Compass Newsletter -- June 10, 2009

Submitted by Eric Rhomberg on Wed, 06/10/2009 - 12:07pm

A Great Year! Thanks, and Have a Wonderful Summer!

Wow, it's hard to believe that school is already wrapping up. As we finish up with highpoints such as the moving graduation ceremony last Saturday, roundtables, exhibitions, presentations of learning, project week... we celebrate a very rich and successful year at Compass. This work is never easy, but the impressive evidence of significant learning and the outpouring of gratitude that we have been experiencing in recent weeks affirm the value of our efforts. Thank you to the parents for your wonderful commitment to your children's education. Thank you to the Compass faculty for your extraordinary dedication and great work. And I'd like to especially commend the students for your impressive achievements this year, not only in terms of academics but also in the areas of leadership, initiative, community involvement, respect, and personal development. We are so fortunate to have each other and the great learning environment we have created. Excellent job, everyone!

And I'd like to wish everyone in the Compass community a restful, safe and expansive summer!

 

"The Compass Journal Spring Edition: The Annual Report" is now available at school. We invite every family to take one of these summaries of the year at Compass. These can be good promotional materials for the school to share with others, so if you know someone else who might appreciate reading this, please ask for more. (As they cost over $1 each to print, please only take them if they will go to good use. Thanks.) The journal can also be viewed on our web site:

at http://compass-school.org/sites/default/files/images/magazine6.09.web_.pdf.

  

Beautiful Compass Graduation! -

Thanks to all who made our senior graduation such a wonderful event. And congratulations to our impressive class of 2009!

  

Schedule Notes:

·       Wed. June 10th - Closing Celebration -- The school day for students will run from 12:30-8:00pm.

12:30                     Students Arrive -- All School Meeting

1:00-3:00              Kids fine-tune projects and make displays

3:00-4:00              Clean up and set up projects

4:00-5:00              Parents arrive and view presentation displays

                                10-minute play, music, fashion show performances

5:00-6:00              Potluck

6:00-6:15              Clean up and gather for Advisory Recognition Presentation

6:15-8:00              Advisory Recognition Presentation

 

We invite families to come view project week displays and to join us for a pot luck dinner. Please bring a pot luck dish to share, enough to feed your family.

 

Are there a few parents who could volunteer to help set up the potluck, and some to help with clean up?? Please let me know if you could help. Thanks!

 

Last Day of School: Thursday 6/11  -  8:30am-2:10pm

8:30    -- all-school meeting

9:00 Advisory and major all-school clean-up

11:00 or so-gather to drive in bus and teacher cars over to the Saxton's River Rec area.

11:30-1:30  lunch and fun at the rec (bring a swim suit if you want)

1:45  Drive back to Compass. (Students can be picked up at 1:45 at the Rec., or at 2:10 at Compass)

Have a great summer!!

 

Teacher meetings all week-6/15 - 6/19

  

REPORT CARDS- Report cards will be mailed out at the end of next week

 

Summer News

We will be sending a summer mailing to all 2009-10 families in early July, which will include the full calendar for next year, health forms, and other news. If you have news to share in this newsletter, please send it to school to Janice or Eric. The entire staff will be at school full time next week (June 15-19). The office will be open through the rest of June. We will be in school at irregular intervals throughout the summer. We will be answering messages and checking the mail all summer. Please contact us with any questions or concerns, or just to say "hi"! The full faculty will be back full time starting around August 20. The first day of school for students will be Wednesday, September 2nd.

 

Yearbooks For Sale

Only $10 for our beautiful full-color yearbook!  Pick up your copy in the office today.

 

Sports at BFUHS
There may be a possibility of Compass students playing interschool sports at Bellows Falls High School next year. Let Eric know if you are interested in learning more.

 

Please Return Books and Materials-Please make a point of checking homes, book bags, etc., and return all Compass books and materials. Thank you.

 

Please return library books! 

According to our records, these people still have books out:

Julia (Auto. Of Malcolm X), Brendan (Eclipse) Kyle Tansley (Chicken Soup), Remy (All American Girl), Olivia (Stardust, The Little Prisoner) , Kyle Takei, Kristi (Carrie, You Belong. . .), Sara S. (Life Through the Ages), Starcie (Wolf Star, Rose and Beast), Faith (Kissing the Rain), Maggie (I was a teenage fairy, Legally Elle . . . ), Alex, Lena (Middlesex, Dust Tracks, Memoirs of . . .), Sara Lepkoff (Invention of. . . ), Kelty (One Flew Over. . .), Nicolai (One Flew over . ..), Pete (Maus ll, One Day in the Life. . . ), Ann (Salem Falls, Plain Truth, Define Normal), Sean (Prisoner of Az . . .), Daniel (Zen and the Art of . . .), Rebecca (Pure), Nina (May all be Fed . . .), Sarah Lynde (Gaiman)      Thanks for using the library this year!

 

Parent Volunteers Needed

Are you looking for a way to work your 10 hours of volunteer time before the school year ends?  We currently need help with window cleaning, painting, light carpentry and landscaping.  If you could work a few hours please call John Fiske at 802-463-3432 to arrange a day/time.  Thank you!

 

DVD's of the Compass/NEYT 10 Minute Play Festival are available and on sale for $5. See Julia.

