UNLESS U NEWS UPDATES​
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Summer and 2025-26 Registration is LIVE!
Please complete the registration form for Summer 2025 and the 2025-26 school year. This is not a survey and your responses will be considered your enrollment for the upcoming terms. Please complete this form no later than February 22nd to register. More information can be found on the form by clicking here.
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Meet Your Unless U Teachers and Staff
In case you missed it on Brightwheel, we would love to introduce (or re-introduce) you to our teachers and staff. Click here to meet the 2024-25 Unless U staff!
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Spring 2025 Curriculum
Click here to view our curriculum for this spring semester. If you have any questions please reach out to Mr. Ethan.
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Conversation Starters
Click here for Mrs. Susan's January Conversation Starters
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UUGT Information
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2025
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: The Lyric Theater
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Since we will have more acts this year than ever before, the event will look a little different than it has in years past. Instead of the traditional whole group performance, we will be doing something extra fun to wrap up the show.
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​We will call all students who want to participate backstage near the end of the show. They will have the chance to join us for a hip-hop performance with Tommy and Shaheed to close out the show with a bang! Our students will dance and hype up Tommy on stage, making the finale an unforgettable moment for everyone!
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After the performance, students will stay on stage as we announce the winners.
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Dress Code: Students can wear what they normally would for the talent show - dresses, pants, or skirts for the girls, pants and a button up shirt for the boys.
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Discounted Student Tickets: We are offering students a DISCOUNTED TICKET for the show. Use the promo code "student" at checkout to receive your discount. Click here to be taken to the ticket link.
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We are so excited about this year's event and grateful for your continued support of Unless U and our students! We look forward to seeing you at this year's event!
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Railway Marathon and Half Marathon: Student Involvement Opportunity
Our board member, James Graham, is putting on this event on February 8th to benefit Unless U! We would love to put together a group of students to attend, pass out water, and cheer on the runners throughout the course. We will take a group from Unless U (via shuttle bus) to the race! Please drop off your student at Unless U at 9AM. We will leave the building at 9:15AM. We will return back to Unless U for you to pick up your student at 11:30AM. You are also welcome to transport your student there and back if you would like.
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Please have your student dressed in Unless U attire. We would also love for any cheerleaders who would like to attend to be dressed in their cheer uniforms! If you would like to sign your student up to attend, please click here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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Click above to purchase tickets to 2025 Unless U Got Talent: All Stars! We can't wait to see everyone at The Lyric on February 22nd, 2025!
BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS!
We are excited to announce some changes to our much beloved birthday celebrations at Unless U. As our student enrollment has grown, so have the amount of cupcakes, cookie cakes, and the sweetest treats you can imagine! We love celebrating our students and will continue to do so - but we also want to ensure we are being good stewards of all our celebrations and make sure everyone is able to be celebrated. This will also allow us to be mindful of everyone's health and that no one is left out of having the opportunity to celebrate with their friends. So, with this in mind, we have a few changes we would like to announce:
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What's Changing?
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Monthly Birthday Celebrations will take the place of individual birthday parties. There will be a monthly celebration for all students and staff with birthdays that month. This means the celebrations will be bigger than ever!
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Celebration Days: These parties will be held once a month for each enrollment group (M/W/F and T/R)
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Treat Contributions: Students with birthdays that month can bring a small amount of a treat to share (about 1 dozen), creating a variety of snacks for everyone. Any shortage will be supplemented with popsicles or ice cream we have on hand. As a frame of reference, we typically have around 60 students and staff each day, so hopefully this number will help you plan accordingly. It also means since everyone is sharing the load, you won't need to send 60 cupcakes for your student, which we hope will make things easier for parents as well.
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Birthday Calendar: A calendar with all birthdays and scheduled celebration days will be shared and reminders will be sent out via the parent newsletter and Brightwheel.
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What's Staying the Same?
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Individual Recognition: On or near a student's actual birthday, they will still receive compliments, a birthday crown, and singing from their friends. We still want each student to feel like royalty!
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HOT LUNCH PROGRAM
We are so glad you all are enjoying the hot lunches provided to our students in partnership with Vestavia Hills Methodist Church! Below is the order form for this month's hot lunches.
