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AYLETT COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL Preparing Children for a Lifetime of Learning Newsletter March 9, 2010MARK YOUR CALENDAR: TONIGHT 1st Grade meeting in classroom – 6:30 PM March 11 League Meeting – 7:00 PM March 12 End of 4th six weeks NOON DISMISSAL March 14 SPRING FORWARD – Daylight Saving begins March 15-19 School closed – Spring Break March 22 School reopens – 8:30 AM March 25 2nd Grade meeting in classroom – 6:30 PM March 29 Mini-mester begins ACDS Athletic Awards Evening and POT LUCK DINNER – 6:00 PM – Franklin Y. Hundley, Jr. Student Life Center April 1 SNOW MAKE-UP DAY – 3:00 PM Dismissal April 2-5 School closed – Easter Weekend April 6 DRESS DOWN DAY (this is instead of March 31) BUS CHANGESThe following reflects the most current changes to our bus fleet due to service and repair: Bus 14 Mrs. Burch Urbanna – Southern Essex Bus 15 Mrs. Cobb Warsaw – Tappahannock Bus 16 Mrs. Elliott King & Queen – King William Bus 17 Mrs. Ware Northern & Central Essex Parents, it may be helpful when writing bus notes, to please include the driver’s name as we all adjust to these current changes. Thank you for your patience and effort. The routes have not changed. TUITION PAYMENTSParents, when making tuition payments, please note your account number in the memo section of your check. This will allow the office to be more efficient in crediting your account. Thank you, Ayron Pitts CALLING ALL THREE YEAR OLDS! We are doing something different next year with our EC3 class. We would like to offer EC3 either 3 half days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) or 5 half days a week. However in order for the classes to make, we must have signed contracts in hand by April 1. Parents, if you have children you wish to enroll in the EC3 class next year or know of others who might be interested, please give Robin Taylor a call at 443-3214 as soon as possible. April 1 is just around the corner. THE MARCH 11 LEAGUE MEETING will be an evening filled with enlightment, history and much humor. Do not miss this opportunity to hear the stories of Aylett Country Day School as presented in an Alumni panel discussion facilitated by our 8th grade class. We are so fortunate to have 8 -10 alums returning to share their recollections of the events and classes that helped to shape our school. As part of an 8th grade writing endeavor, our students have formulated questions that will cull out vivid ACDS experiences from our panel members. This presentation is about ACDS - its tradition, its history and its future. This program is for everyone. Please come and be a part of recognizing our history, Nancy Haynes Please mark March 11 on your calendar and join us for an evening of pure enjoyment. LEAGUE BUSINESS MEETING AGENDA – MARCH 11, 2010 AT 7:00 PM Welcome Old Business New Business Treasurer Report General announcements --- Bull on the Half Shell --- Pirates of the Peninsula Dinner & Auction Adjourn THANK YOU TO THE 10 FAMILIES who attended the Kindergarten Class Meeting on Tuesday, March 2. We received a lot of positive feedback and comments. Thank you again for taking the time to share your comments and input, Nancy Haynes CLASS MEETINGSThis spring we will be holding class meetings starting in March (listed below). Our purpose is to share with parents future programming ideas and direction, provide information, and get feedback regarding current policies and procedures. The meetings will be held at 6:30 pm in the classrooms, with the exception being middle school which will be held in the library. We encourage you to attend these meetings. Your input is extremely valuable to ACDS and helps us to better meet the needs of our students and prepare for the future. TONIGHT 1ST grade March 25 2nd grade April 8 3rd grade April 20 4th grade May 4 5th grade May 18 Middle School SPRING FORWARD! Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 14. Don’t forget to move your clocks forward an hour. BULL ON THE HALF SHELL TICKETSIt’s that time of year again! Time to start selling tickets for the Bull on the Half Shell fundraiser on Saturday, April 17. Ten tickets have been sent home today to each family with the newsletter. Please read the enclosed letter carefully for instructions. There is also a committee signup sheet in the envelope. Please fill this out and return it quickly to Ayron Pitts. If you have any questions or need more tickets, please contact DeAnn Compton, Ticket Chair, at 445-5501 or
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. MIDDLE SCHOOL FIELD TRIPThe middle school will travel to Richmond's newly renovated Carpenter Theatre on Thursday, March 11, to hear the Richmond Symphony perform. The concert is titled "Expedition: the Road to Rhythm" and features works from around the world which highlight the percussion section. The concert will be geared toward middle and high school students. Students will leave at about 10:00 and return to school at about 2:30, having had lunch after the show. Parents, please return the permission slips as soon as possible and remember to give your child lunch money. If you have any questions, please contact Kristi Reynolds. ATHLETIC NOTICES - ACDS ATHLETIC AWARDS EVENING and POT LUCK DINNER will be held on Monday, March 29 6:00 PM. in the Franklin Young Hundley Student Life Center. A dinner sign up sheet was sent home yesterday.
