NMS Choir Summer Survey!

Hey all! Long time no see! Hope you all are having fantastic summers so far! Just wanted to reach out with a couple of updates on the upcoming school year while you still have plenty of time to soak up the summer sun!

First off, in case you missed the announcements towards the end of the year, with Mrs. Armington heading off into retirement bliss, there will be a new face around the NMS Choir room! Mr. Danny Maura will be joining in on the fun as the new choir director alongside myself! Mr. Maura comes to us as a recent graduate of Western Michigan University as we are super excited to have him hitting the ground running with the Northridge Middle School Choirs this year! Keep an eye out for more from him in the coming weeks!;)

Secondly, with the next school year still being a month away, Mr. Maura and I were wanting to touch base with you all in regards to the concert structure for the upcoming year. In the past as many/most of you have been a part of, we have performed 2 performances for both the Christmas Concert in December as well as the Final Blast in May. This was primarily due to the expected number of attendees being sizably higher than the high school auditorium seating capacity (999 seats). Going off of last years numbers, our tickets sold for the two performances of both concerts were between 1000-1100. With those numbers being so close to fitting in just one showing, and knowing that there were several parents/families attending both shows, we have been considering condensing the 2 performances back into a single performance for each concert. This would, in my eyes, alleviate the need for a meal in between the shows as well as lessen the number and time commitment for parent volunteers which would be a nice change of pace. There would still be a few logistical issues (finding ways for parent volunteers to still catch their daughter/son’s performance, timing of the performance for attendees, etc.) which we would be open to suggestions on, but overall it feels like it could be the right move at this juncture (with the potential to pivot back if things change in the future).

To that effect, we wanted to gauge parent/family response before committing fully to the change for the year. To help with this, I have put together a quick parent survey (I heard that groan past-KL parents;). If you could take a quick moment to fill that out at your convenience over the next few weeks, we would greatly appreciate it!

Link to 2025 NMS Choir Parent Survey

I think that’s all that we have for you all at the moment. Hope you all have tons of fun things planned to fill out these last 4 weeks of summer fun! Thank you for taking the time to fill that out and as always feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns! Thanks all!

Potential Dodgeball Update

Hey all! Mr. Cone and I have been watching the weather and there is a good chance that rain will impact our dodgeball event tomorrow. As of now, we are still planning on getting our dodgeball on, but if it looks like it will be raining after school, we will unfortunately have to cancel. We will look to make a decision by 1:30/2:00 at the latest, so keep an eye out for an update around then to make sure! Fingers-crossed it’ll pass us by and the dodgeballs will fly!😉

Hey all! In case your choir beast hasn’t passed on the word yet, the annual Band vs Choir Dodgeball Deathmatch will be taking place next Wednesday (May 28th) from 3:45-4:45 on the tetherball courts (right beside the Northridge tennis courts). It is open to all 6th-8th grade NMS choir and band student, and we hope to have another great turnout again this year! Pickup will be at the parking lot right beside the tennis courts. Fingers-crossed the trophy returns to us this year after a close 2-1 loss last year!

Final Blast 2025 in the Books!

Well, the town of Middlebury was hoppin’ to the NMS Choir’s 80’s Dance Party on Saturday! The kids put on two absolutely fantastic performances to be proud of! If you weren’t able to make it out to the Final Blast performances on Saturday, you missed out on a fantastic trip back to the 80’s! The kids put on an amazing performance and closed out the year with bang! If you were still hoping to catch it in a recorded form, you’re still in luck! Our friends at Michiana Video were there recording the 4:30 performance. If you or a family member, friend, relative, neighbor, recent acquaintance, etc. were interested in a recording of this year’s Final Blast performance, orders can be placed online through this Order Form Link with money being sent in with students sometime this week. Additionally, paper copies of the order form can be picked up by students in class if preferred. We will take orders through the end of this week (Friday, May 16th).

We also have pictures to share with you all, courtesy of our awesome photographers, Mrs. Byers and Mrs. Norris! A huge thank you to them for capturing these awesome shots! (Link to Mrs. Byers Photo Album, Link to Mrs. Norris Photo Albums)

What a fantastic way to finish off an awesome year of performances! We could not be prouder of the kids and the hard work they put into making the shows as great as they were! Thank you to the literally hundreds of parent chaperones, chauffeurs, generous donators, and volunteers that helped make this year as successful as it was! We couldn’t have done it without your help! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Some “Need to Know’s” for this Week!

Hello all!

We’ve been receiving a few of the same questions from parents over the last couple of days, and so I thought it would be easiest to simply send some “Need to Know” info out to you all so that everyone can have it all in one place!😉

First off, our Dress Rehearsal will be after school tomorrow (May 8th) at the high school. Students will rehearse up until 5:45 that day (with Knight Light members staying until 6:30pm). Students should be picked up at that time at their assigned doors (6th Grade – Door 23, 7th Grade – Door 1, 8th Grade – Door 29). If you were one of the parents volunteering to send in treats or water, those can be dropped off at any time throughout the school day today/tomorrow (before 3:00). Dress rehearsal chaperones will be meeting in the middle school choir room at 2:45pm to a walkthrough of the rehearsal with Mrs. A.

In regard to the Final Blast itself, Call Time for students on Saturday will be 4:00 dressed and ready in their homerooms (6th Grade – HS Band Room, 7th & 8th – HS Choir Room). Our Final Blast performances will be a little different than our other performances this year in that the students will be wearing their new Final Blast T-Shirts (*which they will be bringing home with them on Friday), Blue Jeans, and regular shoes! We will be having two shows that night (one at 4:30pm and one at 7:00pm) and tickets can be purchased by the students in classes over the next three days or at the door day of (tickets are $3 regardless). We are expecting the runtime to be right around 80-90 minutes for each show with the whole thing being done around 8:30pm.

Finally, we are still looking for a few more concert chaperones at every grade (as well as other positions of need throughout the night. If you are at all available to help out in that capacity, please reach out to either Mrs. Armington or myself so we can get you plugged in (their bark is much worse than their bite, I promise😉)! It truly “takes a village” to get this thing to the finish line so any and all help is appreciated! Thank you and see you all on Saturday! Only 4 more days to go!

3 things

It looks like each grade will sit with their parents during the show since we only have a few parents signed up to chaperone. I hate for that to happen, it will really drag out the show. But, I can’t leave them unsupervised. Please plan accordingly unless you hear back from me.

I need a 6th and 8th grade mom to make phone reminders. That should have happened by yesterday, but once again not one person signed up. Please check sign up genius to see if you signed up because you may not receive a phone reminder.

Big thank you’s to the moms who made flowers and Locker Decorations. The kids were very excited when they received them!

2 Things

All flower people 🙂 (people who are making flowers for me), could I get them by Tuesday morning? You can throw them in a trash bag or a box. Thank you for lending a hand!!

Speaking of lending a hand, only 7 people have signed up for all of those open volunteer positions! Yikes! Please don’t wait for someone else to volunteer. Step up and lend a hand if you can. Couples can sign up together!! We need these positions filled we’re at emergency status right now.

We need people in all areas but especially in the chaperone department! We can’t watch the kids because we are on stage. It’s not a fun job but it’s only for an hour and 15 minutes.

Another scary area for us is dinner crew. We must have at least 12 parents watching over the kids while they eat. Otherwise…well let’s not go there.

Please step up soon. This is a deep concern right now. Thank you so much. Mrs. Armington