• Teacher Workday – Friday, October 23, 2020
• Professional Development Day – Monday, October 26, 2020

K-8 Parent Teacher Conference: November 4-6

Parent Teacher Conferences are scheduled for Wednesday, November 4 – Friday, November 6. Parents will have the opportunity to meet with their child’s teacher(s) to discuss student progress. Students should not attend conferences. Sign up via ParentSquare.

This is a great opportunity to invite a friend, coworker, or neighbor to come check out ICS for themselves! Guests can view curriculum, chat with staff, hear from the ICS leadership, learn about admissions, have a thorough virtual tour, and ask questions. Our first Admissions Preview Event is October 30 at 9:00 a.m., with several others scheduled throughout the year. Share this link with friends to have them RSVP! Email Lauren Gessner with questions.

Looking to decorate your home or office or give a thoughtful gift to family, friends, or special clients? Our high school students are offering the perfect solution! Support ICHS by ordering your florist quality Christmas poinsettias and greenery now. You can also order an ICS commemorative ornament as a way to remember your time at ICS. Don’t forget to order an ornament for your children to have for their Christmas tree when they’re grown! Support ICHS rather than the big box stores! Questions may be sent to Dee.Rutkowski@verizon.net.

Click to order.

• K-8 Campus pick up: Families ordering who only have children at the K-8 Campus can pick up from the K-8 campus on Wednesday, Dec 2 from 3:00-4:00 p.m.
• High School pick up: Families with both high school and K-8 children will pick up from the High School on Wednesday, Dec 2 from 3:00-4:00 p.m.

Offsite pick up location on Wednesday, Dec 2 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in Fairfax, VA. Specific location TBD.

On Monday, November 2 and Tuesday, November 3 the school nurses will be providing hearing and vision screening for students in kindergarten, 3rd, 7^th, and 10^th grades.  Parents with a student in the grades listed above received a notification from Magnus Health about the hearing and vision parent permission form being available for completion.  Please find the hearing and vision screening parent permission form in Magnus Health > Student Health Tracker > Hearing and Vision Parent Permission.  Only students with parent permission will be screened.  If you have a student who you’d like to have screened who is not in a grade listed above, please contact the nurse (nurse@icsva.org) for further instructions.

The ICS Library is excited to offer a VIRTUAL selection of books and educational games from Bookworm Central, Sunday, November 29 – Friday, December 4. Be on the lookout for more information in the coming weeks via ParentSquare, as well as suggestions on how to gift your wonderful teachers with books!

Tryouts for ICHS Swim Team will be held at The St. James Sports complex on October 30^th at 6:15 a.m.

Sign up on ParentSquare.

We are excited to continue the tradition of Thanksgiving box donations to needy families in our area. Please watch ParentSquare for your child’s class sign up. Donations will be collected in each classroom November 16-18.

There are a lot of changes this year due to COVID. Serve-A-Thon is one of them. Traditionally, the month of October is the kick-off for the class service projects and is our opportunity to raise essential funds to support the existing programs at ICS. We also include a special fundraising goal above and beyond our annual need. Last year, we raised enough money to purchase a new 15-passenger van to use for transportation to field trips and athletic games.

While our financial needs have not disappeared because of COVID, we are mindful of our ongoing efforts to care for the health and safety of our students, parents, and teachers. Gathering in large groups and traveling in vans is not prudent at this time. Therefore, our plan is to use the month of May to close out our year with a few weeks of focused attention as we serve together as a community. We will also use the month of May for our K-8^th grade students to help raise needed funds from friends and family as they sponsor our students while they serve together. Our high school students will begin their fundraising efforts in the fall as they have more flexibility for individual service opportunities. Additional information will be forthcoming in the months ahead.

Just because our corporate service projects are delayed a few months does not mean that we cannot encourage our students to find individual or family opportunities to show God’s love to God’s people. The inclusion of service projects (we call this our Character-in-Action (CIA) program) is an integral part of an Immanuel Christian School education. We encourage each family to pray and consider ways you can serve our community as a family. The ideas are endless, and we hope these suggestions will help jump start your engines of service:

• serve your neighbors
• clean up a Fairfax County park or area that needs some attention
• organize a food drive with your friends or neighbors for a local food bank
• write cards and letters of encouragement to our first responders or frontline medical workers and deliver them with prepackaged goodies or gift cards
• become pen pals with a senior in an assisted living facility

We encourage you to listen to Love God, Love People by Danny Gokey as a Serve-A-Thon theme song this year.

Luke 10:27

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

We will be cleaning out the Lost & Found bins monthly.  Any unlabeled items will be passed to charity. As always, all labeled items will be returned to the owners.

The best way you can help in this process is to label ALL your child’s uniforms, coats, gloves, hats, water bottles, etc. We look for a name on every item before we pass it on to charity. We appreciate your support in helping all students be responsible for their belongings. Thank you in advance for your efforts to label everything!

All parents are invited to gather virtually each Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. to pray for the students, teachers, and staff of ICS. This is a vital ministry that benefits all of us at ICS. Your child’s class and teacher will be prayed for specifically during the year. You are welcome to drop into the Zoom whenever you can, for as long as you are able and especially when your child’s class is being featured! Sign up to attend in ParentSquare.

Our ICS Prayer Guide is sent to every family via ParentSquare once a month during the school year. Please take advantage of this Guide and pray for the needs that are outlined there, even if you cannot join the Parents in Prayer Zoom meeting each week. Contact Meredith Winston, Receptionist (meredith.winston@icsva.org) or Maureen Orsini, PIP Coordinator (mmeorsini@gmail.com), for more information.