excited to welcome authors into the building to read alongside our students and share their published work. Families have the opportunity to purchase copies of the author’s books. A paper copy of the order form will come home with your child. All orders are due March 6.
Coming March 10, 11
Y5s-2nd
Beth Buttery Coming March 13 & 14
Spanish Immersion
Zeeland Public Schools Happenings
5th Grade Middle School Transition Visit (students)
5th Grade students will visit Creekside Middle School on Tuesday, March 4 from 9:30a-11a.
5th Grade students will visit Cityside Middle School on Monday, March 10 from 12:30p-2p.
5th Grade Middle School Parent Transition Night
CREEKSIDE WELCOMES PARENTS!
Parents (students are welcome to attend as well) can visit Creekside Middle School for a transition night visit/presentation on Monday, March 10 from 5:30p-6:30p or 6:30p-7:30p.
CITYSIDE WELCOMES PARENTS!
Parents (students are welcome to attend as well) can visit Cityside Middle School for a transition night visit/presentation on Monday April 21 from 6p-6:45p.
Love & Lean Run/Walk for Mental Health
LOVE yourself and know that your pain is real, but so is hope.
&
LEAN on others (faith, family, friends, teachers, neighbors, co-workers, counselors, health care providers and community) for help, because the more you lean, the stronger you grow in mental fitness.
Join us on Saturday, April 26 for the 9th Annual Love & Lean Walk/Run for Mental Health!
This annual event was inspired by the loss of Zach Kroll, a sophomore at Zeeland East, who silently suffered from depression and died by suicide in 2015 at the age of 15. Zach’s family and friends desire to use this awareness event to reach out to others and make a positive impact in the community. It is so important to recognize the signs of mental illness and have the confidence to take action when helping yourself or others. Our goal is to reduce the shame and secrecy surrounding mental illness so less people struggle silently and more people seek help. Through raising mental health awareness, we will all learn how to be more involved and effective in saving lives.
3 OPTIONS!
Run a 5K. Walk a 5K. Or, walk/run a shorter 1.5 mile route
Physical activity is good for mental health! The route will have a variety of terrain, mainly consisting of sidewalks and bike paths throughout the sports complex and school property, as well as trails through the wetlands. It will also be lined with memorial pictures, motivating interaction, sidewalk chalk inspiration, and encouraging message signs.
A section of the route this year will be a "story path", featuring New York Times Bestseller children's book "The Rabbit Listened" by author & illustrator, Cori Doerrfeld.
Each page will be enlarged and mounted (with permission from the author) on a separate sign along the path for easy reading. It’s a simple but perfect story about how it feels when something goes terribly wrong, how to overcome those challenging emotions and what it takes to move forward. This book is recommended not just for the littles, but also for anyone needing comfort or help in supporting others in difficult situations. Just listening is so powerful!
Zeeland Recreation
Zeeland Rec has a handful of upcoming programs that you don't want to miss! Below are some highlights. Visit THEIR WEBSITE to view more details and to register!
NGFA Information
The NGFA is excited for another school year. Here's a little about the NGFA and the amazing things they help put together in order to support NG!
The NGFA is proud to help support our school, many fun activities, field trips and events for New Groningen Elementary free of charge for our families. We hold meetings throughout the year that will be announced in the upcoming weeks, have many fun events and activities planned, fundraisers and there will be many volunteer opportunities as well.
You can join our Facebook group “New Groningen Family Association - NGFA” to stay up to date with NG happenings.
We hope you all had a fun, safe long weekend and look forward to working with you all this year! If you have questions throughout the year you can contact us at ngfainfo@gmail.com.
Kristin Hunderman, President
Nicole Orazem, VP
Meghan Trowbridge, Treasurer
Randi Alferink, Secretary
CATCH NEWS!
Looking for something fun to do this winter?
Check out the offerings from our CATCH presenters through Corewell Health!
Arrival/Dismissal
Transportation
Safety & Security Volunteering
IMPORTANT FREE/REDUCED breakfast & lunch INFORMATION!
To fill out the food service application (please fill this out regardless of economic status and/or the new budget approval):
SCAN the QR code in the image to the right, OR
Click on the FOOD SERVICE link HERE!
CLICK REGISTER to go to the food portal (if you did not register for the 23/24 year) OR sign in!
Once you are registered in the new system, you can click on the BENEFITS button and will be walked through what to do to determine if you qualify for free or reduced meals!
Please feel free to email Food Service with any questions you might have; they are more than happy to help!
COMMUNICATION
What will general communication look like at New Groningen?
School-wide: Mrs. Rindfliesch will send New Groningen News to all families via email on Fridays (sometimes earlier depending on holiday breaks)!
Classroom: Each classroom has their own classroom communication site or newsletter and that will be communicated to each family by your child's teacher!
District-wide: ZPS sends emails in the form of Z For Me (click HERE to sign up to receive these emails), uses Facebook (ZPS: Learning for Life), Instagram and Twitter. In addition, you can opt into our district-wide School Messenger, which delivers a text message to your phone to notify you of school closings, safety alerts and more! All you need to do is TEXT "Y" to 67587 to opt in (see flyer below for more information).
Other NG Resources:
- Facebook: You can also find information from the NG Family Association on our NGFA Facebook page located at New Groningen Family Association - NFGA if you search for us on Facebook. This is ONLY a place parent engagement and sharing. This is NOT where we store information or publish information that must get to parents.
Choice Reading
In ZPS, we believe that reading is foundational to the success of our students. Throughout each week, students are regularly provided with opportunities to read independently. Classroom teachers and library staff work hard to provide high-quality, engaging, and relevant texts for students. We respect each parent’s right to provide input on what books would be appropriate for their own child. For more information on this topic, please read this letter to the community.
New Groningen Positive Behavior Protocol
PARENT PORTAL
If you do not have portal set up, please feel free to set one up!