ALL SCHOOL CHORAL CONCERTS:
You are invited to the Spring Choir Concerts at Champlain. The concerts are divided into two nights: Grades 3-5 will be on Wednesday, April 14th at 6pm, and Grades K-2 will be Thursday, April 15th at 6pm. Hope to see you there!
PTO MEETING WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14th
Tomorrows PTO meeting will start at 6:30 pm, immediately following the 3rd-5th grade music concert. The meeting will happen in the library and will run until 8pm. On the agenda for this weeks get-together: Climate Committee update, Parent Handbook start-up, Multi-Cultural dinner planning, PTO Executive Board Nominations, and much, much more! Child care and pizza provided. ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT THIS WEEK to RSVP for child care: Barbara Leopold at bleopold@bsdvt.org
UPDATE FROM THE CHAMPLAIN CLIMATE COMMITTEE:
After using our first meeting to make some sense out of the feedback and ideas generated by parents and teachers, the Climate Committee met on Thursday, April 1 to discuss next steps. Based on the ideas and input from you all, we have decided to focus our energies on two main areas: parent/teacher communication and parent/teacher collaboration.
As a way to tackle both of these areas, parent coordinator, Silvia Jope, has begun developing a parent handbook that will contain information on how to best communicate with teachers, expectations of parent volunteers, volunteer protocols and other information that families will find useful. Along those lines, Leslie has agreed to talk with teachers about setting some protocols around receiving and responding to parent communication. Secondly, as a way to facilitate and organize information for teachers about parents who are willing to volunteer and in what capacity they can volunteer, we are currently experimenting with a searchable database in which parents can enter information that can then be easily retrieved by teachers looking for an expert in a field, some extra parent drivers, someone to help with reading groups, or whatever their needs might be. We think that having information such as this at everyone's fingertips will make it easier for teachers to access willing volunteers and local experts within the parent community.
I want to report that I feel extremely fortunate to live in a district that so values the importance of collaborative decision making involving parents and teachers, and I want to thank both the faculty and parents who have given of their time to move this process forward.
Until next time,
Hans Manske
MULTI-CULTURAL DINNER (SAVE THE DATE):
Champlain Elementary's Annual MULTI-CULTURAL DINNER & Haiti Benefit will be Thursday May 6th from 5:30-7pm. This is your opportunity to celebrate international cuisine and dress. Bring your favorite dish, and be prepared to feast on food from around the world. MARK YOUR CALENDARS! There will be a sign-up sheet in The Learning Center for Volunteers. More information to come in future Weekly Updates.
THE SPOT FUNDRAISER:
Thank you Thank you to our friends Roxanne and Russ Scully and the lovely staff at The Spot for last weeks PTO fundraiser! We are looking forward to the next one!!!