IC Imagine Public Charter School

Updated Coffee with Counselor Dates: -Nov 6 - College Application Overview 6-7 PM Virtual -Nov 12 - Supporting your Teen's Mental Health 7:30-8:30 AM In person -Nov 21 - AB Tech Dual Enrollment 9-10 AM Virtual * You can find the virtual links on our website calendar.

On Saturday we hosted a college application workshop for our seniors. Huge thanks to the students for showing up and working hard! We couldn't have done it without the college counselors who came out to help, Leah Lambert of NC Association of Independent Schools and Alex Segura of Charlotte Latin School. We love supporting our seniors in reaching their college goals! #iciupperschool #icimaginepubliccharterschool #icimaginek12 #collegebound #classof2025 #upperschool

We can't wait to see everyone tomorrow! #lookahead #icimagine #icimaginek12 #icimaginepubliccharterschool

We have had a great few days back preparing to welcome our students. We took some time to reflect and encourage each other and began working to get ready for our Kingfishers! Our teachers are eager to welcome their students back, reconnect with them, and dive into learning. Please remember that for next week we will be on a two-hour delay schedule. Arrival begins at 9:15, school begins at 10:00. We have plenty of drinking water for our students, please send them with a reusable water bottle if you can!

Imagine Families, we want to be sure you have this info! The USDA has extended the deadline for Buncombe County residents to apply for help buying food through the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) to 4 p.m. Friday. Individuals and households not currently receiving Food and Nutrition Services benefits who were impacted by Hurricane Helene can apply for D-SNAP. Apply in person at Buncombe County Health and Human Services, 40 Coxe Ave., Asheville from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday.

Water! We are receiving donations every day. A huge thank you to our community for your incredible support! #wncstrong #icimagine #icimaginepubliccharterschool #icimaginek12

Imagine, We are incredibly grateful to share that the county, other schools, and greater communities have shown tremendous support in donating potable water to our school. Currently, we have sufficient water to last us through the upcoming weeks; however, we have run out of space to safely store this water. Therefore, we must cancel the water donation drive scheduled for tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who signed up. If we require donations in the future, we will inform you and know we can count on our Kingfisher community to help. Secondly, we appreciate the feedback you shared with regards to options for adjusting our school calendar. While the majority of the respondents shared that they would prefer that all days were waived, enough stakeholders supported recovery of instructional time to warrant some change. To summarize, no changes were made to Winter and Spring Break and four teacher workdays were removed (11/8, 1/21, 2/21, 5/23). We also have removed one Imagination Day and returned that day to normal instructional time. These changes recover five instructional days. The updated calendar can be viewed on our website. For the week of October 28, arrival will begin at 9:15 am and school will begin at 10:00 am. Beginning with this schedule allows for daylight to travel in the morning. Many roads and neighborhoods are still difficult to navigate. Our ASCEND program and bus will resume as normal on Monday, October 28th. We plan to resume full days on Monday, November 4th. Thank you again for your continued support of our school and community during this time. We look forward to seeing you Monday morning. Warmly, Jenn Townley

Seniors, check this out! #collegebound #collegeapplication #icimagine #iciupperschool #icimaginek12 #classof2025 #nccolleges

On Monday, the US Volleyball team went to watch the State quarterfinals between Asheville Christian and Grace Crusaders. It was a great opportunity to spend time together and support ACA, whose school has been damaged by the hurricane. They were thrilled to have our support and ended up winning, securing their spot in the next round of the State finals. #wncstrong #icimagine #icimaginepubliccharterschool #icimagine #icimaginek12 #iciathletics #iciupperschool #icikingfishers #icivolleyball

We are excited to share that we have won multiple categories in the Best of Asheville! A heartfelt thank you to our community for your votes and support! #icimagine #icimaginepubliccharterschool #icimaginek12 #bestofasheville #nccharterschool

Today we can confirm that our full staff will be back to work in the building on Thursday, October 24th and that school will resume for students on Monday, October 28th. We will operate on a two-hour delay schedule for the week of October 28th and plan to return to full days on Monday, November 4th. For the week of October 28, arrival will begin at 9:15 and school will begin at 10. Beginning with this schedule allows for daylight to travel in the morning. Many roads and neighborhoods are still difficult to navigate. This will also allow us to observe our water supply and ensure we are ready to go for full days the following week. Our ASCEND program will resume as normal on Monday, October 28th. Those that utilize ASCEND will hear more about that program from the ASCEND Director. Our bus will operate beginning Monday, October 28th. Extracurricular activities and athletics will resume as quickly as they are ready. Please look out for more information directly from coaches, directors, etc. Remember, they are just getting organized, and it may take a little time for them to have answers. Any calendar changes will be communicated as they are board approved. I expect to provide that information for you all next week. We are asking for potable water donations from our entire school community to supplement what we are receiving and ensure we have sufficient drinkable water. If you're interested in contributing, please see your email for more information.

Ms. Kelley, one of our kindergarten teachers, has been working with this catering company and wanted us to share this resource with our families.

Join us today at The Whale! A big shoutout to our very own Ms. Stephanie White for organizing.