ACDS POSTER CONTEST on "Save the Rivers". Details will follow in backpack mail. Look for them. MATH-A-THON PLEDGES ARE NOW DUE! Booklets have been ordered and will be distributed when they arrive. Thank you for supporting this important cause. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Gresham. THE ACDS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION invites you to the PIRATES OF THE PENINSULA AUCTION on Saturday, May 15, at 5:00 PM to be held at historic “Wheatland” in Essex County. Proceeds go to ACDS special programs and scholarships. You don’t want to miss this exciting event! You must RSVP for this event. For more information, please contact Lucie McCarthy at
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. If you are unable to attend, but are willing to donate auction items or know of a possible donor, please contact Cammie Vaughan at
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. THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, especially the Alumni Board members, as well as several parents and other volunteers, are working diligently on the Pirates dinner/auction. This is extra money allocated to need-based financial aid, technology, school enhancement projects, and the Jake Copeland scholarship. In addition 15% of the proceeds will be donated to the League in appreciation for all the parents do for the school. Please support these former Aylett students in their efforts by thinking hard and thinking creatively about what you could do to add to the auction items: services that you can provide, sharing time at a vacation home, something unique and trendy that you could make, recreational items for river living, creative jewelry, restaurant packages, and one-of-a-kind finds. Monetary donations, no matter how small, add up and help underwrite big-ticket items. The bottom-line beneficiaries of all our collective efforts are the current students of ACDS. Thanks so much to those of you who have already donated auction items. Judy Allen, Alumni Director PLAYGROUND REMINDERParents please remember that when visiting school for “after hours” events, the playground located next to the kitchen is for our Early Childhood Department and the equipment is designed for children ages 3 to 5. Items on the playground are not rated for heavier weight capacities. Thank you for respecting our Early Childhood Department property. PK4 would love to have a 3 to 4 drawers, heavy gauge filing cabinet. We will happily take an ugly one that we can paint! Please contact Mrs. Eileen Smith if you have one to donate. STANDARD DRESS POLICY It is time to review and fine tune our standard dress policy for next year. The standard dress committee will meet in March. It is my hope an updated policy for the 2010-2011 school year will be sent to families after Easter break. By doing this early, it should allow parents the opportunity to shop around and take advantage of clothing sales. Please contact Kathy Hayden, our 1st grade teacher, at
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if you have ideas for the committee to consider. MUSIC IN THE SCHOOLS MONTH: March is "Music in the Schools" month. Visit the display case in the front lobby: it showcases some examples of how important music is to every child's education. Also, an article or two will appear in this newsletter to highlight some of the many, many benefits of music education. Please take some time this month to think about how music improves the well-being of your child--and of everyone! BYLAWS AMENDEDThe draft of the proposed amendments sent by backpack mail generated additional discussions and resulted in a meeting with representatives of the League and the ACDS Board of Directors. Suggestions from that meeting need to be reviewed. To allow time for that review and to address concerns raised about notice and distribution of the proposed amendments, there will NOT be a vote on the proposed amendments at the March League meeting. Instead, the plan is to send proposed amendments by mail to the address the school has on file for League members at least 30 days prior to the April meeting so that members may prepare comments in advance of the discussion and voting which we anticipate will take place at the April meeting. Please look for that mailing in early March. EARN A $500 CREDIT ON YOUR TUITION: You can help us fill our classrooms by recruiting new students. If a prospective family names you as their referring family upon their INITIAL contact with the school, follows through with the admissions process, and signs a contract to enroll their child or children in grades 1-8 at ACDS, the school will reward you with a $500 discount on your tuition. Please contact Dale Turpin in the Business Office if you have questions. FINANCIAL AID APPLICATIONS for the 2010 – 2011 school year are still available. If you would like to apply, please contact the school office for a form. ICE CREAM WILL BE SOLD ON FRIDAYS (1st through 8th grade) to help raise money for our students! All items are 75 cents. Please bring money in on Fridays to purchase