Monday Morning Memo

Curriculum Night for our Middle School students is this Thursday night.  It begins at 6:00 for eighth grade parents only.  This is all about the YMCA Camp of the Ozarks (aka Potosi) trip on which the eighth graders will embark on Sept. 11.  Then at 6:30, we hope that all parents of Middle School students will come to hear about the plans for their child’s school year.

This Friday is our first Spirit Day of the new school year!  Faculty and students are encouraged to wear their St. Paul’s spirit clothes to school.  We hope our students will enjoy this opportunity – one that we share as a school once a month but are always happy to see the students proudly wearing St. Paul’s gear any day!

Friday is also “Feed the Need Friday” in all-school chapel.  Once a month, usually on our Spirit Day, we encourage those who are willing to bring food for the church’s pantry to help feed the hungry in our neighborhood.  Any non-perishable goods are welcome and the particular food item theme for this month is pasta.  So please send in food items, if you are so inclined to help.  Thank you.  Our school families are a very valuable asset to the food pantry.

We will be closed on Monday, Sept. 3, for the Labor Day Holiday.

Stay up to date on the latest happenings with our school calendar. Bookmark the calendar page on our website and check back often to see what is going on at St. Paul's.

From time to time, I will be sharing articles that I hope will be of interest to you as parents.  You can find links to the articles in the right margin of the MMM blog. One of you sent to us the article from The New Yorker that you will find accompanying this blog.  It is called “Spoiled Rotten”.  We all have different parenting styles and work, as often as we can, from our instincts, but sometimes we can appreciate the perspective of others, as it is too difficult to be objective with our own children! 

Please remember that you must register your child no later than September 4 to receive the advance registration rates for Lunch Bunch, A-Team, and Extended Day.   After that deadline passes, you will be billed at the drop-in rate for any of these services. Drop-in care is available for everything except A-Team.  If you choose to use extended day or lunch bunch on a drop-in basis because it suits your needs better, please know that is an option but that the rate is higher.  If you know your child will need care for 1 – 5 days/week, it is advantageous for you to sign up for those days now at the reduced rate.   (You must register for A-Team; no drop-ins are available this year.)  Regrettably, our MWF toddler Lunch Bunch is already at capacity, so we will be unable to take drop-ins for this group.  The Extended Day registration is online, here: https://go.speds.org/pages/extendeddayregistration.  The A-Team/Lunch Bunch registration form can be printed out from here:  http://www.speds.org/current-parents-and-students/inside-st-pauls/student-forms/ (at the bottom of the page) Please return the completed form to Linda van Thullenar. We want to provide the best care possible for your children, and this helps us to better plan for their needs. Thank you for helping us do that.

UMKC's Academy of Music and Dance is currently enrolling for their three youth choirs: Roo Singers (K-2), Kansas City Children's Choir (3 – 8) and for Canta Filia (high school girls).

Auditions for KCCC are next Tuesday. (Roos do not need to audition; they simply call the office 816.235.2741 to register). To audition, call directly (816.809.6389), or attend walk-in auditions starting at 4:15 on Tuesday, Aug. 28.  Auditions are held at the annex of UMKC at 301 E. 51st Street, Room 207. http://conservatory.umkc.edu/cmda/cmda-content.cfm?L1ID=1

MMM 8/22/11

MORNING MEMO
August 22, 2011
ebarnes@speds.org

What a great start to the new year – the energy has returned! First the teachers returned for a week of preparations and they livened up the week. But the piece de resistance was the return of you and your children and the new families who are joining us for two exciting hours on Friday and then more reunions and introductions this morning! It’s going to be another great year at St. Paul’s!

Traffic and carpool: Traffic was a real challenge this morning, due to the construction issues and the numbers of parents who wanted to come in with their children this morning – the latter of which is a good thing! Please remember that the police are always out in force as school begins – not because we call them, I promise, but to remind folks to slow down, so please be aware of the school zone speed limit. Also, our carpool runs late during the first couple of weeks of school, as children get used to where they should be, what their carpool number is, listening for their number, and, when needed, fastening seatbelts. So please be patient with us or come later (like 3:45) so you’ll have less waiting and hassle.

