Dear Parent:
As a first thought—so it is not lost in all the details that follow—let me suggest that you watch for email updates throughout the summer. We typically send very few emails between the end of the school year and the time we begin to ramp up for the fall semester. This summer promises to require more than typical. Stay tuned.
To begin with, the just-announced BJU schedule for the fall semester begins a week earlier than usual and ends at Thanksgiving. Rest assured, BJA is not changing its fall calendar–we plan to follow our normal fall semester schedule. Those dates (when school begins and ends, as well as vacation days) were posted on our online calendar in January. Some Academy events may be tweaked because of the University changes, and we will communicate details as necessary.
Looking ahead to the fall, we anticipate providing daily full-schedule classes and activities with the mindset of opening our doors as soon as is safely possible—the operative word here is safely. Here are some of the details.
BJA’s planned dates for when school begins and ends as well as vacation days are available on the online calendar. Here are several special dates around the opening of our school year.
- Saturday, Aug 1: Summer social for the Class of 2020
- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Aug 10, 11, 13: Speech & Debate Camp (grades 9–12)
- Wednesday, Aug 12: Fall schedules and classroom placements available in Sycamore
- Monday, Aug 17: school begins (K3–8 Academy meal plans/Academy Bucks 2019–20 balances available first semester 2020–21)
If your student was in grades K3 through 12 at BJA in the 2019–20 school year, would you take a few minutes to complete a survey? Thanks for the informal feedback you gave us as we went through such an unusual conclusion to our school year. Though we hope we’ll never experience this kind of situation again, what we learn from you in a formal survey may help us serve you better in a typical school year. The K3–12 survey will be open through Sunday, May 31.
Believe it or not the next several items are completely unrelated to the coronavirus.
BJU is updating several key computer programs. One impact is that beginning with the 2020-21 school year, BJA’s tuition and fees will no longer be billed through BJU’s business office. In July BJA will begin using FACTS Tuition Management for billing. I’m hopeful that the transition to FACTS will be an easy one for our families. Around the middle of the summer watch for a welcome email which will include instructions for setting up your account.
Students are to be in full school uniform on the first day of school. Here are helpful tips as you plan your summer shopping.
- Spending less on uniforms.
- Be sure to sign up for Lands’ End’s email alerts so you can take advantage of their frequent deep sales on new garments.
- Also mark your calendar for a Uniform Exchange of gently-used BJA items, with drop-off on Tuesday, June 23, and the sale on Thursday, June 25. Closer to the sale date we’ll give you more details, including adjustments to our typical process made to accommodate COVID-19 concerns.
- Helping you order the right sizes on uniform items. Sizing correctly when ordering online can be a challenge. Keep in mind that altered garments are not to be worn (exception: hems of pants, which should touch a normal shoe but not touch the ground).
- “Top-of-knee” styles: Be sure the skirt comes at least to the top of your daughter’s knee. You can check for skirt length on the garment’s “Fit & Size,” especially its “Item Dimensions” on the Lands’ End website.
- Sample garments: To help our families make sizing decisions we are building a collection of sample garments. Stay tuned for details.
The location of Sycamore’s report cards and transcripts will change beginning next week until fall schedules and classroom placements are made available in Sycamore. To access these log in using the family login (not the student login). Next, click My Family (on the sidebar), then Students, then the student’s Sycamore code, then the Documents tab. For graduated seniors, a final transcript was emailed to parents.
And one last note. We are opening our Child Development Center, as well as the summer child care for rising K4 through rising 8th graders (KinderKamp and BASEcamp) for limited hours (8–4:30) for our entire BJA family (currently enrolled students) on Monday, June 1. We are aiming to return to our regular schedule (7:30–5:30) on June 15.
Have a good week.
Dan Nelson
Administrator
Comments are closed.