Working Through The To-Dos

Report Cards

Hopefully you have received the blank student template. Let me know if you have not received them. Please copy and paste a positive note about the core content (general ed teacher) and encore content (encore teacher) for each child. I understand and appreciate the amount of time spent copying and pasting this will require. Please let me know if I can help on that front if you need it. Comments at the bottom are meant to affirm the work individual children and families have engaged in and offer blessings and health for the summer. These will be shared at noon on Friday, May 29. We will learn more about the sharing process soon. Thank you for your work on this front.

Class Lists

How are we looking? Can we get the list emailed to me by tomorrow afternoon? I've already met with a few grade levels and we're firming these lists up! Boy....long debate with the second-going-to-third grade list but we survived! (inside Rose Park joke: it's just Melanie's class 😂) I'll invite other grade level teams to meet briefly around the lists next week.

Chapel Progress

Thank you for the videos coming in around our sweet fifth and sixth graders! If you haven't already recorded yours, is it possible to take that off the long to do list by tomorrow as well? If not, no sweat! If you don't mind just letting me know so I can still plan on you offering tribute of some sort to that student. I'll share the completed video with you early so you can cry too. 😍

Yard Signs

Top Secret: We have special yard signs coming for our exiting fifth and sixth graders! Aren't they cute? I should be able to pick them up from the printer on Monday. They will be delivered to fifth and sixth graders' homes on Wednesday evening. Anyone interested on helping with the delivery fun? Please email me your willingness and I'll give you a few names! Gas is cheap these days and it's a nice excuse to actually GO somewhere! These days we just don't do that anymore!

Pick Up Party at Rose Park and Forest School

May 29. 12:30-2:00. Are you available to stand on the curb and wave at our passing kids for an hour and a half? We'll try to keep it festive. I see that some of you have bagged up your students' belongings. Thank you! We may need to have a brief party-planning meeting around what we can and cannot give to our families once we hear from admin council. Yearbooks are ready as well if we have clearance. I have a meeting at 8:00 tomorrow morning with Erin and suspect I will receive more info  on this front.

Summer Slide 

I have a wonder and am trying to strike a balance with this wonder. Please remember who this is coming from. I appreciate straight up honesty and frank response. Our relationship is healthiest when we operate in a forthright manner. What I'm essentially trying to say is feel free to tell me to stick it! ...at least in terms of this idea. 😅 I have a certain level of concern for families who feel they would have desired more from their child's "schooling" this final semester. Don't let me miscommunicate. I DEEPLY appreciate all you have provided for our families. As with all differentiation efforts, when teaching and designing instruction to the middle, there are always outliers on both ends of the spectrum we want to be mindful of. Many parents have expressed their lament that we cannot hold our Summer Slide program this year. They enjoyed this program as a way to keep their child reading at home over the summer months. I'm wondering if we can offer something as a collective supportive effort to keep our students engaged in reading throughout the summer. If you are a staff member willing to help, I would ask you to record yourself reading a story and engaging with the text like a thoughtful reader would and send me the clip of yourself. I'll put together a "bank", if you will, of these videos. Families will RSVP to me that they would like to participate and then all summer long I'll send out the clips at least once a week (even if it's just ol' Mrs. Rynsburger reading to them again). Does that sound like too much right now? Just bag the idea. Does that sound like something you might be able to muster up the bandwidth for? The "ask" is are you willing to record a reading of one story and send me the link uploaded to youtube? I think the deadline for the clips would be June 5 so we can get a number of videos collected and I can space them out throughout the summer months for families. If you receive this blog post, you count! This request is for any and all. So, I respectfully ask, with great concern over protecting your personal time, please email me if you are willing to read a story to our summertime listeners.

Blog to Parents

I believe our parents are in a bit of a fragile state right now. They have a lot of good, valid questions for the big picture at Holland Christian and, unfortunately, Holland Christian doesn't have answers right now. We'll be sending out a Rose Park blog post tomorrow afternoon and I'm attempting not to dance around the elephant but rather be honest and forthright as well as being positive and hope-filled. Just in an effort to keep you "in the know" this is the information your parents will receive tomorrow afternoon in our Rose Park blog. It's a little different than the typical information they receive in May from the school.

This school year began with the typical celebratory tone that often accompanies the roll out of a new school year. You might remember the sweaty evening of August 22nd. Perhaps you stopped in the gym in the midst of our Parent Night bustle at Rose Park to take a peek at your new principal between visits to your new classrooms. What a fun evening! I introduced myself to you by recounting my first days as a Rose Park mom of a preschooler years ago. I shared with you that I too have a great love for Rose Park and all of the beauty that blooms to life for our children within these walls. Fast forward a bit. We're going to close this school year outside of those very walls. Way outside. We've never had to design or experience schooling like this before. This has not been an easy or natural transition for anyone. My hope and prayer is that, as parents and through your children, you still see that the beauty which makes Rose Park a truly special community to grow children has remained strong and true. Even outside of our walls.

I'm writing this post as a tuition paying parent, as a mom who has been trying to juggle my work responsibilities with my three children's daily lessons and as a Holland Christian employee who serves alongside a community entrusted with your greatest gift: your child. All of the paths you each have been thrust onto over the past few months vary, but I would dare say all of our paths are difficult right now. It's hard to face the depth of the unknowns we are navigating. We live with so many more questions than we have answers right now. So many new stressors we could not have possibly prepared for very nearly drown us at times. Our staff is in prayer for you in these times. We pray that God would provide you with the strong feet needed for the path you walk. We pray wisdom, health and wholeness for our world.

