Originally delivered on 3/4/2025 10:00 am

SUBJECT: BT Flash: March Edition

BT FLASH - March 4, 2025

Everything you need to know for the next month and beyond

Included Information

Quick Reference Calendar 

HVRSD Upcoming BOE Meetings

Volunteer Opportunities

St. Baldrick's at Bear Tavern

Read-a-Fun Information

Clothing Drive for School Nurse

New Family Welcome Sign Collection

Kindergarten Registration 2025-2026

Annual Appeal Incentives

Yearbook Photo Submissions

MTK Directory Information

Community Happenings

Mark your Calendar...

March 2-6: Read Across America Week

March 6: Hopewell Valley Night Off

March 7: Cereal Box Dominoes: Wear Black BT shirts!

March 10-28: BT Read-a-Fun!

March 14: St. Baldrick's Day at BT

March 17: HVRSD BOE Meeting at Stony Brook

March 18: Early Dismissal; Staff Development

March 21: World Down Syndrome Day; Wear Mismatched Socks!

March 31: School Closed; Eid-al-Fitr

Current Happenings
Upcoming Board of Ed Meetings

The Hopewell Valley School District Leadership Team and the Board of Education are engaged in budget discussions for the 25-26 school year. To continue to get the message out about the district's facility and budgeting needs. Below are the dates and locations of the upcoming Board of Education Meetings. We look forward to seeing you there.

  • March 17, 2025--Stony Brook Elementary School, tour at 5:30 PM followed by meeting at 6:30 PM
  • April 28, 2025--Hopewell Elementary School, tour at 5:30 PM followed by meeting at 6:30 PM
  • May 19, 2025--Timberlane Middle School, tour at 5:30 PM followed by meeting at 6:30 PM
Open PTO Board Position

Interested in taking a more active role in the PTO? We are currently looking for someone to join our Board as VP of Community Building. This person would oversee The New Family Welcome Committee and the Welcome Back and End of Year Picnics at BT! If you are interested, or would like more information, please email jeanmara@yahoo.com. 

St. Baldrick's at Bear Tavern

We will be shaving our heads for St. Baldrick's on Friday, March 14 in the afternoon. If you want to support this awesome cause, please donate to our brave students HERE. So far, we've raise over $12,000 dollars and we are on our way to our goal of $30K but we can't do it without you.

If you or your child doesn't want to shave your heads, another way for our students to get involved is Bows for St. Baldrick's. Send in $3/or 2 for $5 any time in the next 2 weeks and we will celebrate with Green Bows in our hair on Friday, March 14.

Bear Tavern Read-a-Fun

Read-a-Fun is like a jog-a-thon, except your child will be reading books instead of running laps and earning pledges based on how much they read. BT's Read-a-fun will run March 10th - March 28th. Everything is tracked online, which makes inviting sponsors and logging reading much more manageable. Here are two videos that explain how to participate:

Your child will receive a private online account at https://app.readafun.com/, where he/she will log reading. Parent and student instructions on how to use the website have been sent home. Your child will not be able to invite any sponsors without your authorization. Follow this link to view instructions on how to use your parent account. 

Stay tuned for more information about special challenges and prizes!

Health Office Clothing Drive

The BT Health Office has clothing available for student needs after accidents, rips, and mud puddles! Unfortunately, the supplies are running low and they can use help with a restock! An Amazon Wishlist has been created to make donating quick and easy! Please use this link to access the Wish List for Nurse Watt! Thank you!

Please send any donations of gently used or new clothing you can spare in to Bear Tavern, Attn: School Nurse.

  • Underwear and pants (boys & girls) - all sizes up to adult
  • Universal shoes  such as crocs or flip flops
  • No shorts or sweaters are currently needed
  • Also needed: Plastic cups for students to use when they have forgotten their water bottles
New Family Welcome Sign Collection

If you were the recipient of a New Family Welcome sign at the start of the school year, and you do not wish to keep it, we will happily take them back to reuse in future years! Please feel free to bring it in to the Main Office at any point! We will also collect them at the end of the year picnic if you are not ready to part with it just yet!

Kindergarten Registration 2025-2026
  • Kindergarten Registration is open!
  • Kindergarten Camp: will be held Monday through Thursday, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. (four days a week) on the weeks of July 7th - 10th and July 14th - 17th at each elementary school. Please Note:your child must be registered for Fall 2025 Kindergarten in order to attend. The cost for attending two weeks is $300. If your child is only attending one week, it is $150. Transportation is not provided. Kindergarten Camp Registration will also open on Feb. 10th.
Annual Appeal Incentives

The BTPTO has reached 54% of our Annual Appeal goal and with your help, we can close that gap. 

