THE WEEK AHEAD: 

Volleyball @ Elwood, 4:00 pm 

Varsity Football @ KSD, 5 pm 

Seabury Outdoor Luau Dance, 8-10 pm

Dear Parents, 

The first full week of classes is always tough on the body, and students and teachers are looking forward to a few days off for good behavior.  I want to thank everyone for coming out to the Picnic and parent meetings on Sunday.  I hope that you had a good time.  I also hope you found Curriculum Night to be enlightening.  Throughout the year, teachers don’t have a lot of time to meet with parents, but we enjoy what face-to-face time we have. 

Today, Steve Kellogg will be sending out the formal instructions for parents to get onto RenWeb.  Each parent will have a secure portal for viewing individual student information.  We will gradually add features to this administrative system.  For now, I have asked teachers to provide at least daily attendance and homework.  Some may also have lesson plans, web links, and more elaborate information.  You will also find community service information.  I will update you in the future as we include additional on-line services. 

Many thanks to Debby Smith for taking over our grocery card system.  As I noted at the picnic, we do not condemn students endlessly to hawk candy, wrapping paper, and other items that you really don’t need to be buying.  Instead, we try to restrict fundraising to occasional opportunities that give desired services to parents (or monthly dress down days for students).  The grocery cards are popular because parents do not pay anything but what they would normally invest monthly in groceries.  Lawrence grocery stores simply kick back funds to the school since we are encouraging shopping with these monthly cards.  Please consider taking advantage of this service.  You can contact Deb at butrfly7@hughes.net. 

Please save the date for this year’s Auction: February 28th!  More details will follow. 

If anyone has a microwave that needs a home, please let me know.  I would like to provide one for students who bring lunch from home. 

Finally, I had the good fortune to visit Washington D.C. in June to observe one of my prior students receive the Presidential Scholar’s Award, an honor given to 100 students in the country.  I had been to D.C. before, but I had never been quite ready to receive it.  But now, in the year of a presidential election—and with a distinct awareness of very promising young people on my mind—I took in memorials, monuments, museums, and capital buildings with purpose and surprisingly heightened emotion.  I had our students on my mind constantly (often, I imagined conversations with them about various sites and experiences).  I bring up this trip for a reason.

 

As I walked the length of the Capital Mall, I encountered many groups of students, and I must admit that I had to suspend annoyance with most of them.  At the Korean Memorial, there was a gaggle of teenage girls chatting on cell phones or to each other about fairly superficial concerns (hairspray, shoes, i-pods, and “things” in general).  Of course, I could not blame the students for failing to appreciate what was before them (indeed, I might have responded similarly at that age).  However, I did regret that there was not an adult in sight with these groups.  No parents.  No teachers.  I wished that someone was at least giving them guidance, but I also recognized that these adolescents might appreciate the experience later in life, as I did. 

On the last day, I stood in line to receive tickets to tour the Capital, and let me tell you—you need to show up early for those tickets.  I waited for about an hour, and I had the good fortune to be standing in front of a family with a young boy (probably 8-10 years old) who was a walking encyclopedia of presidential information.  This boy happily quizzed his parents and sisters the whole time about presidential trivia, and all of the time he was enraptured with the information, the imagery, the explanation.  I had a little teacher behind me.  Just before I got to the ticket stand, I turned and informed the father that his boy had made the wait not only acceptable but downright enjoyable.  This was an Australian family who had been in the States for several years, and the boy had been attending an independent school.  Clearly, here was a boy who had the benefit of teachers and family helping him to know that learning is a good thing and intelligence should be a source of pride.  The incident gave me hope. 

I hope that we can help your students maintain their sense of curiosity and love of learning—to fuel their work with enthusiasm.  It is a pleasure to do so, and I appreciate your trust in us. 

Yours respectfully,

Dr. Schawang