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Happy Valentine’s Day! Continue your celebration at the Junior High Valentine’s Dance this evening, 7-9:30 p.m. Delicious snacks and groovy music!

The Winter Workshop Showcase is coming up right after vacation. Please mark your calendar for Monday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m. The Outback will be set up with an exhibit of pottery and books while drumming, storytelling, and dance are performed on the “main stage”.

In October 2007 3rd-8th graders took the NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program) assessments. Last week we received the scores. There is a copy of each child’s scores for parents and we ask that you either come in to review it or call to ask me to send it home. The reports need some explanation and interpretation. A school summary of scores is included in the Town Report.

You may have heard about the requirement of the No Child Left Behind federal law that teachers be “highly qualified”. The Vermont Department of Education has implemented this and sends us a report annually which we are required to share with you. As of the 2006-2007 school year 26.7% of MES teachers were not highly qualified for the classes they were teaching. This sounds high but I don’t think you should be worried. It may be that a teacher is in the process of getting an endorsement in a subject s/he is teaching. Suffice it to say that all Marlboro teachers are licensed educators and that we use many measures to determine the effectiveness of their work. I feel very confident in the quality of instruction your children receive from Marlboro teachers!

Below is a note from a group of Marlboro College professors and students who will be traveling to Cambodia in March. What a great project! They are hoping to take photographs (no names) and pictures of our students. If you do not want your child’s picture used, please call me before Wednesday.

Dear Friends and Family of Marlboro Elementary School:

A group of 10 students and two visual arts faculty are traveling to Cambodia for three weeks beginning March 8th as part of a Creative Collaborative Service Learning course at Marlboro College. We are planning to volunteer at several orphanages in the countryside and one school. As a way of creating a cultural exchange we are asking permission to take photographs of (hopefully) every student at Marlboro Elementary School. We would also like to encourage students to make drawings of their school, family and community. We plan to bring these photographs and drawings with us to share with the students in Cambodia and in return we hope to bring back photographs and drawings of and made by the Cambodian children. We will be at Marlboro Elementary School photographing students Wednesday Feb. 20th in the afternoon and perhaps also during the after school program that week followed by the first week in March. Our departure to Cambodia is on March 8th so we are hoping to complete this part of the project very soon. On our return to Vermont we will arrange a time to come visit the school and share our stories and pictures.

Thank you so much and we are excited to include you all in our great opportunity to share your selves and stories with the young people we will meet in Cambodia.

Cathy Osman Prof. Painting, John Willis Prof. Photography, Raf Kelman, Paige Martin, and Laura Lancaster