newsletters.htm
May
Parent/Board Meetings
This
month's parent meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 24
in the Team 2 classroom. This will be the last parent meeting until
September. Our monthly board meeting will immediately follow at 8:30
in Team 1's classroom. The staff will present a proposed budget for
2001-2002 to the board at this meeting. Please join us for both
meetings.
DC Trip
Students and staff will be
traveling to Washington, D.C., onTuesday, May 29 for our school trip.
Our plan is to leave CLC at 5:00 a.m. We will be
dropped off on the Mall and spend the day exploring the area and
museums. We expect to return to CLC around 11:00 p.m. that evening.
If you would like to join us as a chaperone, please let M.J. know by
May 18. We are taking 3 chartered buses this year, so we have plenty
of room for parents to join us.
Picnic/Last
day of school-June 6
We are planning to spend
the afternoon (and early evening) of Wednesday, June 6 at Holmes
Foster Park (upper level) for an end of the year community
celebration. The afternoon will be spent playing active games as part
of "field day" with activities organized by some of our students with
the help of Michelle Richards, our Health and Fitness instructor.
This will be followed by a family potluck around 5:30 and some early
evening family fun. Please plan to meet us at the park as early as
you can. Everyone's welcome! More details in next Friday's
"mail".
2001-2002 School
Year - team configurations
At the
April 26th meeting of the CLC School Board, the Board unanimously
approved the addition of a 5th team of students, raising our school
population to a total of about 125 students, still below the approved
charter level of 200. This expansion will bring with it both
challenges and opportunities. However, as we have grown, our
community has worked hard to find ways to make our school a stronger
and more supportive place to learn, work and grow. We will continue
to work in this manner towards developing the CLC's unique
educational environment. Class configurations for next year are still
far from being finalized. However, based on the information about
returning students that we do have, it looks like we will have a
large 8th grade class combining 7th graders from teams 1,2 and 3.
Otherwise, teams 3 and 4 should remain fairly intact although some
vacancies will need to be filled. Two new 5th/6th grade teams will
form a second pod.
2001-2002 School Year - the "Lottery"
Our
lottery for new applicants for the 2001-2002 school year was
held on Monday,April 30. Thirty-two 5th and 6th grade
applicants were accepted for the new classes. We
also accepted 5 students to fill in spaces in our 7th grade
class.
Applications
will continue to be accepted and will be used to fill in
remaining openings in the order they are received. Word of mouth is
our best source of advertisement! Please help us to get the word out,
so that we can fill these spaces quickly.
Project Block
News...
Pod 2 (Teams 3 & 4):
The field trip to Bald Eagle State Park was engaging and fun. Holly,
our fearless naturalist, presented us with the challenge of creating
a working watershed. Each group had to build a part of the system on
the beach. It was quite a learning experience.
Back in the classroom, learning modules are beginning to shape up.
Students are actively preparing presentations for the symposium
on Tuesday, May 8th. Some groups have taken the initiative to
plan field trips to learn more about their specialized areas.
Team 3 Language and Writing Workshop:
Team 3 has begun live CE presentations. Devan, Austin, and Willie
were the first to present, and they are to be commended for a
wonderful job. We look forward to hearing another wonderful
presentation next week. Please check Kathryn's web site at:
http://clccharter.org/~kathryn/currentevents.htm for scheduling and
requirement information.
As always, assignments for the week can be found on Diane's web page
at: http://clccharter.org/~diane/workshop.htm. This week, students
are challenged to write an essay on "How to Make a Peanut Butter and
Jelly Sandwich." On Friday, Diane and Kathryn will test out their
instructions with the real stuff.
Team 4 Afternoons:
Team 4's Independent Projects continue to unfold and develop.
Students continue to feverishly research and collect materials. They
should be finished with phase two by Friday, May 4. Luke and Jacob
took a trip to the new building to survey and measure the yard for a
possible soccer field and fence. Vanessa has taken on the challenge
of creating the first ever CLC yearbook.
