NO SCHOOL NEXT WEEK! - Due to conferences and Thanksgiving Day Holiday students will not have school all next week.
COOKIES AND COFFEE - Over the holiday break next week, remember to ask your friends and family if they would like to buy cookie dough and or coffee from Maplewood.
SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR - Will be open during conference time from 8:00 am - 8:00 pm Monday, November 20th; 8:00 am - 3:00 pm Tuesday, November 21st and 8:00 -12:00 pm on Wednesday, November 22nd. We will have baked cookies samples available to taste at the Book Fair during conference times. Stop in and browse the books and taste a few cookies!
STARBUCKS PRESENTS HOLIDAY ANGELS JOY DRIVE – Starbucks has joined with the Starlight Starbright children’s Foundation over the holiday season to deliver gifts to pediatric patients in the community. The Holiday Angels Joy Drive, in its fifth year, has provided Starlight Starbright kids with over one million toys and books to help brighten their days.
Garden Home Starbucks has decided to reach out to the community through placing joy drive mailboxes at local businesses and Maplewood School, along with the one in the store. Maplewood’s mailbox will be up until Friday, December 15th. The toys collected at these locations will go to those at our local children’s hospital, Dorenbecher. We are collecting these toys here at Maplewood in appreciation for the fine work Dorenbecher’s did for the amazing recovery of Max Gardner, an alumnus of Maplewood. Thank you for your participation in the truly wonderful gift to our community.
Sincerely, Garden Home Starbucks
TAG NOMINATIONS DUE NOV. 30 - If you think your child would be eligible for Talented and Gifted services (that they would score at the 97th %ile or better), you must turn in a nomination form to John Blanck by the end of November. There are nomination forms in the office; testing would be done by the TAG department early in December, and then the school would determine eligibility. Students may qualify in one of three areas: Reading, Math, and/or Intelligence.
THANKS TO/FROM THE CARNIVAL COMMITTEE - I want to give my humble thanks to the folks who made our Carnival such a wonderful event. I saw them follow it with a meeting in November to discuss what improvements this would make for the event for next year! The committee wrote this for you, as well: “What a success our “Under the Big Top” Carnival was! The carnival committee members would like to THANK YOU for your support of the 2006 Carnival. It was both successful and fun and it couldn’t have been done without all of you. We grossed $4228.00 and will net just over $3000. We heard lots of positive comments this year about the new layout, roomier atmosphere and an all-around cooler carnival. We appreciate that you noticed and want to say thanks! We do hope you understand about the goldfish this year. We had a lot of casualties last year and with giving out certificates for a fish this year we hoped to eliminate that!
We also wanted to thank a lot of other people as well:
- Candy donations – everyone! we ended up with just the right amount
- Stuffed animal donations – a lot of fun
- Raffle donations – lots of collectibles donated by the Coefield family
- Canopy donations – Hogans, Dacklins, Lehmans, Reeses, Smiths, Conkles (through Entercom radio stations) and Principal Blanck for the school canopy
- Pizza Caboose – Kathy Powers and her kids for baking all those yummy pizzas
- Treasurer – Amy McCleskey for all her financial wizardry
- All the parents - came in on Thursday and Friday to help set up
- Alumni students - for their volunteering at the games
- The fabulous teachers and staff - who gave their precious time to help out
- The Carnival committee – Angela, Kimmy, Susan, Annette, Jelena, Joan, Renae, Cyndy & Bryan who pulled this all off without a carnival chairman
- Principal Blanck & David Kaplan – for all their hard work on, and at, the Jail
- All the parents – for bringing your children and letting them have fun!
We would also like to thank:
- Lamb’s Thriftway for baking 100 cakes
- Purato’s Bakery Supply for supplying enough ingredients and boxes to make the 100 cakes
- Western Pet Supply for the gold fish
- 105.1 The Buzz, AM 1080 The Fan, 99.5 The Wolf for canopy donations
- Switch shoes for gift certificate
- New Seasons for plastic bags
- Portland Trail Blazers for 4 Blazer Tickets
- Big Town Hero for the gift certificates
- Suzanne Smith for the raffle items
- Club Sport for the yoga mat and month membership
What a great event! Thanks so much, “The Carnival Committee”
MY THANKS TO YOU! - As Thanksgiving approaches, I want to make sure that I express my appreciation for so many things here; thanks go to:
VOTERS – The election results for Multnomah County will surely make our school district breathe easier, as well as be able to provide more stability and service to our students. Vicki Phillips recently wrote, ““With five years of stable funding for our operations, Portland Public Schools will keep the momentum building:
- Challenging our students of all ages to excel – in writing, reading, math, science, social studies and all academic pursuits;
- Maintaining and building back the full curriculum in our schools, including arts, music, PE and library services; and
- Increasing the rigor AND relevance of our middle and high schools – preparing kids for higher education and higher wage jobs.
PARENTS AND COMMUNITY - I want to thank you for what your contributions have done for the students at Maplewood; for the last several years, it has enabled us to have a half-time staff person here, with benefits too numerous to mention. This year, we also have the extraordinary benefit of having Elin Kordahl be here not only as a computer teacher, but also as our librarian half time. We wouldn’t have had a librarian this year without the contributions from last year. The excitement and skill she has brought there is something that is having an incredible effect on our students. The extra staffing that your contributions and your Scrip purchases provide us will continue to be there, making the campaign just as important this year as last. As a follow-up to messages from the campaign committee, and because people have been asking me for it, I am attaching a campaign form.
REMINDER - NO SCHOOL (for Maplewood and Capitol Hill Schools only) on Friday, Dec. 8th. The rest of the Wilson Cluster Schools will be in session that day, but the two schools that are on Trimester System will NOT be in session. This is one of the four days when our schedule will be different than the schedule for other schools. January 30 and April 12 will be days when Maplewood is open but the other Cluster Schools will be closed, and on Dec. 8th and March 16, we will be closed and the rest of the cluster will be open. I will be giving reminders of this to you as those days approach.
LIFESKILL OF EFFORT - Thanks go to Jenny Morgan (Pitts), our Character Education Specialist for this reminder about our Lifeskill of the month: “Our students have been focusing on effort, a crucial ingredient; it may be the determining factor between success and failure. While effort alone doesn’t create achievement, it keeps us moving toward that goal. Therefore, any way we can nurture the development of this behavior in children, will surely increase their quality of living.
Students have been learning to:
· Identify the attributes of personal effort
· Identify and observe citizens who are models of the LIFESKILL of Effort
· Identify effort as both process and product; the way we work and the outcome of that work
Ways you can help at home to emphasize the LIFESKILL of Effort include:
· Share personal examples of times when you, as parents, have used the LIFESKILL of Effort
· Teach your child how to create a timetable for short- and long-term projects
· Discuss with your family examples of the LIFESKILL of Effort on the evening news
By working in partnership, schools and parents can stress the importance of effort for a successful life.”
Best Regards,
Upcoming Events: Nov 20-23 – NO SCHOOL! - Parent/Teacher Conferences Nov 24 - NO SCHOOL! – Thanksgiving Day Nov 25 - NO SCHOOL ! – Down Day Nov 27 - “Anansi the Spider” Tears of Joy Theatre Presentation at 9:00 am Nov 27 - Vision Screening – Kindergarten Nov 30 - TAG Nominations Due Dec 4 - Cookie Dough Orders Due Dec 5 - 1st graders to Washington Square Sing at 10:00 am Dec 6 - Choir to Washington Square Sing at 10:00 am Dec 8 - NO SCHOOL! – Teacher Planning Day Dec 13 - Cookie Dough Delivered Dec 15 - Winter Sing
