Community Newsletter

Monday, April 19, 1999

CLC "Gears Up" for Expansion / Facilities Search Continues

The CLC population will increase by one class of 24 students next year, and that means we have a lot of thinking to do! Where will we be located? How will we select the new students? Will we use the next lottery as a means to adjust the number of boys and girls, or children at each grade level? How will we advertise the openings? How will visits be conducted? These will be the primary issues discussed at the Board of Directors meeting, which follows the Parent meeting at approximately 8:30 on Thursday, 4/22. As always, you are welcome to attend and share your thoughts on these and other important issues.

Our CLC students (and faculty) are truly amazing! That’s what the audience said after a team of more than a dozen students completed their performance at the "Children’s Literature Matters" teachers’ conference last week. And now, by popular demand, the young stars have agreed to do an "encore presentation" in which they present their reactions to newly published books for young readers. This performance will be a great start for our Parent Meeting, which will begin at 7:00 on Thursday, 4/22, at the CLC first floor classroom.

And now for something completely different…

What is six feet tall, sounds like a train, and has only one wheel? Charles Ryan with an accordion, on a very tall unicycle! Charles will be performing with Dan and Galla on Saturday at around10:30 a.m. in the Hetzel Union building on the Penn State campus. Congratulations, Charles! Break a leg!

Perhaps you caught it on the front page of Saturday’s Centre Daily Times…

There was a Charter School Conference in town on Friday and Saturday, to benefit school board members, charter school operators, legislators, and researchers. Josephine Pirrone, Kyle Peck, Diane Lichtman, and John Cieply were all called on to express their thoughts on charters in general, and on the CLC in particular. All of the CLC presenters did a fine job, and represented us well.

The conference also prompted three visits on Friday, one from Dr. Eric Rofes, the conference keynote speaker, and one of the emerging experts on charter schools in the U. S. The CLC also was visited by Phil Flynn, one of the founders of the Urban Pathways Charter School in Pittsburgh, and David Force, Head of the SusQ-Cyber Charter School in North Central PA (http://www.csiu.k12.pa.us/cyber.html).

All three sets of visitors were very impressed with what they saw. Dr. Rofes complimented the CLC during his keynote speech on Friday night, and David called the CLC the most amazing school he’s ever seen. He said he would return with lots of good ideas.

The conference was a good experience for us, too. One of the highlights for me was the opportunity to meet and talk with Dr. Joseph Bonita, the Superintendent of the Bellefonte Area School district. He’s a fine man and a good thinker, and he’s committed to improving schools. We agreed to meet soon to talk of ways to make the CLC/Bellefonte partnership productive. The teachers also had good conversations with other charter teachers, and we had a chance to hear from Senator Rhodes, Chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee. Lynn Parker, Patricia Ryan, Mark Toci, and Malena Moore, also deserve our thanks for giving up the better part of their weekend to participate in the conference. Patricia Best (the next Superintendent of the State College Area School District) and two State College School Board members (Connie Martin and Cynthia Potter) were also in attendance. Cynthia commented favorably on the high level of participation by the CLCCS Community.

Let’s face it. It’s not much fun to take tests, and they take time away from other important activities. However, the results of these tests, if used wisely, provide valuable information we can use to gauge our success as a school, to refocus attention to areas of identified need, and to earn the right to continue in our new and different direction. Good tests can also provide important information to parents about a child’s strengths and needs.

This week we’ll begin a series of tests sprinkled throughout the rest of the school year. Most are segments of the "CAT 5 Comprehen-sive Battery" used to gather data on all of the academic subjects normally taught in school.