I wish I could provide answers for you or more concrete certainties as we close this year. In this blog post I will share information we do have at this point. But before we get into the nitty gritty, may I draw your attention to a story we all know well? In fact we might understand this familiar story with new eyes these days. Recall Jesus standing in the rocking boat full of fear-filled disciples on the stormy sea. The words he spoke calmed the wind and water. Miraculously so. Might we open our hearts and allow Jesus' words to speak to our hearts in this time, “Quiet. Be Still”. So often, around 365 times in fact, we read in the Bible the words, “Do not be afraid”. God calls us to trust in Him. To find peace and comfort in His strength and sovereignty. I believe we are called to serve one another as disciples of Christ and encourage each other to be quiet. To calm. To be still. To resist fear. Though the waters are rough and uncharted, Jesus is the captain of our boat. The storms of life obey His words. And so can we. May we support one another in modeling this faith for our children and to one another while we remind ourselves of this truth. That offering of grace, love and the comfort of Christ is the beauty being taught and modeled for your children at Rose Park. That blessing of hope and security in our Savior is the truth that lives and grows in the hearts of our community. Even in difficult days, may our love for God and for our community overflow and NOT rely on walls. Our Rose Park people are meant to live and love outside of the walls of our building and so here we are closing our school year with many more questions than we have answers. More uncertainties than solid facts. And yet, together we claim, Jesus asks us not to be afraid but to see the good around us. To offer God our thanksgiving and praise. To have faith in God's mercies for tomorrow.

Class Lists

Again, I speak to you with my "mom" hat on. The hearts and hands that care for your child for an entire school year are critically important. We, as parents, vulnerably want our child's teacher to look upon our child, as God's special miracle, with love and excitement. Parents need to trust that their child's teacher genuinely loves every aspect of every child. You are eager to hear who this special person will be for the upcoming year. I understand that very well. As a staff, we meet together for devotions on Monday mornings and we often remind each other that this calling is our mission field. Teaching is our purpose. God designed us for this work. God calls each one of us to love the children placed in our care. By loving our children, we are loving our Maker. I am happy to share with you that we have not received news of families unenrolling to date! In fact, it's been quite the opposite. I'm so grateful to share with you that we will be welcoming, Lord willing, FIVE new students to Rose Park in first grade through fifth grade next year. We are also so grateful to have THREE full kindergarten classes next year: 3-day, 5-day and a robust Spanish Immersion class! While we celebrate this fact. I also must share with you in honesty that we are not in a position we can offer teacher assignments officially for next year yet. Our delayed Holland Christian Society Meeting will be held next week and I will communicate our staffing model and class lists as soon as I am able. My apologies for the delay we are experiencing this year. It is not comfortable but it is where we find ourselves this year.

Rose Park Ranch

We had some exciting momentum building this winter as we were developing curricular connections for our Rose Park Ranch planning, how we will share the farm chores with our hundreds of eager ranch hands (Rosie and Parker will be well-loved goats, of that I have no doubt) and digging into beautiful mini-barn designs. As you may well know, construction workers and projects have been put on pause. Our project has been delayed due to the quarantine and construction work halted throughout our state. However, the project is not cancelled. At this time I cannot provide approximate dates for the construction process to regain steam, but you can be certain I will keep you informed. Animals, plantings, chores and LIFE are innovative measures we think will help bring energy, health and enthusiasm to your child's learning experience at Rose Park. We'll keep you informed on our progress this summer so that you can pass along word to the little Rose Park Ranch Hand in your family!

Year End Pick Up Party

We've still got your child's "school stuff". Thankfully on March 13 we did throw away moldy sandwiches, juice boxes and general riff raff that tend to collect in lockers. But we do have some nice headphones, gym shoes and boots ready for pick up! We also want to see your child's face in real life! Can you join us for a Year End Pick Up Party? More details will be forthcoming but we'd love to invite you to a "drive thru" party on May 29 from 12:30-2:00. Your child's teacher will have a bag of belongings to return to you. If you would open the trunk of your car, your child's teacher will place the bag in the trunk for your safe retrieval. We must adhere to social distancing parameters for everyone's safety. Staff will stand six feet apart or more. This must be a hug-free zone. We ask that families remain inside the car. We'll position staff on the BUS circle drive so your child can smile and wave through the passenger side of the car. Top secret: if you see staff members with sunglasses it's probably to hide their tears because this will be such a bittersweet party. We LOVE your children!

Chapel for our Children

Speaking of tears, these final chapels are just about too much for me in a typical year. Being blessed with the life of a child for the years they have grown at school shapes our hearts in tremendous ways. Saying good bye to our children whom we love and sending our "big kids" to a new building, even one of our own campuses, must be a bit what it feels like to send your child to college. We feel like empty nesters. We've given everything God has called us to give our children and now they are ready and equipped to leave our side. While face-to-face celebrations and chapels are preferential, we do have a few special chapels planned to celebrate our fifth graders on May 20 and sixth graders on May 27. Please keep an eye open for those links to share with your child. And please give them a BIG hug from us....even if they "think" they're too big for it.

Summer Slide

Another program that we must modify is our Summer Slide program. The goal of the Summer Slide program is to keep children engaged in reading  in books that are at their level all summer. We want to help you accomplish that same goal but reach this goal safely given our circumstances. Elementary teachers and staff members from throughout Holland Christian will be reading a story online and providing some interactive questions and thought prompts to keep your child engaged in text as a thoughtful reader. These stories will be emailed to you IF you so desire. No fees to this one! Please rsvp to me, mrynsburger@hollandchristian, by simply stating you would like to be put on the mailing list. I'll send you a new story every few days throughout the summer and the reading teacher will continuously encourage your child to enjoy reading all summer long until we can meet again.