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CLICK HERE FOR FEBRUARY LUNCH ORDERS
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The order submission deadline is Friday, January 24th.
The cost per meal is $5 for the 2024–2025 school year. Once you submit your order for the month, a charge for the number of meals you ordered that month will be added to your student’s Brightwheel account. We will maintain a list of which students ordered on each day, and we can only provide lunches if you sign up in advance. You will receive an email copy of your lunch order and we ask that you keep up with which days your student has ordered lunches and which days you choose to bring lunch from home.
Due to needing to order everything in advance, we will not be able to give refunds if your student does not attend on a day you have ordered lunch.
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SCOOPS UPDATE
​Students who are not part of the Scoops Job Training Program may be able to work in Scoops, but the opportunities will be more limited, and will primarily be during the after school hours and for Scoops Cart events. Students who are new to Unless U will need to wait until we open admission for the 2025-2026 Scoops Job Training Cohort before they are able to work in Scoops.
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Please reach out to Ethan (ethan.smith@unlessu.org) or Libby (libby.faucett@unlessu.org) with any questions.
We encourage you to continue to visit and support Scoops and the students working there. The best way to grow in skill is to serve lots of customers!
COMMUNITY EVENTS
2025 Railway Marathon and Half Marathon Supporting Unless U
Sign up for the 2025 Railway Marathon and Half Marathon, which supports Unless U and Post Place! The event boasts marathon, half marathon, 50K, 10K, 5K, 1 Mile Fun Run, and a Kids option. This race also serves as a qualifier for the Boston Marathon. For more information or to sign up, click the image above.
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Trinity Care Pharmacy
Trinity Care Pharmacy is a new group in Birmingham offering medical opportunities specifically for our students and the elderly community. Trinity will deliver medications to your home, but you must currently have Medicare or Medicaid to qualify. For more information, click here.
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The Samford Communication Disorders, Sciences, and Kinesiology Department are hosting a "Parents' Afternoon Out" for Unless U and Post Place families on Saturday, February 8th, from 2-4PM. Our students will be paired with a Samford student to participate in activities including face painting, temporary tattoos, Valentine card creation, cookie decorating, Photo Booth, and karaoke. A sensory room and changing room will also be provided. Parents/guardians will be asked to complete and assumption of risk, emergency contact form, and photo release at drop off. Faculty from CSDS, Kinesiology, and PA will be supervising.
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Click here to register for the event.
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*Please note: this is a Samford University function for Unless U and Post Place students. This event is not put on or staffed by Unless U.
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Hope Heals Camp Registration is LIVE!
Camper applications for 2025 Hope Heals Camp are now open. If you are interested in attending, please click here to go to the application. Camp dates are June 30th-July4th, July 7th-11th, July 14th-18th, and June 21st-25th. Applications close in one month on February 21st, 2025. Hope Heals Camps are located at Camp McDowell in Nauvoo, AL.
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What is Hope Heals Camp? Rest, resources, and relationships are waiting for you! Disabilities affect more than just the individual with the diagnosis, so we built Camp for entire family units in which one or more people are living with disabilities. Hope Heals Camp is FREE to all camper families. Our community is not limited to a certain type of diagnosis or a specific age range. Participants of any age and experiencing all types of disabilities are invited to join us! While our mission and programming are rooted in the Christian faith, we are inclusively faith focused. You do not have to follow Jesus to be welcomed into the Camp community. For more detailed information on registration, please click here.
DROP IN DAY REQUEST
Please complete the forms below to let us know which days in the month (starting in the fall semester) you will need for drop-in. The drop-in rate is $60 a day. If you also need Early & After care, this will be an additional $10 for that day. This charge will be added to your Brightwheel account once your request has been approved.
Drop-in days will be approved based on availability and processed in the order they are received. We will process all submissions on the 25th of the month preceding the request. For example, if you requested a day in October we will not process that submission until the 25th of September. We cannot guarantee approval of any dates. The only way to guarantee specific dates is to be enrolled for those days for the semester. Please know that we will do our best to accommodate all drop-in day requests.
2024-25 UNLESS U CALENDAR
