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Volume 3, Issue 31; June 13, 2020
Dear Families,
How many of you committed to the above resolution when 2020 began? How many of you are committed to this resolution as 2020 continues? I hope this includes everyone!
We have just completed the end of a very unusual year. So much has happened this year that is important to reflect upon, and I hope you can humor me for a moment while I digress.
This year, we began with a theme of grit, grace, and goals. We embraced our building blocks that included new tools and teaching strategies to support all learners: executive function (SEL), math workshop with a focus on a community of discourse (Creating Thinkers and Learners), and cycles of feedback across all content areas (Literacy). Never were these building blocks more important than in a virtual setting! We have been incredibly fortunate to focus on the most important deliverables each year to support all learners as they continue to learn and grow. Despite the fact that we took our learning online this year, we continued to find ways to ensure that we focused on these core tenets of our instruction.
Within small groups and across all content areas, we taught our students with fidelity, and we did not compromise our desire to ensure differentiation to meet the needs of our students in virtual settings. We reinforced math discourse through our continued use of resources and strategies including our focus on problem solving, our use of CueThink, and one grade level completed a math Project Based Learning unit entirely online! Providing feedback through Google Classroom, and through our sessions on Google Meet, was tantamount to ensuring that students didn't just learn with their teacher, but that the learning continued through independent, self-guided discovery.
Is there room to grow with these efforts? Yes, there is. Are we unbelievably proud of the effort and strides we made as we collectively addressed Distance Learning for the first time in the history of our school? Yes, we are! At the very least least, I want you to know that I am, and I would like to thank the teachers and parents who coordinated with one another to make these efforts so successful.
I want you to know that I feel blessed each day to be your Principal, and the ways that the community came together to support one another through this ongoing pandemic increases these blessings exponentially. The amount of solidarity and hope that we placed in one another, and that we will continue to place in our school as a beacon for all to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of learning, and a sense of hope is more important than ever before.
Our staff is committed to learning and growing with you as we take on the challenges the 2020-2021 school year presents. We will continue our journey of evolving with our instructional practice no matter what model is embraced by the county, and we will make these strides together as a community. We will continue our journey to engage in critical and courageous conversations about race, and other social constructs used to categorize and characterize our students and families. We will continue to address barriers to inequity together as we seek solutions to make our school more responsive to individual, group, and community needs. We will unite in these efforts, taking these steps together, and using your feedback as an entry point to guide our conversations.
I know the summer is a time for each of us to relax and refresh. It is a time to hit pause and take a break, and I want each of you to do this without hesitation.
In the meantime, I will do the same, while I will also be planning with our next school year in mind. I am genuinely excited to continue our development as a school that is committed to learning and growing, no matter what challenges we may face.
With grit, grace, goals, and gratitude for a great year,
Dr. Hertzberg, Principal
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Special Thanks
To our entire 6th grade--students, teachers, parents, and support staff--thank you. Thank you for making this year a memorable one and for continuing to support the highest caliber of instruction regardless of classroom setting. Your efforts, collectively, did not go unnoticed!
To commemorate this special occasion, we hosted a heartfelt virtual promotion ceremony that you can keep and treasure. As stated during promotion, the 6th grade photo montage at the end is separate video. Thank you to all who were able to attend! We believe every student was present, regardless of what state our families were quarantining!
A special thanks to Mrs. Gardner and Mrs. Root for the baby photos video, and to Ms. Stewart for coordinating the lawn sign in front of our school.
I hope each of our 6th graders wears their 2020 t-shirts proudly! You did it!
Certificates, and the remainder of our awards, will be mailed to our students. Some awards were cancelled due to the impact of COVID-19 (e.g., Optimist Club awards). Thank you for your patience. Our 6th grade teachers signed each student's yearbook. These are also included in our mailing.
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~Summer Learning Opportunities~
Office Hours, Lunch Bunches, Book Clubs, and Thinking2
We will start with our county's Continuity of Learning opportunities (July 29th-July 31st:
These thirty-minute sessions, twice a week, offer an opportunity for your child to log-on, meet with a grade level instructor, and continue the learning and review of essential standards from his or her most recent school year. These teachers will review sections of the workbook (mailed before June 29th) with your child.
We have created a Google Classroom: Flint Hill Elementary Summer Learning 2020, with a Google Meet link, that will be used on alternating days and at the times listed below for each grade level. Your child has been enrolled in this classroom. Please keep this information handy so that your child can access this opportunity, if desired. Please do not log-on before the scheduled time.
Mondays and Wednesdays (30 minutes, twice a week)
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SPED Ms. Mullin): 8:30 am (*Timing support students who have ESY, too.)
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K (Mrs. Strumsky): 9:15 am
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1st (Ms. Radin): 10:00 am
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2nd (Mr. Bechtle): 10: 45 am
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3rd (Ms. Wilson): 11:15 am
Tuesdays/Thursdays (30 minutes, twice a week)
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4th (Ms. Grzankowski): 8:30 am
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5th (Ms. Volpi): 9:15 am
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6th (Ms. Burch): 10:00 am
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ESOL (Ms. Martinez): 10:45 am
Information regarding Lunch Bunches, Book Clubs, and Thinking2 will be shared before the 29th of June. We are finalizing our schedule to expand on the county's offerings and to support SEL needs over the summer.
