marlboroschool.net

Dear folks,

Here is a revised copy of the portfolio presentations which start this Thursday.   Seventh grade parents are not expected to be part of this, only the seventh graders themselves.Final Portfolio Presentations:

8th graders will present their portfolios to a panel of staff members.  Each 8th grader will have one  7th grader to help him or her organize, proof read, and practice presenting the work. The 7th grader will also be expected to support the 8th grader during the presentation.   8th graders are paired with staff and 7th graders as follows.

On 6/5 at 3:15 Starcie with  Colby & Jaine
On 6/5 at 4:15 Maddie with Jackson & Brenda

On 6/6 at 3:15 Charlotte with Zoe & Judy
On 6/6 at 4:15 Skylar with Ferne & Christine

On 6/9 at 4:15 Alex with Ashleigh & Christine

On 6/10 at 3:15 Emma with Tim & Pamela
On 6/10 at 4:15 Nicolai with Mandy & Ellen

On 6/11 at 3:15 Audrey with Lloyd & David
On 6/11 at 4:15 Liz with Lloyd & Stephanie

Francie, Tim & Rachel will be on all the panels.
Your parents and the school board are invited to be an audience for this final presentation.

Rachel Boyden                                                                                                  Tim Hayes
254-3872                                                                                                          254-8448
rboyden@sover.net                                                                                          tjhayes@sover.net

Dear Parents
Thank-you all for coming to our Costa Rica night and supporting your kids through the trip and the work we have been asking them to do since we got back.  The articles are being posted on the blog as they are completed.  (You should ask them how many drafts they had to do before we would let them be published!)  A paper copy of this newsletter will come home as soon as all the articles are completed.
Some of you may be wondering about our finances.  The bottom line shows that the class raised $10,000   this year. That, combined with the money from the school and the parents meant that we only had to spend about $2,000  of our savings,   which means there is not a surplus.   You may have heard about the donation we received from Vt. Yankee. The question came up about whether we should accept it, and we saw this as a good learning opportunity. The question became one of our formal debate topics, as well as an extended discussion and vote in class government.  It involved a look at the benefits of nuclear power, the safety concerns, and the ethics of matching our beliefs and actions. It was a fascinating process: it went from a vote of in favor of accepting the funds (but w/out 2/3 majority), to a tie, to a clear majority against acceptance. We will send back the money with a polite note of thanks and explanation, and there will be no public pronouncements.
As we wind down our work on Costa Rica we are running full steam ahead preparing for the Cabaret on this up coming Thursday, May 22.   We will be presenting the bilingual play we took to Costa Rica, “Footprints,” and a selection of other short skits.   Curtain is at 7:00.  We will also draw winners in the Bench Raffle that night.
Spring is a busy time for the Jr. High so here are a few other dates and times to keep in mind.  The Art Show & Spring Concert is Wednesday the 28th at 6:30 p.m. Eighth graders will doing their final portfolio presentations for Tim, Rachel, Francie and one other staff member afternoons at 3:15 and 4:15 June 4th through 11th.   Parents are cordially invited to these presentations, as are school board members.    Each eighth grader will be supported by a seventh grade colleague during these presentations so all students will have one late afternoon during that time.   We will let you know as soon as we can which afternoon your son or daughter will be presenting or assisting.   Eighth grade writers’ consortium is at 7:00 the evening of June 12th at the Marlboro Town House.  Parents, staff, and older siblings are invited to this annual event.   Younger siblings are invited to Graduation, which will be Monday June 16th at 7:00 PM.   We are still looking for 7th grade parents to organize this event for the eighth graders and their families.
Amid all this we are still having classes in math, science, and literature!

Rachel Boyden                                                                                                  Tim Hayes
254-3872                                                                                                          254-8448
rboyden@sover.net                                                                                          tjhayes@sover.net

Homework for Week of May 12, 2008

Notes Home

We had some great debates this week, ask your kids how they think they did or how they voted and why.  They all argued intelligently and with conviction.   We do have them on film so if we have time perhaps we can show clips at our Costa Rica night this Tuesday at 7:00PM.  See you there!

