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,
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.
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.
