Welcome to The Pinwheel
Greetings!

As we progress into the summer months, we hope you are finding special summer moments with your children.

We ask all our families to join us in commemorating our students' achievements from 2019-20. Earlier this month, we celebrated our kindergartners, third graders, and sixth graders who will move into a new division this fall. Last Thursday, the Class of 2020 graduated at an outdoor, socially distant ceremony at our 37-acre satellite campus in Oak Ridge. Links to each of these events are provided below.

Our third trimester progress reports, which you will receive later this week, honor and acknowledge each of our students hard work last spring. We will also post a myriad of recorded student end-of-year presentations from throughout the School to our Remote Learning Websites by the end of this week. These sites will be available for your family to reference and enjoy all summer long.

Your faculty and staff remain focused on our planned in-person opening for Summer Camp and the school year. (We will email families enrolled in Summer Camp within the next couple of days with detailed next steps.) We invite you to join our June Head of School Huddles, which will be focused on returning to campus for 2020-21. More details and registration links are provided below.

As we continue to work towards our planned in-person opening in fall, we will continue to stay in touch throughout the summer, with emails, updates, celebrations, and monthly Head of School huddles. We appreciate your continued engagement and partnership, even if summer is typically a time away from School for your family.

I hope to see many of you at the upcoming Huddles and look forward to our ongoing conversation, as we work together to ensure a strong and successful 2020-21 school year. If you cannot attend and want to connect, drop me a line, and we will connect.
Dr. Kevin Navarro
Head of School
June Head of School Huddles
This coming week we are offering several time slots for our June Head of School Huddles, which will be focused on "Returning to Campus for 2020-21." Our agenda will include an overview of the 2020-21 operating budget; preliminary staffing and floor plans for the Lower and Upper Schools; a deeper dive into our "pod" philosophy and structure; and more details on our health and safety planning for the school year.

We want these conversations to be accessible to any family who's interested in participating, so we are offering a lunchtime, evening, and morning event. To ensure the intimacy and personalized experience of each Huddle, registration is limited to 30 participants. If all three Huddles fill up, we will add a fourth event. Please email Jillian Crone with any registration questions.
Lunchtime Huddle
Friday, June 26
Noon to 1:30 p.m.
Evening Huddle
Friday, June 26
8:30 to 10 p.m.
Morning Huddle
Saturday, June 27
9 to 10:30 a.m.
End-of-Year Progress Reports
Faculty are making their final comments on progress reports, and we will email them to families this week.

  • As usual, year-end progress reports are a celebration of the child throughout the entire year.
  • This spring's progress reports will be slightly modified and will acknowledge that we ended the year in remote learning: 
  • Toddler students will not receive a progress report for spring. 
  • Primary and Lower Elementary progress reports will be an entirely narrative format. 
  • Upper School progress reports will continue to be a narrative and check-list format.
  • For documentation purposes, all progress reports will note that the School was in remote learning beginning March 16, 2020.
  • Students will not be penalized for any specific content or skills that we were not able to cover while in remote learning.
End-of-Year Celebrations
To commemorate our kindergartners, third graders, sixth graders, and graduates, we've provided links to our Moving Up Ceremonies and Graduation. These are Unlisted YouTube links, meaning the content is not searchable or accessible to anyone without the respective links in this email. You are welcome to forward the links to your relatives and close family friends who would love to celebrate with your child and our school community. When sharing, always be mindful of other people’s privacy rights, and never republish or post these links to social media channels, websites, or any other public third-party platforms.
Graduation
Graduation is a time-honored tradition at our School. Each student is presented by an adult in our community, followed by the student giving their own speech.
Upper Elementary Moving Up
We recognized this group of poised and prepared sixth graders entering Junior High in the fall. Junior High students and faculty welcomed them with great applause.
Lower Elementary Moving Up
Our third graders joined family, friends, faculty, and staff for a grand send off to the fourth grade. Students shared what they were looking forward to most next year.
Primary Moving Up
Primary students and their families joined us for our first-ever virtual Moving Up Ceremony, during which we recognized 21 kindergartners moving up next year.
Toddler Moving Up
26 toddlers completed our Toddler curriculum in 2019-20. While a Zoom call was not a developmentally appropriate way to acknowledge these budding students, we have mailed a personalized certificate of accomplishment to each of these Toddlers and their families.
Communication Archive
Follow the links below to review previous schoolwide communications:

Upcoming Events
Head of School Huddle
Date:
Friday, June, 26, 12-1:30 p.m.
Location:
Zoom

Join Dr. Kevin Navarro for a 90-minute lunchtime conversation about returning to in-person learning.

Click to Register
Head of School Huddle
Date:
Friday, June, 26, 8:30-10 p.m.
Location:
Zoom

Join Dr. Kevin Navarro for a 90-minute evening conversation about returning to in-person learning.

Click to Register
Head of School Huddle
Date:
Saturday, June, 27, 9-10:30 a.m.
Location:
Zoom

Join Dr. Kevin Navarro for a 90-minute morning conversation about returning to in-person learning.

Click to Register
First Day of Summer Camp
Date:
Monday, July 6
Location:
GMS

The School will open to students and families registered for All-Inclusive Summer Camp. More information to follow.
Photos of the Week
Enjoy our final Photos of the Week for 2019-20. They include family submitted photos of remote learning and summer fun, plus a sneak peek at last week's outdoor, socially distant Graduation ceremony.
Greensboro Montessori School
2856 Horse Pen Creek Road, Greensboro, NC 27410
336-668-0119 | gms.org