2 May 2008
Dear Parents,

We’re back, well rested and plenty busy. Here are some notes from the Junior High:

Graduation  We have picked a Monday night for this year’s Graduation—June 16—two days before the last day of school. As you may know, it’s the Marlboro tradition that the 7th grade families create the celebration for their departing peers, and we need a 7th grade parent volunteer or two to head this effort. Rachel and I will do a lot of the organizing at school, but we still very much need your help, especially with decorations and food. Please call us ASAP.

Costa Rica Night Don’t forget about our slide show presentation coming up on the 13th of May, 7 p.m. The students are currently working on articles that will be read that night and posted on the web page. We are also working on debates that will happen next Wednesday and Thursday, May 7 & 8. You are most welcome to attend. Check with your child about the times. The topics:
o    Should we continue to sell Mocha Joe’s coffee when it isn’t Fair Trade certified?
o    Is tourism good for Costa Rica?
o    Should we accept the $750 donation from Vermont Yankee?

Cabaret  The spring performance will be on Thursday evening, May 22, 7p.m. at Whitemore Theater.  We will present the play we performed in Costa Rica—“Footprints”—as well as a selection of scenes and one-acts.

See you soon.

Tim & Rachel

Notes Home

For those of you who haven’t signed up for conferences, please give Gail a call.  We can find a late afternoon or even time to meet.  These conferences are a great time for the students to share their work with you and we look forward to seeing you then. 

Notes Home

Thank you all for coming to the parent meeting.   Please don’t hesitate to call either of us if you have any further questions about the trip to Costa Rica.

          On Friday our trip to Mocha Joe’s Roasting Company was a great success.  The students impressed the staff with their intelligent questions and their polite demeanor.   We were impressed with the complexity of the coffee business.  We learned about geography, fair trade, agro-biology in the growing of the plants, the chemical reactions in the roasting process, as well as a little bit about ratio and proportion.  

Today, Monday, we will have a slightly different set of lessons as we travel to Hilltop School to see their drama production.  We will see how they integrate their studies into theater and hope to be inspired to continue the great work we have started on our play.

For those of you that didn’t sign up for conferences at the meeting last Thursday, please give Gail a call.  We have many more times available as we don’t both need to be at each conference.   If an evening time is better for you just call and let us know and we will find a date that works for all.  These conferences are a great time for the students to share their work with you and we look forward to seeing you then.    

Notes Home

Hope you all had a great vacation; we are now shifting into high gear as we get ready to leave in four and a half weeks!   April 9th is the departure date for the Costa Rica trip and we are working hard on putting together the play, learning more about fair trade, ecotourism, and cloud forest ecology.  Francie is working on the fine details of the itinerary which we hope to be able to share with you at the parent meeting on this Thursday March 13 at 7:00 PM.    Please bring your child’s passport to this meeting.  

Dear Parents,

This is a letter to update you about fundraising for the Costa Rica trip. There have been some questions regarding family contributions, so let me reiterate: families are asked to contribute whatever they can afford, up to the full cost of $1200 per student. When all is said and done, if we end up in the black, we will reimburse people on a % basis (as we did years ago w/ the London trip.) We still hope to hear from six families about what they can pledge. First installments were due 1 February, the balance on 1 April.

Fundraising efforts have been varied, but between them all we have seen a steady increase. Here’ a breakdown of Revenue:

The cost of the trip is estimated at $1200 per person, based on some known and unknown costs. For example, the airfare was $675, and we know accommodation & some activity expenses, but the transportation and food costs are estimated from the previous trip. Parent chaperones are expected to pay the full fare. That brings the total estimated cost to $27,600.

