Nourish You News

That's what the salad bar looks like after the kids are through with it! If you haven't done so, it's time to renew for November!

Halloween Fair

Halloween Fair at the school this Friday at 1pm!  Adults encouraged to come in costume, too!

Parents' Circle Oct Meeting Notes

Parents’ Circle Meeting – October 11, 2011

Agenda

* Annual Fund

* Windrush School’s status

* Parent Education Nights

* Families Make A Difference

* Picnic A Great Success

* Volunteering and On-Line Sign-Ups

* Managing The Transmission Of Information to Families

Addition To Parents’ Circle Leadership

The Parents’ Circle meeting kicked off with the announcement that the ranks of Robin Dandridge and Cary Whitney have been swelled by the addition of Evan Specter, creating a triumvirate heading the Parents’ Circle. Among his many other contributions to the school, Evan created and maintains this blog, View From The Parents’ Circle.

Annual Fund Drive To Begin

The BPC Annual Fund will be revving up soon, and we can all expect to hear more in the near future. And if Grandma and Grandpa might be in a position to make a contribution, too, we are looking into ways to facilitate that conversation.

Windrush School Status

As the community has heard, Windrush School is in bankruptcy, and Windrush families have been reeling. Many Windrush refugees have been touring other schools, including BPC, during the past couple weeks, despite a decision by Windrush’s board to try to stay open until the end of the school year. At the moment, its fate is still quite uncertain; the school filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a decision with which its creditors disagree. <more about Windrush>

While the Black Pine Circle Admin team empathizes with Windrush’s rattled families, the focus is on filling in a few open spots and keeping gender balanced in each classroom.  The maximum class size will not change from 20-21. When there are 22 in a class, that comes from more families matriculating than expected. 

Parent Education Nights

October 25: Workshop on Gender and Sexuality, spearheaded by Judy Appel, Executive Director of Our Family Coalition (and a BPC Parent!). <more>

Mid-November: Another workshop is planned around the theme of Developmentally Appropriate Uses of Technology

November is National Novel-Writing Month

There will be a party on November 3, to get the ball rolling. 7 p.m., in the theater.  While parents' part is to help kids set their word-per-day writing goals, some parents may want to seize the day and start that writing project we've always said we would do "one day".  A number of teachers will be writing alongside the kids, too!

High School Alumni Panel

On October 19, there will be a panel of BPC graduates talking about their high school experiences.  If you're wondering or anxious about what happens to BPC kids after 8th grade, come check it out.  We are expecting as many as 2 dozen high schoolers, so you'll be able to collar someone who's at the high school you have in mind, and hear how their transition was...

Families Make A Difference

Liz McBee attended the Parents’ Circle Meeting to talk about the Families Make a Difference committee. In recent years, the main focus has been supporting Harrison House, a nearby homeless shelter for families (with a blanket drive, Xmas gift drive and decorating party, and some other support) and also some one-off events like the Coastal Cleanup. If anyone has a cause that they'd like to bring attention to, FMD may be able to partner with you to make it happen.  A good example of this was last year's dinner at a restaurant where the tab went to support Breast Cancer research.

The next meeting is November 7 at Liz’s house. Along with the Harrison House Christmas gift drive, the committee also hopes to discuss a new focus: families within the BPC community which might need a helping hand.

Volunteering and On-Line Sign-Ups

Robin reported that on-line sign-ups have been a success (no more paper sheets at potlucks that could be misplaced later!) and that the volunteers slots have been almost entirely (98%) filled.  Great job, everyone!

Annual Picnic

The BPC Annual Picnic was a rousing hit, with record numbers of attendees, great weather, and largely glitch-free functioning.  There was particular appreciation of the BPC faculty/admin/parent music jamming, and the loom weaver.  Special thanks to the trash sorters for their commitment to our being a green school.  Note to selves: we could have done a better job keeping our plastic out of the compost bins, but the green team rolled up their sleeves to minimize our landfill waste!

The Big News was that next year the picnic will move up one week, to the last weekend in September, in order to avoid conflicts with a number of other local events, including Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the Full Belly Hoes Down.

Transmission of  Information and Storage of Historical Knowledge

The evening’s discussion included addressing the challenge of the transmission of knowledge from outgoing room parents/events coordinators, etc. to their incoming counterparts. Evan Specter put on a presentation about the current use of Google Docs for this purpose, and a discussion ensued about how best to provide and control access. Another issue discussed was the ongoing effort to prioritize and tame the sheer volume of information coming at parents; the all-school Week At A Glance newsletter is intended to address that problem.  This blog, the school calendar, and other tweaks and integrations under discussion may bring further ease in navigating school life and facilitating community and connectedness.

Other suggestions included a handbook and an orientation for room parents.

Halloween Festival

The crafts and games for the festival are largely in place.  This year, instead of little prizes at each booth, kids will get tickets for participating in each event, and at the end will cash in their tickets for one or two larger prizes, like hacky-sacks, sushi erasers, glow-in-the-dark stickers...