Click on our Learning Links for access to a variety of apps and opportunities. iReady: for optional online practice in mathematics and reading, students may use i-Ready through July 31, 2020. Username and password are the same for all programs.
DedicatED
Sign up begins June 12!
Studies have found that reading for pleasure is beneficial for kids in many ways, including maintaining reading skills over the summer.
Fairfax County Public Library helps make reading fun by providing tools, access, and incentives during its Summer Reading Adventure. The Summer Reading Adventure runs June 12 through August 14 and invites all children and teens—birth through high school—to read for fun over the summer. The theme in 2020 is “Imagine Your Story!” This summer the program will be virtual.
The Basics of the Library’s Summer Reading Adventure
On June 12, sign up online and download a preschool (Birth-5), school-aged (Grades K-5) or teen (Grades 6-12) summer reading gameboard. You may also find these challenges on the summer reading website.
The gameboard is divided into three prize milestones. Play the game by completing the challenges, and when you reach each prize milestone, you will submit a form to be entered into a random drawing for one of two Amazon e-gift cards. (You may only submit one form for each prize milestone.)
Don’t want to complete some (or any) of the gameboard challenges? In lieu of completing a challenge, read or listen to a book of your choice.
- Kids and teens can read any books they choose. They can even read free eBooks or listen to eAudio books or books on CD, which are all available through the library.
- Find your next book to read using the suggested author tab! These links take you directly to the catalog.
The amounts of the Amazon e-gift cards for each prize milestone:
- Prize Milestone 1: $50
- Prize Milestone 2: $100
- Prize Milestone 3: $150
Two winners will be chosen for each gameboard and will be notified by August 31st. The drawings close on August 14th.
The Summer Reading Adventure also includes special events and contests.
The library offers online events and programs throughout the summer, including Kofi Dennis, the Jay Mattioli Magic Show and Sciencetellers. There are also several contests for teens, including an essay/poetry contest for rising 7th, 8th, and 9th graders cosponsored with the For Love of Country Foundation, Teen Film Festival, and the Teen Cover Art Contest.
All events and activities are free.
Kindergarten Registration
Kindergarten registration is upon us! We welcome parents of rising kindergarten students to register their child at their earliest convenience. This helps us get acquainted with our new students and allows us to have our numbers so we can best staff our kindergarten classrooms. Please don't hesitate to share this information with a neighbor, friend, or colleague who lives within our boundaries. We want to ensure we get students registered as early as possible!
Looking to register your student at Flint Hill ES for the 2020-2021 school year? Click here!
Student Intention Forms for 2020-2021
We need your help in projecting our total enrollment for next school year. For families not returning to Flint Hill Elementary in the fall of 2020-21, please complete and return the “Student’s Intention for the Next School Year” form.
A typed parent/guardian name on the Parent Signature line is acceptable. Student ID Number may be left blank. Save the completed form, attach it to an email, and send to SAEason@fcps.edu.
Access the “Student’s Intention for the Next School Year” form on the FCPS public website.
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 We continue to highlight learning experiences that support the acquisition of Portrait of a Graduate attributes and skills across our Google classrooms.
In you click on this link to the tweet, you can see some of nature's finest insects at work. This is wonderful reminder as we end our year reflecting on the promise of a new school year.
This summer, we hope our students will continue to be ethical and global citizens, and we thank you for following our Portrait of a Graduate journey this year!
For more information on Portrait of a Graduate, ask your child how they are a communicator, collaborator, critical and creative thinker, goal-directed and resilient individual, or ethical and global citizen. Or, click here!
Please click on our hashtag, #FHESfamily, for more awesome highlights from Flint Hill! There are just too many to highlight them all!
Tweet, tweet, Flint Hill family!
 Ms. Mary Ennis' Letter to the Community
Please Mark Your Calendars!
Great news! Flint Hill Elementary School's events are now easily added to your own personal calendar. To find out how to download our calendar feed, please go here.
June 29th-July 31st:Elementary school students will have the opportunity to review concepts and skills using recommended self-directed print and digital materials. Materials will not be collected or graded.
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Recognizing employees who go above and beyond
FCPS Cares is an opportunity for parents, staff, and community members to recognize those who go above and beyond to help others and show they care. We invite you to submit your story so we can all acknowledge the outstanding work of FCPS, and more specifically, Flint Hill employees.
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Supporting Our Families
Thank you to our families who have so generously contributed to those in need. If you know someone who is facing hardship, please reach out to administration, or Amy Williams, our full-time school counselor, so that we can help you or a neighbor. We will accept, with gratitude, donations or gift cards for grocery stores.
We thank you for your ongoing compassion and concern. Your immeasurable kindness is appreciated!
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Falcon Feedback
To provide feedback directly to Ms. Hertzberg, please use the QR code, or click on this link. Thank you, in advance, for sharing your thinking!
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