$27,600. Estimated Cost

-22,230 Raised so far

$5,370 Still to raise

Additional revenue expected from:

o Family pledges - six more

o Donations - responses to student appeals have just started to come in

o Coffee - sales ongoing

o Bench raffle tickets - another $2010 if the remaining 134 are sold

o Valentine’s Day Dance - there are plans afoot for 16^th February.

o Coop Sale, 23 February Þ Bake sale, coffee, bench raffle tickets.

On Friday we had a wonderful visit from Patti Smith (BEEC). She stayed in Monteverde twice, including back in the 80’s, and gave us a slide show presentation on the Cloud Forest. It was a great way to start our science unit.

Hope to see you all at the March 13^th meeting, 7:30.

Sinceramente,

Tim & Rachel

Dear JH Parents,

Our April trip to Costa Rica draws nearer.  We will have a meeting to go over details and answer questions on Thursday, 13 March, 7:30.  In the meantime, here is the latest.

Itinerary

After investigating alternatives, we have settled on a trip very similar to the previous  like this:

o       Fly to Liberia, CR, then bus/van to Monteverde.

o       Stay in Monteverde, probably at the same La Colina Lodge which was very convenient to the Friend’s School, the town, and the Cloud Forest Preserve.

o       Move a few miles down the mountain to San Luis and stay again at the Ecolodge which arranges for homestays, farm and beneficio visits, school visits, hiking to the waterfall, and perhaps again hosting a community gathering for our play performance.

o       From here we will travel to Playa Hermosa on the Pacific coast, staying two nights at the beach where we can swim and snorkel the coral reef. 

o       The good news is that getting to & from the airport in Liberia will be a much shorter excursion than last time .

Curriculum

o       We will start with a short geography unit in which groups will “travel” to CR by car, train, boat or plane, creating a route, learning about different places along the way, & sending back postcards from notable sights.

o       The main study will be of four topics: coffee and fair trade practices; rainforest ecology; tourism; the causes/solutions for habitat destruction and global warming. There will be teacher-led classes, field trips, readings and final team debates on each main topic.

o       In addition to the debates, this learning will inform another main project Þ writing and performing a bilingual play to share with the Costa Rican community what we feel links the two countries, especially regarding our worries about and possible solutions to the crisis of global warming. This will also be performed at the spring Cabaret, May 22, at Whitemore Theater.

o       In addition, each student will choose a related topic about which they may do some independent research ahead of time in order to be able to investigate a question while they are in CR. They will report their findings in a news letter when we get back home.

o       Spanish classes will, of course, continue… see the attached note from Peter Gould.

Funds

Philip sent out a handsome appeal letter to local businesses, and from that we received a $1000 donation from New Chapter of Brattleboro! The students sent out (and are still sending out?) similar letters to family and friends, and donations have started to roll in. Meanwhile, we’re still selling tickets for the bench raffle. The three benches are coming along, two of the frames standing up, soon to receive seats and backs. Coffee is selling at a consistent rate, thanks to help from Gail Chaine and the cooperation of Joyce at Sweeties. And the Rent-a-Kid is still open for business.

Regarding family contributions, we are requesting that the first half be submitted by February 1, and the balance by April 1.

Chaperones

There will be seven chaperones— Tim, Rachel, Peter, Francie, Philip Johansson, Jen Carr, and Robin White—and 17 students participating. We will review with them expectations and any specific assignments. Each chaperone will be assigned 2-3 students to watch out for throughout the trip, especially at critical transitions. We’ll discuss this further, at the March meeting.

Passports

We understand that everyone has a passport at this time. Please bring a copy to the March meeting (or make one here that night.) We do need to know sooner how the names appear on the passport (for the tickets) and there are still five names we don’t have. Please let Francie know ASAP if you have not already.

Medical

There are no specific immunizations required to travel in CR. We will discuss this further at the meeting.

See you all on March 13!

Tim & Rachel

Notes Home

We are fully back into the swing of academic life these days.   Students are finishing up their journals on Cherokees, mill girls, pioneers and slaves as they begin an illustrated project on evolution.   We are also well into independent projects.  This is a time when students in the JH do a study on a topic of their own choosing.   If you haven’t heard about this you should ask.   The topics this year are great; they range from The KKK to documentary film making, from Ella Fitzgerald to solar cars.