these sweet treats. If you would like to prepay for your child to have ice cream, please make a check payable to ACDS Class of 2012. COOKBOOKS FOR SALEWe have 2 boxes of cookbooks from a few years ago that we are selling at a reduced price of $5.00. If you are interested in purchasing a cookbook, please send your payment through backpack mail marked “COOKBOOK” in the memo section and a cookbook will be sent to you. It’s quite a treasure of wonderful recipes! THE BENEFITS OF MUSIC EDUCATION, PART 2Benefit Two: Success in SchoolSuccess in society, of course, is predicated on success in school. Any music teacher or parent of a music student can call to mind anecdotes about effectiveness of music study in helping children become better students. Skills learned through the discipline of music, these stories commonly point out, transfer to study skills, communication skills, and cognitive skills useful in every part of the curriculum. Another common variety of story emphasizes the way that the discipline of music study; particularly through participation in ensembles; helps students learn to work effectively in the school environment without resorting to violent or inappropriate behavior. And there are a number of hard facts that we can report about the ways that music study is correlated with success in school:* "The term 'core academic subjects' means English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography." No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, Title IX, Part A, Sec. 9101 (11)* A study of 237 second grade children used piano keyboard training and newly designed math software to demonstrate improvement in math skills. The group scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children that used only the math software. Graziano, Amy, Matthew Peterson, and Gordon Shaw, "Enhanced learning of proportional math through music training and spatial-temporal training." Neurological Research 21 (March 1999).* In an analysis of U.S. Department of Education data on more than 25,000 secondary school students (NELS:88, National Education Longitudinal Survey), researchers found that students who report consistent high levels of involvement in instrumental music over the middle and high school years show "significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12." This observation holds regardless of students' socio-economic status, and differences in those who are involved with instrumental music vs. those who are not is more significant over time. Catterall, James S., Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga. "Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement and Intensive Involvement in Music and Theater Arts." Los Angeles, CA: The Imagination Project at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, 1999.* Students with coursework/experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT: students in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation. College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers. Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001.* According to statistics compiled by the National Data Resource Center, students who can be classified as "disruptive" (based on factors such as frequent skipping of classes, times in trouble, in-school suspensions, disciplinary reasons given, arrests, anddrop-outs) total 12.14 percent of the total school population. In contrast, only 8.08 percent of students involved in music classes meet the same criteria as "disruptive." Based on data from the NELS:88 (National Education Longitudinal Study), second follow-up, 1992.* Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 showed that music participants received more academic honors and awards than non-music students, and that the percentage of music participants receiving As, As/Bs, and Bs was higher than the percentage of non- participants receiving those grades. NELS: 88 First Follow-up, 1990, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington DC* Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66% of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. 44% of biochemistry majors were admitted. As reported in "The Case for Music in the Schools," Phi Delta Kappan, February 1994* A study of 811 high school students indicated that the proportion of minority students with a music teacher role-model was significantly larger than for any other discipline. 36% of these students identified music teachers as their role models, as opposed to 28% English teachers, 11% elementary teachers, 7% physical education/sports teachers, 1% principals. D.L. Hamann and L.M. Walker, "Music teachers as role models for African-American students," Journal of Research in Music Education, 41, 1993* Students who participated in arts programs in selected elementary and middle schools in New York City showed significant increases in self-esteem and thinking skills. National Arts Education Research Center, New York University, 1990 "Source: MENC;The National Association for Music Education "Benefits of Music Education" Brochure, Spring 2002". |
