Once again, welcome to the new school year! Your children have done an amazing job of
adjusting to being back in a routine and, except for the yawns of both students
and faculty, and more trips to Starbucks by faculty on Friday, the transition
appeared to be almost seamless. Thank
you for your help in making it so. One
is not supposed to begin a communication with an apology but the length of this
memo seems to justify that apology.
There is so much we need to share at the beginning of the year so I
sincerely hope you’ll bear with us and read through all the good stuff
contained within this memo!
We are working with a new security firm, Clarence M.
Kelly and have been very pleased to date with an improved level of
service. Our new security guards are
Aaron Braun, who is here from 7:00 – 4:00; and Gary Boyd, who is here from 3:00
until the last students leave the campus.
Our first all-school chapel was conducted by our new
chaplain, Chaplain Castellan. Megan
has written a little introduction of herself which reads: “Hi everyone! I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself,
since I’ve seen many of you at Open House or Friday chapel now. I’m Megan Castellan, the new school chaplain
(and Associate Rector at St. Paul’s Church, if you happen to wander across the
parking lot.) For the past four years, I
have been a college chaplain at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff,
Arizona. Prior to that, I was on staff
at a large church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and chaplain to their
preschool. I’m really delighted to have
settled in the middle here at St. Paul’s, in more ways than one!
I’m excited to get started with you
all, and join this community. I’ll be
here primarily in the mornings, and at the church in the afternoons, but if
something comes up, that schedule is very flexible. Please stop by my office and introduce yourself,
if you haven’t already. I look forward
to getting to know you all, and if you need anything, I’m here.
--Megan Castellan+, Chaplain, St. Paul’s Day School”
Megan just
moved here from Flagstaff and we appreciate her efforts to get settled AND minister
to both us and the church community in just a week!
Check out the bulletin board in the glass hallway to see
the pictures of our other new faculty!
We have a wonderful Freshman class of new teachers this year, bringing
much enthusiasm and great new ideas to share with us. Please help us welcome all of our new people!
Curriculum Nights are coming and we want to make sure
these dates are on your calendar.
This is an evening for parents to learn about the work your children
will be doing during this school year.
Child
care is available by pre-arrangement with Karen McDonald at
kmcdonald@speds.org.
Here are the dates:
August 22 at 6:00
Toddler/Preschool
22 at 6:30
Middle School (6:00 YMCA mtg. for
8th
grade parents only)
29 at 6:00
Prekindergarten/Kindergarten
September
5 at 6:00 Lower School
Please note the change that the Early Childhood Curriculum
Programs will be held on two nights – on August 22 for toddler and preschool
families and on August 29 for prekindergarten and kindergarten parents. We hope this will allow families with more
than one child to attend the full curriculum night presentations for each
child. As we have done in the past,
Middle School Curriculum Night will begin at 6:30, so eighth grade parents can
meet at 6:00 to learn more about our fabulous four days and three nights at the
YMCA Camp of the Ozarks near Potosi, MO.
Carpool is a work in progress for us, especially in the
first couple of weeks of school.
However, you will see that I beg and plead for cooperation from all parents
during this time to try to make this organized
chaos a safe event for all of our children.
Here are some changes and some pleas:
1. The area along the covered breezeway will be
used for loading cars at morning, 11:45, 1:15, and 3:30 carpool times, so we
will close it off to parking. This will
allow (and has already allowed) for a faster carpool loading and unloading on
the north side of the building and to more quickly get cars off of Main Street.
2. Parents
are asked to please drop their children off and pick them up from the carpool
line. It is safer than walking them
across our busy parking lot or the even wilder and more dangerous 41st
St.
3. Cars
that cut into the carpool line on Walnut St. are both endangering students and
enraging parents. Please be considerate
of those who are waiting in line and join the queue!
4. Please
refrain from talking on your cell phone or texting while the line is
moving. This is not only safer but will
also be appreciated by your children when they get in, since they’ll want to
talk to you!
Your cooperation is greatly appreciated by the teachers and
administrators manning the carpool lines and your fellow carpoolers!