  

Summer Tutors Available:

·        Lauren is available for tutoring in Spanish, writing, or other Humanities skills this summer. lauren@compass-school.org home(802)254-5306

·        Julia is available for tutoring in writing (including SAT prep.), literature, and other Humanities areas. julia@compass-school.org  home(802) 869-1667

·        Elizabeth is available for Spanish tutoring. (802)380-1131

  

Summer reading

We have a LONG reading list for summer reading for our students - viewable on the Compass web site in the Resources section.   (http://www.compass-school.org/resources/summerreading)

We are asking each student to read at least 50 days over the summer (from this list or not). Summer is a great time for reading and a chance to explore learning outside school assignments. Any student who submits a reading log during the first week of school in September will be awarded a special prize!

  

Vermont Wildnerness School

The Vermont Wilderness School and Oyase Community run exciting wilderness education programs for kids and teens this summer, as well as an ongoing every-Thursday program during the school year. Check out their website: http://www.vermontwildernessschool.org/school/

A couple of Compass students plan to do the Thursday program next year. Contact Eric if you are interested in this possibility.

 

Parents-Final tuition payments are due. Please send payments in before the last day of school. Thanks! 

 

The NEYT Ten Year Retrospective          June 12-14

NEYT Breaking News!  We are ten years old...imagine that!   To celebrate,

the entire NEYT family will put on a big, large, huge, awesome, fun, fantastic, frivolous, fast paced extravaganza of a "Ten Year NEYT Retrospective" original show to commemorate our birthday.  Students, past and present will strut their stuff along with staff, faculty and perhaps, a parent or three.  Act I of the evening will include a new musical written by NEYT veterans and alumni Nick Bombicino and Carolyn Wesley.

There will be a delightful combination of elements - an NEYT "roast", stand-up comedy, a touch of nostalgia, bits of pieces of the most memorable moments in our history:  comic, tragic, and everything in between.  In all events, it is bound to be a whale of a good time for all.

Performances are June 12-14, Fri & Sat at at 7:30 pm, Sun at 3:00 pm.  Tickets are:  Adults $10.00, Students & Seniors $8.00 Sponsored by New Chapter Call the Box Office at 802-246-6398 or buy tickets online at www.neyt.org.

 

Executive Director News:

As some of you may have already heard, we recently received some surprising news: our newly hired executive director, Jim Blum, informed us that he is backing out of his commitment to Compass in order to take a job running a charitable organization in Chicago. While this is an unexpected curveball, we continue to confidently move forward with our plans for educational excellence next year and beyond.

The Compass Board remains clearly committed to finding a strong executive director with the skills and experience to develop our financial and organizational capacity to support our mission. As such, we have reopened the search for this position and have begun the work to find new, outstanding candidates. We hope to fill this position as soon as possible. If you are interested in serving on the reactivated director search committee, please let us know.

In the meantime, we are very fortunate to have strong, well qualified in-house leadership to administer the school. Rick Gordon - a founder of the school, our former director for four years, and currently our long range planning director - will step more fully back into our leadership team on an interim basis to manage our day-to-day operations. I will move fully into the educational realm as planned, teaching, advising, and overseeing our educational program.  Along with Administrative Director Janice Wojcik who manages the office, finance, personnel, and development, Special Education Director Janet Van Alstyne, Assistant Director Louise Hodson who manages many programs and scheduling, as well as all our other returning teachers and staff, we are set with a veteran team to keep the school operating well.

The sustained, widespread commitment to this school is another of the many assets we have that make it such a special place. While we regret the false start in our search for a new executive director, we are proud of our capacity to take this in stride. Rick's ongoing work for us over recent years has been enormously beneficial to the school, and we are excited that he is able now to step in to support our transition forward.

As always, I am available for questions, and I we will keep you posted on our progress. I look forward to our continued work together.

Sincerely,

Eric Rhomberg

Director

 

Some thoughts about a safe summer:

It's the time of year when teenagers are heading into graduation, the end of school, and the freedom of summer. This is a wonderful time, and unfortunately also a potentially risky time for kids. I don't think I have any more wisdom about how to be a good parent of teenagers than you do, but I thought I would send out a reminder to all of us to keep the safety of our children foremost in our thoughts and actions.

Some keys to this, I believe, are:

·        Talk to your children about the dangers of risky behavior: drugs and alcohol, driving, driving under the influence or being a passenger in an unsafe vehicle, swimming, playing on rock/cliff areas, sexual behavior, thrill-seeking behavior...    Become educated about these. Develop open and honest communication with your kids. Try not to preach or scold. Create dialogue and take interest in what your child has to say. Ask your child how THEY plan to manage risks in these areas.

·        Know where your children are going, what they are doing, and with whom. Talk with your child's friends' parents. Confirm that houses and parties are being supervised by adults. Talk to other parents about rules, expectations, curfews, and boundaries. Work to develop common understandings in these areas.

·        Set clear rules for your kids. Set rules and consequences together, ahead of time, before rules are broken. Try to engage together with a sense of constructive problem solving: "What agreements do we need that will allow you to have your social life and independence, AND that support you in staying safe and healthy?"  Lovingly but firmly say "no" when you need to. Ultimately you need to be in charge.

May everyone - and especially our kids - have a safe and growthful summer!  --Eric