Hi Laurel Families,
We finished our first full week of school and the students and faculty have already gotten things off to an energetic start. We celebrated Palindrome Day on Tuesday, and the students found many examples of palindromes, the first few: Mom and Dad and the date (9-10-19). Schedules are being adjusted to ensure that all students are receiving the reading and math instruction in the best groups and at the best level of instruction.
We are getting better at arrivals and dismissals on campus, and getting used to the three school car queues. Adam Pate, our Campus Director has asked us to remind parents to be sure to stay to the right as you enter the campus and leave space at each intersection to ensure that traffic flows smoothly.
We are still collecting Medical Forms, Emergency Forms, Handbook Acknowledgement forms, Before and After School Program request forms, and Pizza Order Forms. Please help us by sending these in as soon as possible. All forms can be found on the website by
clicking here
.
The students are eagerly (one of our vocabulary words of the day) using their computers in various classes and often require ear phones to ensure that everyone can work most efficiently. To ensure the best hygiene and ear comfort of our students, we are requesting that parents send in earphones that will be designated for their child only. These should be sent in, in a plastic bag that is labeled with the student’s name. These will remain in the student’s homeroom desk to be used during the day.
After School Programs will begin the week of September 23. We are offering several options for
Before/After Care and After School Programs
this year. For all the information and to register,
please click here
.
We are excited to share that Laurel is rolling out
Remind
school-wide! If you're not already familiar with Remind, it's a classroom communication tool that makes it easy to stay involved with your child's learning. Remind is free to use, and you'll be able to get and send messages on any device—even a simple text from your phone! If you haven’t received an email or text from us about joining Remind, please let Alison know. You may also receive invitations from teachers to join their class Remind groups and from Karen Schoenfeld for the Laurel School Parents Association. Please watch this
video demo
to see how Remind works and we encourage you to download the app to your phone. We're excited to make connecting with our families more engaging!
Our first
Tea with Dee
is on Wednesday, October 2 at 12:30 pm in the Laurel Lounge in Building 1. For our first meeting, we will be reading excerpts from the book
Dyslexia is My Superpower (Most of the Time)
by Margaret Rooke. If you’d like to purchase the book here is the
link to Amazon
. We will also share excerpts from the book at our meeting, so don’t worry if you can’t complete your “homework” in time. 😊 This book is a compendium of experiences from dyslexic students from all over the world. Maybe you’ll recognize your child in one of them? I look forward to talking about any similarities you notice or any questions these stories raise for you when we meet.
There will also be a
Laurel School Parents Association (LSPA)
meeting on the same day, October 2, at 2:00 pm. You are welcome to come to both meetings or just to either one. Please see the note from Karen Schoenfeld below for more info about the LSPA.
For your planning, Tea with Dee and LSPA meetings will be on the following dates this year:
Wednesday, Oct 2
Wednesday, Nov 6
Wednesday, Dec 4
Wednesday, Feb 5
Wednesday, March 4
Wednesday, May 6
Tea with Dee starts at 12:30, LSPA begins at 2:00. We are hoping to offer a way to video conference into these meetings as we know many have conflicts during the work day. If there is significant interest in an evening time for these meetings, we will look into arranging that. Please be in touch if you have any questions.
Have a wonderful weekend!
- Dee
Note from Karen Schoenfeld, LSPA
Hi Everyone,
I am looking forward to meeting our new families and hope that everyone will consider participating in Laurel School Parent Association (LSPA) activities at some point throughout the school year. There are lots of ways to help in addition to attending meetings. The LSPA helps sponsor and support several activities throughout the year. Our first big event is Halloween! We do Halloween big at Laurel. At our first meeting (on October 2nd at 2pm) we will plan for this event and I will give an overview of what we have planned this year. Bring your ideas! We are always open to new possibilities and ways of doing things.
We are going to try something different this year in order to fund these special activities for our kids. In the past we have asked for small financial donations throughout the year for various events. This year, we are asking for a single donation to the LSPA of $50 for the school year. We will still need volunteers to help with events and we may ask for baked goods or other donated items, but we will not be asking for money. We will see how this works! I hope this will make everyone’s life a little easier. Keep your eye out for SignUp Genius’ to volunteer and plan for activities throughout the year. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. My cell phone number is 917.270.4148. See you at Back to School Night!
Thank you!
-Karen Schoenfeld, mom of Jessy in 9th grade