          It looked like there was a great turn out for High School night last night.   These are hard decisions.  We are always happy to talk to any of you who have more questions about high schools.

^{Dec. 11th}

Last week we had a number of great parent conferences.   Students were very articulate about their work and we were very proud of them all.   A number of you still need to contact us to schedule a conference.   Please do this as soon as possible.  Students have worked very hard putting together their portfolios and should have a chance to show them to you.

Notes Home Nov. 26

Please remember to sign up for a student led conference on Wed. Nov. 28^th or Thur. Nov. 29^th. Call Gail in the office to see what times are available. If you haven’t already, send in how your son or daughter’s name appears on the passport.

We need to know this exactly in order to purchase tickets!

Dear Parents, please have your children

Bring in how their name appears on their passport

We need to know this exactly in order to purchase tickets!

Also, in the coming weeks, the class will be writing letters of appeal that outline the educational value of their impending Costa Rica trip. These will be sent to friends and relatives, along with a general summary of the trip’s goals, to help raise funds and defray the costs for all of us. (Rest assured that this is only one approach of the amazing fundraising committee, who has the task well in hand). In the mean time, the kids will need your help coming up with a list of friends and relatives, at least five of them but ten would be ideal. Please send a list of addresses in with your favorite junior high student by Wednesday, November 28.

Finally, please remember to sign up for a student led conference on Wed. Nov. 28^th or Thur. Nov. 29^th. Call Gail in the office to see what times are available.

Halloween is over and we are all back into the swing of regular school. As regular as it gets around here, last week we went to see NEYT’s production of A Night at the Opera, this week we will be going to see Leland & Gray’s production of Oliver. Still, we have time for all the regular classes as well. Ask about Science projects, Lit. books, Monday night math, writing pieces, or Social Studies debates to find out more about what were are doing in the class room.

Friday we spent time talking about our curriculum for the spring, and you will be hearing more about that as the year progresses. Things are shaping up nicely with both the curriculum and with fundraising. Not including the financial commitments you as parents have made, we have already raised or had pledged $6500. We anticipate raising an additional $5500 through the raffle of the benches, the sale of coffee, and rent-a-kid. We’re well on our way to the $26,500 total. We have other fundraising plans which you’ll hear more about soon and we’re beginning the process of applying for grants. Gay Maxwell, Jen Carr, and Philip Johansson are working on the grant writing.

Dear Parents:

Here are a few notes about Costa Rica. First, we made over $2,000 at the welcome center this Saturday thanks to Donna’s effort organizing and all the rest of you who baked and stood out there talking up the pies and our school. Y’all are fabulous!

Now, down to the nitty gritty. Chaperones….at this point we have only heard from three of you, Robin (Mandy’s mom) Phillip Ferne’s dad) and Mary (Emma’s mom). We would be more than happy with just these three or any two of these three as chaperones. But, we really, REALLY, need to know if any one else is considering being a chaperone because we need to think about buying tickets whenever we see a good price. Please, PLEASE, speak to Tim, Rachel, or Francie if you wish to be a chaperone.

Next, money………….In order for us to have a clear idea of how much more fund raising we need to do we need to hear from each of you how much of your own money you think you can contribute to this trip. Please let Francie know by November 1^st what you think you will be able to pay, up to $1,200. Please let us know even if you know you cannot contribute anything. This will be confidential; just put you child’s name and a $ figure in Francie’s mail box at school. If our funds end up exceeding the cost, we will reimburse these contributions by percentage

Finally, passports……..another check in. If there is a form to fill out on the back of this letter we do not know the status of your child’s passport. Please fill this out and give it back to us ASAP.

Thanks for all you are doing from pies to moral support. Much of the reason we have a successful school is because of you.

Cheers,

will appear here soon.