A Message From the Board of Trustees
Across the country, local school districts depend on school boards to make decisions and set policies for the betterment of the schools in their district. As an independent public charter school, Polaris acts as its own district with its own governing board, the Polaris Board of Trustees. The duties of the Board include setting policies, hiring and evaluating school leaders, working with our parent organization (the PEF), overseeing the budget, fundraising, community relations, and numerous other tasks to ensure the continued strength and success of the school. Monthly meetings of the Polaris Board of Trustees are open to the public. The next meeting is this coming Tuesday, September 20th, at 6:00 PM at Polaris. Here is a link to the agenda for this month’s meeting:
https://polarischarter.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/bot-agenda-9-20-16.docx
Our Week at a Glance
This week, we continued our work with rolling out Responsive Classroom. All classes have created their classroom rules and this week ‘Take a Break’ was explained and modeled. Take a Break is a positive, respectful, and supportive teaching strategy used to help a child who is just beginning to lose self-control to regain it so they can do their best learning. An equally important goal of Responsive Classroom time-out is to allow the group’s work to continue when a student is misbehaving or upset. It gives a child some space where they can regroup while still seeing and hearing what the class is doing. This is NOT a punishment. It is to help students regain the focus and emotional control needed for learning. Students might decide for themselves that they need a break, in which case they can go to the break spot on their own. It is a tool children can be taught to use themselves to regulate their own emotions and behaviors.
This week we also had our first fire drill. Because classes had practiced lining up and leaving the building everything went very smoothly.
Vela Class Share
Every Friday, one classroom will share something they learned or accomplished with the school at Morning Gathering. This week, Mrs. Fesh’s class shared their ‘hopes and dreams’ for the school year. Some students hoped to learn about science, learn to write cursive and one would like to be a singer.
Earth Science
Ms. Perham and Ms. V’s class collaborated on an Earth Science experiment this week. It demonstrated how water helps keep the earth cool. They used two balloons, one filled with water and one that was empty. They applied heat to both. The empty balloon popped when heat was applied but the water balloon did not because the water absorbed the heat.
Upcoming Events
- zPicture day is this Wednesday, September 21st
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PEF News
We had a wonderful Ice Cream Social this week (in spite of the weather). Thank you to all of the families who attended. We are still looking for a volunteer to help serve pizza on Fridays to the children. If you can help out, please contact Jenna Pedone at jennapedone@gmail.com .
The PEF would like to let families know that we are now allowing families the option of breaking up payments into half for those enrichments that are over $100. Half of the cost of the enrichment would be due before the enrichment begins and the 2nd half would be due at the half way point of the enrichment. For those interested in this option, please, let our Treasurer, Colleen Vignale know (her email is below).
We also have available a scholarship of up to $50 per family per year for financial need. If the cost of enrichment is a struggle and you need some assistance please contact Colleen Vignale at colleenlvig@gmail.com. There is one single point of contact for all enrichment scholarships for your privacy. Please keep in mind that scholarships are limited to a budgeted amount per semester and are provided on good faith of need.
Below is an update on our Enrichment Sign ups:
Primary Music and Intermediate Music have been combined to ONE class: Everyone who has already registered is guaranteed a space. Registration will remain open for a very short time to allow more students to sign up.
Engineering FUNdamentals: This course needs quite a few more participants in order to run. It is in danger of not being run and registration will be left open to allow more students to sign up.
Intermediate Music: This class was combined with Primary Music.
Engineering FUNdamentals: This course needs quite a few more participants in order to run. It is in danger of being able to run and registration will be left open to allow more students to sign up.
Pokémon Club: This course has enough participants to run and everyone who has already registered is guaranteed a spot if it runs. However, we still looking for additional parent volunteers.
Lego Club: This course has enough participants to run, however we still need a parent volunteer to run it! As this program has not reached its maximum capacity, registration will not be closed at this time.
Destination Imagination: All students who received a space in the program by random lottery have been notified. If you missed signing up, or have a student who changed their mind, please reply to this email with your child’s name, and class information. There has been some interest expressed in running a second team for this Enrichment, However, in order to have a 2nd team, we would need additional parent volunteers.
Hip Hop: This course has enough participants to run and everyone who has already registered is guaranteed a spot if it runs. As this program has not reached its maximum capacity, registration will not be closed at this time.
The Sustainable Artist: Making Art from Trash: This class needs many more participants in order to run. It is in danger of not being able to run. Registration will not be closed at this time in order to allow more students to sign up.
Illustration: Literature & Art, Best Friends Forever: This course almost has enough participants to run and everyone who has already registered is guaranteed a spot if it runs. As this program has not reached its maximum capacity, registration will not be closed at this time.
Please don’t hesitate to contact The Enrichment Team at pefenrichment@gmail.com for questions or clarifications!
Below, you can find some important dates for your School Calendar:
- Picture Day– September 21st
- Music Enrichment Begins- Sept 21st
- Fall Enrichment’s Begin- Week of Sept 26th
- PEF Meeting– October 3rd 7pm at Polaris
- Movie Night – October 7th @ 6pm at Polaris. Join us for a family-friendly movie and popcorn!
- Autumn Potluck– November 5th @ 3pm at Polaris. A wonderful shared meal Polaris Families
Polaris Charter School 