Kids will be encouraged to wear their costumes on Friday Oct 28th, when the Halloween event is being held, and not on Monday, which is Halloween.

 - Wendy Woolpert, 8th grade Room Parent

Next Meeting is Tuesday, Nov 8th.  All parents welcome.  

Discussion Topic: mini-fundraiser options for this year and next.

Parent Education: Gender & Sexuality, Oct 25th

The Diversity Committee Invites You To A Special Parent Education Night, 
Tuesday, October 25th, 7pm In The Library!

Where did this blog come from?

We have a great school, and yet we only know a fraction of what happens at it, including the talents and interests of our fellow parents & faculty.  A series of conversations between interested parents and the administration led to this blog as a venue for some of the informal and less urgent messages and information that parents don't NEED but might appreciate. It's a work in progress.  

This site will showcase cool things that our kids are up to (like perhaps some excerpts from November's novels), and also our talented faculty and parent body as well!  We also re-post important messages from the administration, and provide a modicum of "insider" info for those that like that sort of thing but aren't able to or keen to attend meetings.

YOU would help make this great by contributing whatever you think a majority of parents would find interesting or useful.

How do I submit something?
Best would be to send an email to this address with your draft post, ideally with a photo. We will edit for brevity...

What sorts of things would be suitable?

• Great concerts or activities for adults or families
• Especially good educational resources, including websites or Apps
• Information about your family owned-business.  Special attention given to families/businesses who are actively supporting the auction or the school in other ways, but reach out anyway...
• Great photos or short video capturing a great BPC moment (right now we are going by BPC's existing photo-opt out requests)

Is this website visible to the whole wide world?

It does not turn up in search results, but the URL can be shared with other folks.  If we end up wanting to share more photos and videos, we'll put that on a password-protected section.  But for now, this is designed for ease of use.

What is the purpose of this site?

The mission is to support the school to be sustainable, our community to be mutually supportive, our events to be successful, and our parent-owned businesses to thrive.  We might host some mini-fundraisers here, all funds going directly to the school.

Who's in charge?

Evan Specter, Co-chair of Parents' Circle, is the editor, but more folks are getting involved.  All submissions fitting the mission will be accommodated.

Posts are written by the not-omniscient Evan Specter if not otherwise noted, and I take personal responsibility for their content.  I ask that you do me the courtesy of informing me directly if I take a misstep.

Picnic '11: Liquid Nitro Ice Cream & Impromptu Jamming

The umpteenth annual BPC Picnic had great weather, 

and the best food ever (thanks to Nourish You),

Stephen Corlett & Cary Whitney's Ice Cream recipe:  

Take milk, cream, sugar & vanilla. Add liquid nitrogen. Stir.

An impromptu jam by some of BPC's talented faculty, parents and students.

Here's one more liquid nitrogen demonstration- Stephen & Cary froze and smashed a flower

More than 50 parents came together to make the Picnic a success, and another dozen arrived saying "can I help?"  Special thanks to Anne Marie Elliot (decor), Charlie Martinelli (poster design), Zuzana & Rastislav Bodik (beverages), Karen Zukor (ticketing), and Michele Jin (volunteer coordination), Mary Ann Pearson (Compost Commander) and to shoppers Wendy Woolpert, Catherine Atcheson, Claudia Huttner & everyone who saw something that needed doing and just did it!

Windrush School to remain open through the school year

Stories culled from Windrush's website and the El Cerrito Patch website


How does this affect BPC?
According to John Carlstroem at the Parents' Circle meeting Tuesday night, despite Windrush staying open, a number of families are still approaching BPC, and we may be accepting a few into the student body.


Oct 11th update: Windrush will stay open to the end of the school year
At a meeting with parents and staff on Monday night, the board of trustees announced that Windrush School had received $867,000 in pledged support in less than two weeks. Based on this support, the board passed resolutions to keep the school open through the remainder of the 2011-2012 school year, subject to continuing Bankruptcy Court approval. The Board also announced the formation of a committee specifically tasked with the responsibility of developing plans for future operations beyond the current school year, with input from the school’s parent, faculty and staff constituencies.

Picnic Snapshots

Special Thanks to local artisan Lynn Harris, for sharing her Japanese Saori looms with us.

Lynn teaches classes locally:  (510) 527-5909 website & email

Kids were finding lizards 

and hoopin' it up

From the Head of School & Chairman of BPC's Board

Dear BPC Families,

In keeping with our tradition of updating you on happenings in our community, we wanted to pass along some information about Windrush School.  As many of you have heard, or read last week on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, Windrush is experiencing severe financial hardship.   At present, Windrush is in the midst of an emergency fundraising drive in hopes of keeping the school open until the end of the school year. Windrush families and faculty have met frequently this week, and the Windrush community is feeling understandably vulnerable.

As we became aware of this unfortunate situation, the BPC community immediately reached out to our friends at Windrush.  We continue to be in contact with their administration and have been offering our support and assistance.