Hey Imagine, What an amazing experience we had making art and art kits together at Cheap Joe's on Monday. Not only did we get to reconnect and make some beautiful works of art big and small, but we also assembled 67 art supply kits that have already been distributed around our community. How about we do it again? Mr. Barton has lined up two more art making, art kit assembling events, downtown at Lexington Glassworks. (81 S Lexington Ave.) Friday, October 18th and Sunday October 20th from 10am-4pm. Please understand that these are drop-in events where you and your child will have the opportunity to make another piece of art, make a pin for yourself, work on a collaborative canvas and help assemble art supply kits to distribute around WNC. You are welcome to come at any time. If helping to make the kits is something that is important to you please come early as it will probably happen fast. We are also still collecting the supplies that we need to assemble the kits. If you would like to know how you can help with this effort, please let Mr. Barton (natebarton@icimagine.org) know and he will share with you the pertinent information. We look forward to seeing you soon. Let's make art for the heart and change the world.

Today, we feel comfortable sharing with you a tentative start date of Monday, October 28th for students. Please understand this plan could change, we are relying on many details to come together to make this happen. Remember, we have two big areas of concern to address to get school open; water and staffing. Based on information from City and County officials, it seems likely that water service with non-potable water will return to the school building within days. They are currently working from the Eastern part of the county towards the Western part of the county where our school is located. As a reminder, municipal water will be under a boil advisory and we must have potable (drinking) water available for consumption for all staff and students in order to open. For our school, this means we will need to provide potable water for approximately 1400 people per day. In collaboration with city and county officials, other charter schools and local school districts, potable water delivery will begin to all schools this week with enough water to open for 1/2 days. We continue to assess our staff’s readiness to return to school. We believe that area daycares will resume operations as water returns, though that is a detail we cannot control. We know there are various news organizations reporting possible half day schedules. While we are collaborating with other schools, we will be creating our own abbreviated schedule that aligns with our typical dismissal schedules. We have not made a determination about our schedule as of today. Based on our planning to date, we do not know if we will be able to resume athletics, extra-curricular activities, or ASCEND the week of October 28th. A full reopening plan takes time, and we aren’t in a position yet to answer those questions. Please take the time to complete the survey in your email about our return to school and instructional time as we work together to return to school.

This Wednesday come to a Read Aloud event at The Whale in West Asheville!

Hello Imagine, We wanted to make you aware of an art event that Mr. Barton is going to be hosting with Cheap Joe's. It will be this coming Monday from 10am-2. They're going to be making a collaborative work of art to support the community, students can make a personal piece of art and help to assemble art supply kits for other young people in WNC who have been impacted by this terrible event. All are welcome and Mr. Barton said he'd love to see you. If you aren't able to make it Monday there will be many other opportunities in the near future. If you would like to help Mr. Barton share art and art supplies with our community please send him an email. Cheap Joe's is located at 829 Riverside Dr. Asheville

We are thrilled to announce that we have made contact with all of our families and ALL of our students are safe and accounted for! As a reminder this is what we know we need in place to reopen school: 1. Water, potable and non-potable (4500 gallons per day), including fire suppression capabilities 1.We continue to work through water solutions with local officials and a contractor. We believe we will be able to give a more detailed update about our plans for an alternative water solution next week once materials have arrived onsite. We know that until municipal water is restored, if we are able to resource an alternative water plan, we will have to institute a “Fire Watch” in place of having a pressurized sprinkler system. Next week, as we formalize those procedures we will begin to ask for volunteers to man this. It will take three people to do this for the duration of time that our building is occupied. We will be counting on our families to provide this resource for us! 2. Staff in a position to come to work each day, including those with young children having stable childcare We are currently assessing our staff’s readiness to return to work. Additionally, we will be sending a survey to understand family and staff preferences about returning to school and future calendar changes. As the results of this survey come in, we will begin to share plans about a timeline to return to school.

In our commitment to keep you informed, we will communicate with you as frequently as we can throughout this process. We appreciate the many ideas that you have shared with us; however, please know that we have reached a point where we can no longer respond to individual emails concerning water initiatives or school reopening strategies. All information we have will be shared in these school-wide updates. As we begin to focus on the future, we would like to share our insights on what is necessary to reopen the school successfully. 1-Water, potable and non-potable, including fire suppression capabilities 2-Staff who are in a position to come to work each day, including those with young children having stable childcare We are actively working to understand possible solutions to provide water at our building until municipal water can be restored in cooperation with local officials and contractors. There are many items that must be navigated in the background; this is not a simple process. Interested to know how much water we use on average per month at IC Imagine? 83,000 gallons! Student Status Update Only 11 students are not accounted for at this time. Thank you to all of you who are supporting this effort. State Officials Update We heard more about their efforts in yesterday's meeting with state officials and representatives. Local Officials Update We attended a meeting today with County Officials. They are working with all district and charter schools to determine the best path forward to get schools open. We are grateful for their support and collaboration through this recovery. We will be meeting with them regularly until schools are open again. Communication Flow You are going to start seeing more communication from varying departments at school in hopes of offering support and answers in different areas. We are so grateful that you all are part of the IC Imagine Community. Please know that we are spending our days working to safely open school as quickly as possible.

After the recent flooding from Hurricane Helene, our mental health team has put together resources to support our students' emotional well-being. Use the link below to learn more. https://www.icimagine.org/article/1809891