Monday Morning Memo

2013-2014 Five-Week Annual Fund Pledge Drive Kicks Off Tomorrow  This is what you can expect:
Ø      Annual Fund Booklet (coming home with your children)
Ø      School Communications (MMM, school-wide emails)
Ø      Annual Fund Team Class Captains Weekly Emails (updates and links will be included)
Ø      Website (http://www.speds.org/support/annual-fund/)
Ø      Videos (to help share the details of our pledge drive)
Ø      Link to Pledge Online (http://www.speds.org/support/annual-fund/)
Coach Simmons explains it all in the this video.  Check it out!

Click here for more information. (http://www.speds.org/support/annual-fund/)
Click here to pledge. (http://www.speds.org/support/annual-fund/)
Click here to make your gift.  (http://www.speds.org/support/annual-fund/)

We look forward to and sincerely appreciate your support!

Important Message from the Search Committee:  We want to thank you for your involvement in this important process for our school!  Please know that we have heard your comments and questions and we are very pleased that our community is excited to learn more about each of the finalists.

We appreciate your input and enthusiasm and we want everyone in our community to learn more firsthand about each finalist.  We hope you enjoyed meeting Lori Preston last week, and sincerely hope that you are able to take the time to meet the remaining finalists during their upcoming visits.

Click here to read about the four finalists. And mark your calendars to meet Andrew Myler on October 15^th, Byron Lawson on October 21^st and Gray Smith on October 28^th. You will be able to meet the finalists informally between 2:25 and 3:15 in the South Multipurpose Room. The sessions will allow an opportunity for open discussion with the finalists, and parents should feel free to come and go as their schedules allow. 

We want to assure you about our dedication to the thoroughness of the search process, as the committee is thick in the middle of checking references and learning as much as possible about our finalists. 

Sincerely, Laurie Robinson and Amy Holewinski

Search Committee Co-Chairs

This Wednesday, October 16^th, will be the Cookies for Cancer sale at lunch for grades 3^rd-8^th.  Cookies will be sold at two for $1.00 with proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society.  Chartwells and our own lunchroom staff are donating their time and the cookies.  Thanks so much to them!

Spirit Day and Feed-the-Need Friday will be this week on Oct. 18.  Show your St. Paul’s spirit of service by bringing an item to chapel for the St. Paul’s food pantry and your school spirit with your St. Paul’s t-shirt or sweatshirt.

News from the Admissions Office:  Applications are now being accepted for the 2014-15 school year.  Siblings and Church Member applicants will receive priority consideration if their applications are received by Friday, November 8^th.  Current students do NOT need to re-apply for the 2014-15 school year.  Re-enrollment agreements will be mailed for our current students in January.  If you have any questions about sibling application, please contact Jill McGee in the Admissions Office at 816-268-6542 or Jmcgee@speds.org. 

Box Tops for Education  Please send in all those General Mills box tops you’ve been collecting over the summer.  The first deadline for submission will be November 1.   Last year Student Council on behalf of the school received a check for $540 from General Mills.   Continue to clip and save and send them in.  Containers are at the main reception desks and can be brought in at any time. 

We successfully accomplished our first fire drill for the year on Friday and will be conducting a lockdown drill later this month.  We will practice a tornado drill before the end of the calendar year so that we will be ready for anything!  Our fire drills are held monthly (Oct. – May), unless weather prohibits, with tornado and lockdown drills held twice a year.  If you happen to be helping us or visiting when we have one of these drills, we will ask you to participate, too, so our students will see that all of us take this seriously.

We are experiencing a lot of students leaving early, arriving late, or missing school for other reasons.  It takes away from other students when our teachers have to stop what they are doing to repeat directions to a late arrival, and try to get things ready for someone who is leaving early or absent.  While this must be done when students are sick, we have so many who are missing for other reasons that it is very disruptive.  Our teachers work hard to provide interactive, hands-on learning opportunities for students – more so than worksheets and paperwork – but this kind of absenteeism discourages those efforts.  Please try to make your appointments after school and have your child at school and in class from 8:05 to 3:25.  Thank you for your help on this.

A reminder from the Business Office regarding your student billing statements:

·         Since July 2012, statements have been sent out electronically, via an email from Christina Cutcliffe as a PDF attachment. To ensure that you receive these statements (and avoid them going to your spam folder), please add her email (ccutcliffe@speds.org) to your safe senders list. Statements are emailed to the ‘family’ email address. A student with two households will receive individual statements at each respective email address. Christina is happy to add additional email addresses to the list of those that receive statements—just email her.

·         You will not receive a printed statement. Should you wish to keep a paper statement for your records, simply print out the PDF attachment. Thank you for helping St. Paul’s save trees and postage costs!

·         If your overall account has a zero balance, you will not receive a statement that month. Additionally, if you have more than one child at school and a child’s account has a zero balance, he/she will not appear on your statement, even if overall you have a balance due from your other children.  

·         It is your responsibility to notify the school should your official email address change. You can do this by sending our Registrar, Steve Darnell, an email (sdarnell@speds.org). You are still responsible for paying any charges that accrue to your account in a timely fashion, or interest will be charged at the rate stipulated in your enrollment contract.

Michelle Johnson, our Diversity Coordinator, has created a blog that we hope you’ll follow:  http://spedsdiversitydialogue.blogspot.com/

Do you know of someone who needs a note of support or congratulations? – Andi McCarthy is the lady who tries to be aware of these occasions so she can send a note from our community.  If you hear of anything, please contact her, or Colette Rousey or me and we will get the message to Andi.  Thank you!

Two St. Paul's alumni have been named National Merit Commended students, Arianna L and Sean R.  Congratulations to these fine students and their families.  We’re very proud of them!