The Polaris Staff and Board of Trustees are Proud to Announce the Election of our New Board Chairman, Kate Baker.
Kate is the Executive Director of the Network for Educational Opportunity (NEO), an education resource and scholarship organization here in New Hampshire. Improving education is her personal mission and she has worked tirelessly, for more than a decade on behalf of New Hampshire children; starting schools, supporting homeschoolers, teaching and empowering students and parents, and promoting increased options in education.
Kate is passionate about gifted education, innovative teaching and learning, and was the business administrator and a teacher at a New Hampshire performing arts school for almost a decade, before taking on the leadership role at NEO. She is a parent of a current Polaris Charter School student and was a founder of the Greater Manchester Alliance for the Gifted, the Academy for Science and Design Educational Foundation, the Polaris Educational Foundation and was a member of the Gifted and Talented Advisory Committee of the Manchester School District.
For her work in education, Kate was honored to be recognized by the New Hampshire Union Leader & the Business and Industry Association as a “40 Under Forty″, the state’s brightest young achievers, and by the Peace Islands Institute of New Hampshire from whom she received their 2013 Education Award. She is proud to serve as our new Board Chairman and we are fortunate to have her skills to lead us.
We would also like to take this time to thank our outgoing Board Chairman Susan Hartford. We are so grateful for Susan’s many years of effort on behalf of Polaris Charter School and we know that Susan, as one of our school founders and a parent of Polaris students, is looking forward to having the opportunity to spend more flexible time volunteering and working with the Polaris Educational Foundation. Again, thank you Susan for your conscientious leadership and years of dedication. We are so grateful for your service to Polaris Charter School.
Lottery
Prospective Polaris families have received their randomly assigned numbers for the 2014-2015 admissions lottery. The lottery will take place at Polaris at 7:00pm on Friday, March 7th. Anyone is welcome to attend.
Responsibility
The Core Value we will be focusing on during the month of March is responsibility. At Monday’s morning gathering everyone closed their eyes and “pictured” what responsibility looks like. Some of the pictures students shared were picking up our messes, recycling and listening to others.
Tuesday we did the “Responsibility Exercise.” Students were split into two groups. Group one would stand to say their line and then sit and then group two would stand and say their and then sit. This went back and forth and then students did it again switching groups.
Wednesday we discussed the different types of responsibility. In addition to personal responsibility, we have community responsibilities, family responsibilities, legal responsibilities and moral responsibilities.
Thursday we read a true story about about a group of boys in Bridgewater, MA who stepped up to support a young boy named Danny Keefe who was being teased for the way he dressed as well as a speech impediment caused by a brain injury. Tommy Cooney rallied his 40 football teammates and they all wore a suit like Danny’s and held a “Danny Appreciation Day.” It was a great story about how one person can take on the responsibility to make the world a better place.
Polaris Star Students
The star students who really showed responsibility this week were: Calvin, Connor, Giuli, Julie, Madison, Maru and Talia. Nice job!
Reminder
There is no school on Friday, March 13th. It is a teacher workshop day and we will be attending the New Hampshire Public Charter School Association “Best Practices” Conference.
Carpool Safety
A recent news story brought a renewed focus on the issue of carpool safety. An Arlington, Virginia mother was hit and killed while buckling her child into a car seat on the drivers side of the car (story link). While we understand the challenges of getting children into and out of cars, especially in the cold weather, we want to be sure that everyone in our community stays safe. With this in mind, we want to remind families to use the curb side to load children in and out of the cars. We also appreciate all of your efforts to be patient and watchful as you move into and out of the drop-off zone.
PEF News
We’re almost halfway through our annual Read-a-Thon. Keep tracking your kid’s reading time, and keep looking for sponsors! For more info, go to the Read-a-Thon page on the PEF’s Web site http://polariseducationalfoundation.org/read/.
We are raffling off a pair of Red Sox tickets again this year. The game is July 18th and tickets are $5 each. The winner will be drawn at the Pancake Brunch on May 18th. To buy tickets or for more information, go to http://polariseducationalfoundation.org/raffle/. Please send this out to as many people as you can!
Time to get excited about our Spring Fling. This is our annual adults-only social event. This year it will be Friday March 28th at Milly’s Tavern. This was a really fun event last year, and we’re hoping it grows this year. More information will come home soon!
Engineering and Math
Mrs. Dudley’s class raced marbles down ramps that they built using paper towel and toilet paper tubes. The purpose of this activity was to work together to design and create a ramp that would have a marble travel as far possible. We then measured how far the marble traveled using inches, feet, and yards. We also used nonstandard units by using the tiles on the ground which we learned were a foot long!
Polaris Charter School 