Middle School Curriculum Night with an earlier meeting for parents of 8th graders is this Thursday evening. Parents of 8th graders are asked to meet at 6:30 p.m. in room 303 to hear the details about the trip on Sept. 20 – 23 to the YMCA Camp of the Ozarks. At 7:00 p.m., parents of 7th grade students are invited to room 302 and parents of 6th grade students to room 305 for a brief overview of the year before going to other rooms for more information. We hope all parents can attend to hear about their child’s new year at St. Paul’s!
ECC Curriculum Night is Thursday, Sept. 1 at 6:30 p.m.
Lower School Curriculum Night is Thursday, Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m.

This Monday Morning Memo is going to be sent the traditional way – via email – this week and next but there will also be a blog format called “Notes from the Head” that will begin this week and, after a couple of weeks will be the only format through which it will be sent. We have had a number of problems with mass email distributions and, following the success of the ECC and Primary teachers last year, we’re all moving to blogs and further utilizing our new website. Blogs will also take the place of Class Notes in Lower School and Middle School. Please give us feedback on the website and these blogs as we transition to this format. The idea is to improve communications with you so please let us know if we are successful in doing so.

Our new website has officially launched: www.speds.org! “Inside St. Paul’s” (in the Current Parents and Students menu) is a password-protected section that houses things like the school calendar, classroom blogs, lunch menus, athletic schedules and more. Most of the content in this section is only available to current parents, students, faculty and staff. We will start using only first names and last initials in the information that goes on the website, in order to further ensure the privacy of our families.

We’re sponsoring another community blood drive this Wednesday! Community Blood Center, our neighbor across the street, is the primary supplier of blood for local hospitals and has been serving Missouri and Kansas hospitals for almost 50 years. Community Blood Center needs to collect 580 pints of blood every day and over 140,000 pints annually to meet the needs of our local hospitals. An individual within the area that Community Blood Center serves needs a blood transfusion every four minutes. You have the opportunity to do your part for local hospital patients at the new Community Blood Center blood drive in OUR GYM on Wednesday, August 24th between 12:00pm-3:00pm. To make an appointment online, go to www.esavealifenow.org and use sponsor code: stpauls. You can also let Miriam Zavagnin, our Admissions Director, know when you would like to make an appointment and she will make it for you as site administrator. Thanks to all of you, our St. Paul’s blood drive continues to grow.

Class and individual pictures will be ordered online this year! This will give you more options for the background of the picture and lower prices for pre-ordered picture packets. There will be a backpack flyer coming home this month – one per child – that will give ordering instructions and the school code, so please watch for it!

Starting this year, St. Paul’s is using Land’s End as a vendor for our PE uniforms (grades 5 – 8). All PE clothes will be purchased through the Land’s End website online. Look at Mr. Kurt’s blog for an easy to use link to the PE clothes. All 5th grade students will need to purchase their PE clothes for the first time and any 6th-8th graders who need to replace old PE clothes can go online now to do so. Feel free to contact Mr. Kurt with any questions that you might have.

One of our fifth graders is making a name for himself in the track world. This summer in the 3000m event, Reece J. won all of his regional meets, earning five gold medals. At the USATF Youth National Outdoor Championships in Myrtle Beach, S.C., he placed 6th in the nation with his best time of 10:50 (earning him a spot on the National Elite Youth Honor Roll for 2011). At the USATF National Jr. Olympics in 100+ degree temps, he placed 16th in the nation with a time of 11:28. In the 1500m event, Reece earned two gold medals and two silver medals in regional competition. In Myrtle Beach, he placed 9th in the nation with his personal best time of 5:09. At the Jr. Olympics, he finished 20th in nation with a time of 5:10. Wow, what a record! Congratulations, Reece!

We're launching the first Notes from the Head blog! I hope you receive it and other such messages from your teachers, at least by the end of the week.