Monday Morning Memo -- Tuesday Edition

We’re beginning our Extreme Spirit Week, where we support our basketball athletes with lots of color, cheer, and fun – and support our pantry with a food drive.  Here’s what we’ll be doing:

1.      We would like people to bring in food every day from Wednesday, Feb. 19 through Wednesday, Feb. 26.  We are sponsoring the special theme days as a way of motivating participation. 

2.      Thurs., Feb 20 -- Preppy Day (Bring an item for the food pantry and dress “Preppy”)

3.      Fri., Feb 21-- The “Official” St. Paul’s Spirit Day (Show your St. Paul’s spirit by bringing in an item for the food pantry and, of course, dressing in St. Paul’s attire.)  

4.      Mon., Feb. 24 -- USA DAY (Bring an item for the food pantry and wear your favorite patriotic attire.)                                     

5.      Tues., Feb. 25 -- 80’s Workout Day (Bring an item for the food pantry and dress in 80’s workout clothes such as leggings, leg warmers, sweat bands, and neon colored clothing)

Go to our website for more information. We are also asking folks to bring in the Box Tops for Education that we hope you’ve been collecting.  Let’s have fun with these activities, support our athletes, show our school pride, AND help the pantry!

Friendly reminder:  you can still purchase Auction Catalog Ads -- Celebrate your child’s milestone, recognize a team, promote your business to over 300 St. Paul’s families, or thank a teacher.  Submit your advertisement to Melissa Hendricks at stpauls2014@yahoo.com. All ads are due on Friday, February 28.

From the Admissions Office:  Thank you to all of our families who have returned your re-enrollment agreements and deposits for next year.  We are sending admissions letters to new families this week, and we are excited about the students who will be joining our school next year.  If you are interested in being an Ambassador Family (previously called “buddy family” ) and are willing to assist a new family acclimate into the bigger St. Paul’s family, please contact Jill McGee in the Admissions office (Jmcgee@speds.org).  Ambassador families are needed at all levels of the school, but because of the number of new ECC families admitted each year, we are in need of many ECC Ambassadors for these young families.

Great news:   the 2014 St Paul’s Summer in the City Brochure is officially posted on the school website!   Take a minute to browse through the brochure and see what exciting things we have to offer this summer! Space is limited in all classes so register early! If you have questions, feel free to contact Karen McDonald at kmcdonald@speds.org or call 816.268.6536.  For your convenience, here is the link:   http://www.speds.org/Page/Programs/Summer-Program

We have three more pleas from the carpool line from us and from your fellow carpoolers:

1.      PLEASE do not speed down the carpool line!  The line on Walnut is narrow by regular standards and made more narrow when there is snow.  Cars are pulling out, students and parents are crossing the street, and we all need your full attention and slow speed to make it safer for everyone.

2.      Idling cars add to the emissions that pollute our air and, with students and teachers on the playground, it’s polluting the air they are breathing.  Please turn off your car while waiting in line – barring, of course, sub-freezing temperatures.

3.      Our carpool helpers on Walnut are working hard to make sure we load cars as efficiently and safely as possible.  We encourage all parents to proceed through the carpool line instead of parking and walking to retrieve children but if, on occasion, you do need to park, please go ahead and enter the blacktop or stairwell areas to get your child.  Stopping to call numbers that aren’t in the carpool line interferes with our number callers’ progress and slows down the carpool process.  We also ask that if you do park that you use extra caution crossing since so many cars are driving through. Thank you for your help in this area.  We are working hard to keep everyone safe and to load cars as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your help in keeping our children – and parents! – safe.

For several years we have administered the Stanford Achievement Test to our third through seventh grade students.  Last year we learned that the independent school norms used for our reports were from 2007 and that there was no plan to update these norms, since the population of independent schools taking these SAT’s was too small to merit it, according to the company.  We had been planning to switch to the Education Research Bureau (ERB’s) in another year or two but decided, in light of this information that we should not wait any longer.  The ERB’s were developed for independent schools and, as such, they have higher expectations for the students taking these tests, knowing that the range of skills at our schools is more narrow and more toward the top of the scale.  This will mean that we could see a lower score on the tests, especially at the beginning as the students become accustomed to the new test and the new expectations.  It will also mean that parents cannot compare the scores from this year’s test to those of the SAT’s because they are completely different tests.  We will be sending more information to the parents of the students taking these tests closer to the April testing date but we wanted to let all families know of this change now.

Baby Van Maren is here!  Kelly Van Maren, one of our fourth grade teachers, and her husband Ben welcomed their little girl, Lucille Pearl, this past Thursday.  Lucy is 6 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long and has already stolen the hearts of her parents!  We wish Kelly and Ben all the best as they embark on this new journey!

Our chess team had a great time at the Kansas City Chess Foundation’s winter tournament on Saturday in Lenexa.  Eight students from Coach Curtis’s Monday afternoon chess club competed (Alex B, Noah B, Holden G, Quinn G, Joshua M, Carter R, Ethan R, and Hunter R).  They won a beautiful trophy for finishing in third place out of all the teams in the K-5 division, and several of the players got medals or trophies for high rankings in the individual standings.  Congratulations to these budding Chessmasters!