JOHN HILL SCHOOL

435 Lathrop Avenue, Boonton, NJ 07005

Dear John Hill School Families,

Welcome to the 2020-2021 School Year!

First and foremost, we offer a hearty welcome to our new JHS families and a welcome back to
our familiar Junior Bombers! As we prepare to embark on this new year together, we maintain
our steady focus on ensuring that each day enriches the lives of all those within our community
and provides learning experiences that will empower students to be positive difference-makers
in the years to come. Adhering to our stated goals and working collectively has perhaps never
been more important as we begin a school year that will be unlike any other we’ve experienced.

Last year, we witnessed extraordinary resilience, creativity, and commitment to excellence on

the part of our students, families, and staff members. Despite the challenges faced, we
concluded the 2019-2020 school year with a great amount to be proud of thanks to everyone’s
collective efforts. As we frequently stated, we were feeling more Boonton Strong & JHS Proud
than ever before! This year, we anticipate new challenges to come as we begin the year in an
unfamiliar way and are eager to embrace those challenges as opportunities to build upon our
recent successes and lessons learned together.

As final preparations come together for the start of school, we are pleased to share the following
important information with you...

SCHEDULES AVAILABLE: Student schedules and teacher assignments are now available to
view in the Realtime Parent Portal. As we begin the year in a virtual learning mode, students
will progress through each period of the day as posted in the schedule. More information will
follow, but please know that the day begins at 7:50 and concludes at 2:40. The first day of
school is Tuesday, September 8th. While viewing student schedules on Realtime, please take
time to verify that your family and emergency contact information is up to date.

IMPORTANT - CHROMEBOOK REQUEST: Ensuring that devices are in the hands of students
so that they can participate in virtual instruction is a top priority. While our intent for this school
year is to provide every child with a school issued device, we are experiencing a delay in the
delivery of our ordered Chromebooks as demand for these devices is extremely high
nationwide. For the start of the school year, we ask that families only request a school
issued Chromebook if one is required for your child to participate in virtual instruction
and are asking all families to complete this brief survey by Wednesday, August 24th. You
can access the link to the survey here.

BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT: We look forward to hosting our first virtual Back to School Night on
Tuesday, September 15th. More details will follow. Please also know that we are exploring
options for possible in-person meet and greets for those who may be interested in participating.
SUPPLIES: We appreciate that it is tradition to do some back to school shopping at this time of
year and that supply lists are often provided. This year presents an opportunity for unique
learning experiences that may not require traditional back to school supplies. Therefore, we are
working to keep supply requests at a minimum and, in lieu of posting supply lists, teachers will
be informing you if there are particular supplies that will be needed for your child’s success in
specific content areas or as specific learning activities approach.

SCHOOL ISSUED SUPPLIES: We are in the process of collecting school-issued materials for
students to begin the year. These materials will be organized by grade level and by student last
name and available for pick up on September 3rd from 4-7pm and on September 4th from 9am
until 1pm.

LEARNING PORTALS: This year we will continue to use respective elementary and middle
school learning portals to post links to weekly assignments, morning announcements, learning
extensions, and more. We will be sharing links to these learning portals soon.

EMAIL ADDRESSES: JHS students will once again be using Google accounts to access email,
Google Docs, and Google Classroom this year. We will be contacting new students to relay
usernames and passwords. Returning students are encouraged to test their usernames and
passwords to ensure they are correct.

PTA MEMBERSHIP: Please consider supporting our students and school by becoming a
member of the PTA for the 2020-2021 school year. Information about the PTA and a
membership form is available via this link.

We look forward to working together to make the coming school year a joy-filled and especially
successful experience for all! The John Hill School learning community ROCKS and we are so
excited to SOAR to even new heights this year!

Sincerely,

Thomas Valle Sara Brogan

Elementary Principal Middle School Principal
John Hill School John Hill School
thomas.valle@boontonschools.org sara.brogan@boontonschools.org

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