Classroom Blogs:
Our classroom blogs are a great way to learn more about what is happening
in your child’s classroom. These blogs are regularly updated by the teachers
and are a wealth of information. Find the blogs you need by clicking on the
“Classroom Blogs” link under “Helpful Pages” in the right column of this blog.
If you wish to receive updates each time a blog update is published, use the
“Follow by Email” signup field on each blog you’d like to follow. If you are
signed up for blogs from last year that you no longer wish to receive, simply click
the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the notification emails.
One Call Now Info
Needed: One Call Now is our Emergency Phone Notification
system. This allows us to notify parents of emergency situations (such as a
school closure) via an automatic phone messaging service. If you have not
already done so, please fill out our
One Call Now form so we can update our records. Please include all phone numbers you would like
us dial with emergency notifications.
Media Release
Non-Consent Form: As you may have noticed, we love to
celebrate our students and their accomplishments! This includes our website,
our blogs, our social media pages, our newsletters and more. These outlets are
valuable ways in which we share the school experience with our families.
If
you DO NOT wish for your student’s image and/or name to be used in school
publications, please fill out our Media Release Non-Consent form and return it
to the school office ASAP. (Otherwise,
no action is required.) It is our policy not to use students’ last names, and
not to label photographs with the names of those featured. Again, these
publications will only be used to share achievements and positive information
with our community.
Check out this short video, which features members of our
community, to brighten your day.
Parent Learning – The ECC Division has been
developing a Parent Learning Center over the last few years and we are excited
to expand some additional learning opportunities to the entire community. We
will be sending out more information through the grade level blogs, MMM and
eventually a website page dedicated just for parent learning and support. Our
focus this year will include guest speakers, seminars, book discussions, Lunch
and Learns and some community events outside of the school day! Every month we
will be offering a variety of opportunities to gather, discuss, learn, and
explore topics relevant to the growth and education of our children.
Coming Soon:
You can RSVP for any and all Parent Learning events with
Mrs. van Thullenar,
Lvan@speds.org
Look for more information on these and other events in your grade level
blogs and future MMM’s.
We have collected many books
related to a variety of parent topics and we encourage you to take advantage of
these resources. They are located in the ECC Commons and the library and can be
checked out through Mrs. van Thullenar or Mr. Nerstheimer, our librarian.
As a precursor to and introduction of our Keepers of the Sandlot presentation,
I urge you to look at this blog posting – a blog that has several wonderful
tips on parenting.
Your
Parents' Guild is gearing up for another great year! Throughout the school year, the Parents'
Guild sponsors a variety of activities to support the work of the school. There are many ways in which you can get
involved. You can volunteer to be a Room
Parent, help with the Library, Book Fair, Spirit Wear, etc. Use the following link to sign-up: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YSCXVB9
Also, as a St. Paul's parent, you are a
member of the Parents' Guild and are welcome and encouraged to attend our
monthly meetings. These meetings are
held the second Wednesday of each month at 8:30am in the Garden Room of the
Church building. Our first meeting is
scheduled for September 11.
If you have any questions about Parents'
Guild, please feel free to call me at 816-520-9966 or at karenbetzkerr@gmail.com. I am looking forward to a great year, and
hope to see you at the first Parents' Guild!
Sincerely,
Karen
Kerr
2013-14
St. Paul's Parents' Guild President
Want to know what’s happening at St. Paul’s and in the
world from the perspective of Middle School students here? If so, check out our school newspaper, in its
second year of electronic publication at
http://spedstimeline.blogspot.com. This is an elective
class for 7th and 8th graders led by Ms. Laird, our art
teacher. It is student written and
edited, and each of the 13 editors has his/her own column. In its first year, it had over 7200 “views”
from 10 countries!
If you have concerns, questions, positive feedback or
other comments to share with us, please do.
We prefer that you take all classroom concerns to teachers first, as
they are the experts there and we administrators would have to turn to them to
get answers to your questions, if you came to us first. We look forward
to a wonderful year together and, once again, appreciate you entrusting your
children to us!
