Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All of our Wonderful Families!I would like to take the time to introduce our monthly Parent Newsletter. This newsletter will go home at the end of each month. We will recap the month as well as preview the next month. I hope that you find these newsletters informative.  I also would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all of the staff and families for such a warm welcome to Hilltop School. I am enjoying getting to know all of the children and families and very happy to be here with you all. December News Infant/Toddler progress reports went home, any parent that wanted a conference with the teachers were able to schedule a time to meet. If you missed this opportunity and would like the chance to speak with your child’s teacher, please let us know. On Thursday December 12th, we held our Christmas Pageant. We are so very proud of all of the children. They did a spectacular job. The teachers worked tirelessly with them on this performance and their hard work and dedication did not go unnoticed.  Our Spirit Week was a great success, everyone had so much fun. The children and teachers looked amazing all week long! December 20th at 5:30 pm we will be closing for our Christmas Break. We will reopen on Thursday, January 2nd, 2025! We want to wish all of our families a very blessed, happy and safe holiday season!January News:Parent Teacher Conferences will be held in January for Preschool and Pre-K students, sign up sheets will be hung up with the teachers availability after the progress reports are sent home.   During this time, parents are able to see evidence of learning that their child has accomplished since the start of this academic year. The teachers really appreciate spending this quality time with you and answering any questions that you may have about your child.  We are going to introduce Mystery Readers into the classrooms. Here are some details of what a mystery reader entails.  What is a Mystery Reader? A Mystery Reader can be a parent, guardian, or relative who shares a favorite or well-liked children's book with the class.  What does a Mystery Reader do? The role of the Mystery Reader is to remain anonymous until he/she enters the classroom on the designated reading day. Our designated reading day is the 15th of the month unless it falls on a weekend, in that case, it will either be the Friday before or the Monday after the weekend. The program is supposed to be a surprise, so even your own child cannot know that you are going to be reading to the class. How many Mystery Readers will be chosen? To not overwhelm the children, we may only have 1 Mystery Reader per classroom per month. We will have a sign up sheet go out at the beginning of each month. The first person to sign up in each classroom will be chosen as the mystery reader. Please look for a separate communication to come out in January for the first Mystery Reader Day which will be on Tuesday January 17th. We will be closed on Monday January 16th in Honor of Martin Luther King Day. Upcoming School Closure Days: December 23rd-January 1st for our winter break. Monday, January 16th in honor of Martin Luther King Day Monday February 18th in honor of President’s Day These are a few of our special reminders.   Toothbrushing will begin in our Preschool and Pre-K classrooms in February. We will be sending more information home on this as the time get closer. You do have the ability to opt out of having your child brush their teeth at school.  Please ensure that all of your child’s things that are brought to school are labeled with their first and last name. With so many new articles of clothing, and a lot of these looking similar to each other, we want to make sure that if something gets misplaced we can get it back to its owner.  When your child has a physical, please ask for a copy of their physical report and share it with us. This is a licensing compliance rule that we need to follow. If we do not receive communication from you as to when an appointment is scheduled or receive the paperwork after a few attempts at communicating with you we may need to ask you to keep your child home until we receive the physical form.Reminders: Please have your children to school by 9 am the latest unless they have a doctor’s appointment and you have let us know. This is very important as our curriculum begins and we don’t want the children missing any key components.  If they will be absent for any reason, please call the school at 978-373-6663 or email us to let us know at hilltopdirector@westchurch.org or send us a message through the brightwheel app.  Please remember that when entering your door code do not let anyone that you are unfamiliar with in the building with you. This is for the safety and security of all of our staff and children. We want to take this time to thank you all for your continued support.