Pod
1(Teams 1 & 2):
Now that the timeline is completed, the
students are busy working on their space department's chartered
agenda in small groups. There are a wide variety of areas being
researched including Astrophysics, Robotics, Agriculture in Space,
and Women in Space Science, Check out
http://clccharter.org/~mark/projects/space/chartdep.htm to see more
information on this out-of-this-world project.
In language arts, both seventh and eighth graders are working
on the second stage of the alien writing project. Nearly every
culture and society has a myth of origin - a story that answers
questions of how the world was created and how beings came to be. The
second stage of the project will begin with a quest to understand
myths which answer these questions. In class, students will read
several cultures' myths of origins and talk about similarities and
differences. Each group must research a myth of origin that was not
studied in class, then prepare an oral presentation of the research.
For more info, please see http://clccharter.org/~lisa/aliens2.htm .
CLC Yearbook
Vanessa
(Team 4) and Brittany (Team 2) are working on the first ever CLC
yearbook. Information about ordering the book and how you can help
are enclosed in this week's Friday folder(orange form).
Graduation
18 students
comprise the first group of 8th graders to graduate form CLC. The
ceremony will take place on Tuesday, June 5, with all CLC students
attending. If you are interested in helping us to plan this special
day, please let M.J. know ASAP.
New Facility-A Reality!
As of July
1 our new address will be 2643 W. College Ave. That's right - we have
our very own building! Be sure to take the online tour linked to our
home page.
Rocket Club
The
spring launch of the rocket club will be on Saturday, May 19,
at the Mount Nittany Middle School field. See Glenn's web page for
more information.
Car Wash
The 8th
graders will be holding a car wash this Sunday, May 6, starting at
9:30 a.m. at the 
North
Atherton McDonald's. Please stop by, get your car washed and support
our 8th graders as they continue to raise money for their
trip.
Student Absences
Another
reminder to please send in a written excuse for your child's absence
from school. If you choose to email us an excuse, please send it to
your child's home team assistant teacher, as well as to M.J. in the
office. Our daily attendance records are kept by the assistant
teachers.
Spaghetti
Dinner
Congratulations to the
eighth graders (and their families) on a successful spaghetti dinner.
Proceeds should approach $700 once all silent auction monies are
collected. This should guarantee adequate funds to allow the trip to
Toronto and Niagara Falls as planned. Because the cost of the
chartered bus came in considerably higher than anticipated, the
students had to raise additional money quickly or cut the length of
their visit. They planned, organized and followed through with a
delicious meal, baby-sitting and a variety of auction items for
purchase, with less than three weeks of planning time. The students
send a hearty thank you to all who bought a meal, donated auction
items or volunteered their time.
Standardized
Test Schedule
CAT V tests
for all grade levels began April 23 and will be completed May 16. The
SCASD writing assessment will be conducted in mid-May. A
comprehensive test schedule can be found though a link on the home
page of our web site.
Green
Design Fair
Congratulations
to Team 2 who won the Grand Prize of $150 at the Green Design Fair on
April 8 for their Ecology and Sustainability project. Dane G. and
Nater also won the $100 first place prize for their Ecological Art
submission of the "Plastic Man." Andrew S. took second place in this
division for his soda can pyramid. Congratulations!
Dehydration
We are
spending more time outdoors now that it is so nice outside. Students
do not have access to a water fountain when we are on the field.
Please encourage your child to drink plenty of water during the day
and to have a water bottle with them at all times.
CLC Calendar:
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May 8
|
POD 2 Earth and Water
Symposium
|
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May 22-23
|
8th grade trip to
Toronto/Niagara Falls
|
|
May 24
|
Parent Meeting 7pm/Board
Meeting 8:30 pm
|
|
May 28
|
Memorial Day (no
school)
|
|
May 29
|
All School Trip to Washington,
D.C.
|
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June 4
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CLC Student Conference
|
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June 5
|
Graduation
|
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June 6
|
Last day of school
School Picnic - Holmes-Foster Park
(more details later)
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