If you have already donated to the appeal, a huge thank you!  Your support directly funds field trips, assemblies, visiting authors, outdoor learning areas, and classroom technology. Any additional donation will be cumulative and your child(ren) will be eligible for the Big Donations incentives. Big Donations Make Big Things Happen!    

Every student at Bear Tavern benefits from our generous community, whether they are donating their time, talent, items, expertise or monetary gifts.  Any donation of any size is optional and appreciated.  

Help us reach our Appeal Goal to fund activities and programs for the wonderful students at Bear Tavern! 


Click Here to Donate


Annual Appeal Incentives:

$250 Donation - Your child(ren) will get to help host the morning announcements

$350 Donation - Your child(ren) will have a lunch with Principal Billy or a participating teacher

$500 Donation* - Your child will get to be "Principal for a Day"

*Open to 4th/5th Grade Students Only - maximum 2 available.  All 4th/5th grade students will be entered into a raffle and can earn extra tickets by exhibiting kindness or by teacher nomination.


Questions/Info:  Kellye Jones - kwarn76@gmail.com

Membership Toolkit Directory Information

In alignment with the Hopewell School District, the Bear Tavern PTO will continue to use Membership Toolkit for our Student Directory and Communications for the 2024-2025 school year.  

Once you update your Membership Toolkit Account you will have access to the directory, PTO newsletters, donation links, volunteer opportunities, and much more.

You must update your information every year to be included in the directory! For those families who have children attending other Hopewell Schools, you will need to update your information for each school that your children attend.

Here's how: 

  1. LOGIN at https://beartavernpto.membershiptoolkit.com. (You must login with the email address where this newsletter arrived.) Once the Primary Account is set up, the Primary User can "invite" other email addresses to access the account.  This allows the Secondary User to have their own login information, but still have access to the family account.
  2. For those who are new to Membership Toolkit, please follow these instructions:
    1. Go to https://beartavernpto.membershiptoolkit.com.
    2. Click on the Register/Login button.
    3. Select "New User".
    4. Select "Create Account" and fill in your name, email (please use the email where this newsletter arrived), and password.  
    5. Click "verify my email" and then check your email for a link to complete the process. The link expires within 2 hours. If you do not receive the email, check your spam or junk folders.
    6. Once you have verified your email address, log back in and finish the 3 step registration process.
  3. Complete the Parent/Family and Student Information.
  4. Complete the Directory/Publish Preferences. By marking active, you are allowing other Bear Tavern families to see whatever contact information you choose to share. This is a great feature to foster friendships with playdates, birthday parties, etc.

Questions?

Reach out to Caitlin Stratuik- caitlin.stratuik@gmail.com 

BTPTO / MTK Mobile App

For Directory Access from a smart phone, users can download our Mobile App from the Apple store or the Google Play store. 

The app features:

  • Directory on Demand
  • Secure & Password protected
  • Parents always have control over which data will be included in the directory.
  • Volunteer Sign ups
  • Purchase spirit gear and Make Donations

The app is available for free in the Apple Store and in Google Play. Download it one time for all of the organizations that you are affiliated with that are using Membership Toolkit. If you belong to 4 organizations that are using Membership Toolkit, when you log in to the app you will see all four organizations presented and you can toggle between organizations.

Community Happenings
HVEF's Above and Beyond Celebration

The Hopewell Valley Education Foundation Annual “Above & Beyond” Celebration will be held on Friday, March 21st at Hopewell Valley Vineyards from 6:30-9:30pm. Join us as we celebrate Teachers and Support Staff of the Year from each of our district’s schools. There will be an auction full of amazing items as well as appetizers and artisan pizza buffet. View the graphic below for more information and click the link above to purchase your tickets. 

Quick Links

EMERGENCY CLOSING INFORMATION:

For all emergency schedule changes consult one of these sources:

District Website:http://www.hvrsd.org
District Emergency Phone Message: 737-8449
District Phone Line: 737-4000
HV-TV: Comcast Channel 19, Verizon Channel 32
HVRSD on Facebook

IMPORTANT BTPTO ONLINE LINKS
Everything you need from the PTO:
Bear Tavern PTO Website


We are also mobile!

The app is available for free in the Apple Store and in Google Play.


Bear Tavern Elementary School website (District Website):
http://btes.hvrsd.org/

Virtual Backpack (important flyers and forms)

https://btes.hvrsd.org/o/btes/browse/112859


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