December 2, 2024

The Barrington 220 Fine Arts Department proudly presents the 5th Annual Winter Wonderfest! Winter Wonderfest runs December 13-14, and it will be an open house with activities happening primarily inside the new front atrium addition at BHS. This family-friendly event will include DJs, carnival games, holiday crafts, hot chocolate for purchase, and more! Tickets are now available through our online box office.

This year the BHS Fine Arts Student Leadership Board is also excited to offer a sensory-friendly, quieter experience for those who would enjoy it from 5pm-6pm on Saturday. Please click here to RSVP to this sensory-friendly pre-event.

Since the Barrington 220 School District was officially formed in 1973, it has become a destination district for families across the state and a nationally recognized school district. We are proud of our academic achievements, innovative programs, accolades, rich history, and the sense of pride our schools bring to the community. Click here to learn more about each of our schools by viewing their 2024-2025 school profiles!

New Attendance Feature in IC Parent Portal 

Barrington 220 values student attendance. For a student to have a successful experience, the student must be present in class. Any absence from school is a missed learning opportunity for your child. Each month we're sharing attendance facts with you in our Attention to Attendance section. This month we're focusing on a new attendance feature within the Infinite Campus Parent Portal. Parents/Guardians can now attach a note related to the absence when reporting their student absent. Parents/Guardians will have the option to upload one document. This will be helpful in the collection of verification notes for medical appointments. Click here for more information about the district's attendance protocols.

Thanks to our community’s support of a $64M referendum last month, over the next few years our district will be able to continue to improve safety and security across all of our buildings, build a new community auditorium at BHS, and enhance STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) and instructional spaces for students. Barrington 220 will continue working with DLA Architects and Pepper Construction to complete these projects. This will allow the district to break ground on some of the smaller construction projects in 2025 by taking advantage of this summer's construction window. The next step is to establish a detailed construction timeline and share it with our school community.

In case you missed it, two current BHS student authors were recently featured on ABC 7 Chicago! Senior Hafsah Khan, Junior Cindy Wang, and Sarah Pinto (BHS '24) co-authored and illustrated the children's book Breaking the Code with Gabriella. The book is about the importance of supporting more female students in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) field and it is being used as part of the district's community-wide book study, One Book, One Community. The book study will conclude this month at Winter Wonderfest with a fireside chat. Click here to watch the ABC 7 story!

The BHS Band traveled to Florida last week to participate in the Thanksgiving Day Parade of Bands at Walt Disney World! They performed alongside three other schools in the Magic Kingdom at Cinderella's Castle. Click here to watch the parade.

All K-5 students are invited to our Maker Madness Family STEM Event on Saturday, Feb. 8! We invite your entire family to come and enjoy self-paced activities for students in grades K-5. Activities include: making buttons with the Barrington Area Library, building the tallest paper towers, engineering a safe landing device, and using some of our STEM tools to design, build, and test a grabbing "claw" device. This event will be held at Prairie Campus. To maximize participation, we are hosting two sessions for this event:

• Session I: 1:00-2:30 PM
• Session II: 3:00-4:30 PM

A sign-up will go out to families after winter break and it will be first come first serve.

Last month Dr. Winkelman participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to unveil Barrington Giving Day's newest collection bin at the District Administrative Center! The bin was made possible by a generous grant from the Barrington Area Community Foundation and a partnership with Barrington 220. It will provide a convenient, year-round drop-off location for donations of gently used or new items that support families in need across our community.

Barrington Giving Day is looking for volunteers for its big winter event on Saturday, Dec. 14 at Station Campus. This event provides necessities to low-income Barrington 220 families and beyond. Click here to sign up to volunteer and give back to our community!

Barrington 220 is teaming up with the Barrington Area Library this year to highlight the district's new PK-12+ social-emotional learning program, Character Strong. The Children’s Department at the library has dedicated a bookshelf to highlight the Character Strong titles for each theme throughout the year. Families can also stop by the children's section to receive a free specially designed bookmark!

• Now – Dec 15: Gratitude & Empathy
• March 1 – April 13: Perseverance, Honesty & Cooperation
• April 14 – May 30: Courage & Creativity