Upper School New Family Information

Dear New Upper School Parents,Welcome to Upper School! On behalf of the faculty and administration, we are so glad that you are joining our community. Although our community gatherings remain virtual for the remainder of this school year, I am hopeful that I can stand among you in person very, very soon! In addition to the information in this letter, please check out my welcome video on the “New Families” web page and keep checking back to that page for useful information and links as we move further into the Spring.First, here are some general, all-school items that will help with your transition into our community:Virtual Meet & Greet with School Leadership
Thursday, April 15, 7:00 pm, CLICK HERE TO JOINMembers of our Parents’ Association will deliver Greenhill Welcome Bags later in April, but if you want to purchase some Greenhill gear for your new Greenhill Hornet in the meantime, please order online at The Buzz, our official campus store.Please use the login information for MyGreenhill that you recently received to become familiar with this online portal. MyGreenhill will be one of the main conduits of information as your student begins their Upper School career. For now, there are two “tiles” to check out: Upper School Resources and Enrollment Checklist. The Upper School Resources tile will give you a glimpse into our current year, and the Enrollment Checklist tile will help you complete remaining paperwork (particularly our health forms and immunizations!) in a timely fashion. The SNAP Health Portal login will arrive in your inbox within the week.In addition to these all-school resources, there are a number of items that will help you and your student transition into the Upper School community. Besides the April 15 Virtual Meet and Greet, you will also have a chance to meet with me at the US Divisional Coffee on Friday, May 14 at 9:00 am. Please look for an evite with more specific information in the next several days.As the last 13 months have taught us, technology is a crucial part of our educational experience. To that end, please take a look at the laptop program tab on the new families web page for important information about our 1:1 laptop program. Rising 9th grade students will participate in this program and will receive their laptops in August. Additional information about technology options will be forthcoming for our rising 10th students. Rising 11th graders may bring their own device.While we had held out hope to welcome you all in person on Saturday, May 8 for the New Family Orientation and Placement Testing event on campus, we instead will return to our virtual protocols for the remainder of the Spring. In addition to meeting with current members of our community, the May 8 event was also a way to capture academic and skills-based information so that we can begin the scheduling process for your child. The following information will give you a broad overview of that process; just like the Enrollment Checklist items, it will be important to complete everything we in the Upper School request in a timely fashion.The first piece of information we need is for all incoming students to complete the Student Academic Questionnaire by Tuesday, April 20. This will help our team prepare and send the appropriate placement exams for math and language to you. You should expect those exams by Friday, April 30 with a completion/return date of Monday, May 17. Generally, these tests will take about 60 minutes each for math and language – and there is no preparation necessary!In addition to questions about math and foreign language, here are the names, linked with email information, of faculty and administrators if you have a question about our onboarding process:Math: Darryn Sandler, US Math Chair
Modern & Classical Languages: Laura Hudec, US Modern & Classical Languages Chair
Student Life: Jacobo Luna-Cruz, 9th Grade Dean, Jason Gajderowicz, 10th Grade Dean, and Cathy Falk, 11th Grade Dean
General questions: Trevor Worcester, Head of Upper School, or Rebecca Shuman, Assistant Head of Upper SchoolLastly, we wanted to give you information on our optional, but highly recommended, US Foundations course. You can access dates for the course and register online through our web site. Here is the course description from our Summer on the Hill catalog:Do you want to begin Upper School feeling more comfortable and confident? A weeklong course, Upper School Foundations provides an overview to incoming students by focusing on five crucial areas: the writing process, research paper composition, math/science applications, study skills, and acclimation to life in the high school. Students will spend four-and-a-half hours each day taking separate classes that will cover information, expectations, and suggestions geared towards easing their transition into Upper School. This course is limited to Greenhill students only.Again, welcome to the Greenhill community! Please let us know if you have any questions.Sincerely,Trevor Worcester
Head of Upper School