New Groningen News

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!

Holiday Break: December 21-January 5

School Resumes: January 6

3rd Grade Art Trip @ Hope College/Knickerbocker: Jan. 10

Hearing & Vision Testing (health department): Jan. 15-16

Early Release: Jan. 17

No School - Observance MLK Jr. Day: Jan. 20

ZPS Y5/Kindergarten Expo (8:45am, 2:00pm, 5:30pm sessions): Jan. 22

Mid-Winter Break: Feb. 10-11

Count Day: Feb. 12

Valentine's Day: Feb. 14

Early Release/Staff PD: Feb. 27

No School (students)/Staff PD: Feb. 28

Early Release/Conferences (1p-7p): March 6

Early Release/Conferences (1p-3p): March 7

CONGRATULATIONS!

Kindergarten & Young 5's

Rowan

NAtalie

Brody

Leon

1st Grade

Ella

Island

Jameson

2nd Grade

Margo

Anna

Leah

Jonah

CONGRATULATIONS!

3rd Grade

Simon

Hudson

Ani

Haven

4th Grade

Callie

Zac

Bentley

Olive

5th Grade

Nano

Madison

Carson

Elsie

CONGRATULATIONS to Ms. Jamie, our STAFF TICKET WINNER on December 20!

An evening FULL of amazing stories read by our favorite people, jammies, hot cocoa, cookies and SANTA! Thank you to our Wild Readers Committee, who made this evening such a success, to our parents who graciously donated to the evening by hours of decorating, monetary donations & food donations, and our NGFA for donating the cookies, decorating & helping with the evening! It takes a village to do amazing things with our kids and we appreciate you all!

We had the best morning on Friday, Dec. 20! Ms. Kragt put together a wonderful sing along and hearing every one of our students' and staffs' voices was amazing! Mrs. Szot put together Reindeer Games for our staff to compete against each other and our amazing students were loud and proud of their grade level!

Girls On the Run is just around the corner! Practices will begin in a few months under the coaching of Miss Weighmink and Miss Shipps soon! Registration begins on Sunday, December 1. More details to come in the near future!

TTQ is just around the corner! Practices will begin soon! Registration opened on Dec. 2! See the information below if your 3rd-5th grade son would like to participate!

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!

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

Check out the offerings from our CATCH presenters through Corewell Health!

The state approved their budget and that also included free breakfast and lunch to all students regarding their families' economic status again for the 24/25 year! Beginning July 1, 2024, it will be important that ALL families apply for free breakfast and lunch, regardless of your household economic status and regardless of the state approval already. The information that is gained from this application is crucial in the many grants that directly help ZPS outside of the food service area.

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!

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:

• NG Page on ZPS Website

• 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.

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.

Please use this PDF in order to get instructions and a code to set up your Parent Portal (access to grades, bussing information, etc.)! Parent Portal, while not used to it's fullest for elementary students, it will become a regular resource to you as your learner moves into middle and high school. As for elementary students, Parent Portal is a great resource to look up bus information and track attendance, too.

If you do not have portal set up, please feel free to set one up!

If your child will need ANY medications given to them during the school year, the correct MEDICAL FORM must be FILLED OUT AND SIGNED by your child's doctor BEFORE we can begin to give meds. Please see Mrs. Boeve or Mrs. Keeler in the main office prior to school starting in order to have medication ready for August. 28!