Of Gavels and Galleries

Dear Families:

Much to report on this week, but first a brief note from Director Phil Kassen:

On the class of 2007: We are so proud of our seniors. As they move towards graduation, just over a month away, it is time to step back and look at all that these wonderful people have accomplished during their time at LREI. Among these accomplishments is gaining admission to many fine colleges and universities. Follow the links below to see a list of this year’s college acceptances and a list of college acceptances for the 2004-2006 school years. Congratulations, seniors!!!!

On the Middle School front . . .

The Middle School Model Congress assembly took place this past Saturday, April 28th, at the Packer Collegiate Institute. Participating students met on a weekly basis with French teacher and Model Congress facilitator Sharyn Hahn to prepare for this year’s Model Congress event, which was attended by nearly 200 middle school students from 13 area schools. The event was a culmination of three quarter’s worth of work during which students researched issues and then developed their own bill based on an issue of interest. All participants presented and debated their bills in Committee at the event. When students arrived at the event, they broke off into one of 17 separate committees based upon the content of their bill. These committees were meant to resemble actual congressional committees and included Judiciary, Education, Health, Housing & Urban Affairs, and Science Space & Technology.

The year’s delegates submitted the following bills:

  • Seventh graders Ama and Lilly: Bill title: “An act to remove the Bovine Growth Hormone from milk distributed to schools and hospitals as well as to make this hormone-free product more affordable for the public sector.”
    This bill passed in committee unanimously with all 8 delegations supporting it.

  • Sixth graders Rachel and Rene: Bill title: “An act to require funding in order to provide the inclusion of fresh fruits and vegetables in elementary school lunches.”
    This bill passed in committee by a vote of 3 FOR, 2 AGAINST, 2 ABSTENTIONS

  • Sixth graders Kymbia and Diana: Bill title: “An act to enforce the inclusion of recess and PE regularly in elementary and secondary public schools.”
    This bill was amended by another delegation and was passed by a vote of 4 FOR, 3 AGAINST, 0 ABSTENTIONS.

After a morning committee session filled with heated debate and criticism, the bills that passed committee were reviewed in one of four full sessions. (House I, House II, Senate I, and Senate II). At the end of the day, the “Golden Gavel” was awarded to seventeen students (one from each committee) who were deemed to be the best prepared by their respective committee chairs (spoke often on other bills, presented his/her own bill in a professional manner, used parliamentary procedure often and correctly, conducted him/herself in a respectful and professional manner). Seventh grader Ama was awarded a Golden Gavel for Best Legislator in her committee. This is the second year that we have received a Golden Gavel.

Congratulations to all of our Model Congress participants!

In the fall, our eighth graders participated in Minimester. Minimester provides eighth graders an opportunity to learn alongside our high school students. They selected from a wide range of offerings (view the list here) and then spent three days in intensive study in their area of choice. The week concluded with a public share from all of the groups. In the same spirit, last week our seventh graders participated in the annual Arts Festival at the high school. The Arts Festival is a one-day event rich in arts experiences. I invite you to read High school principal Ruth Jurgensen’s blog from last week that includes a summary of this wonderful event.

Also on the subject of art, a reminder to those of you who have not already attended the Middle School Art Show, which runs through the end-of-day tomorrow. The show provides an opportunity for the community to enjoy a wide range of works produced by students in all four grades this year. In putting on this show, it is our hope that the viewer will not only have the opportunity to consider the works themselves, but will take advantage of the opportunity to speak with the artists who created the works. Through this dialog, we hope that you will be better able to appreciate the art as an embodiment of a particular and unique experience.

Finally and with much appreciation for your patience and understanding, complete copies of the third quarter reports will go out on Monday. The results of our February administration of the ERB will be Included with these reports. As it can be quite instructive, I encourage you to look at these two very different kinds of assessment side-by-side and to ask the following questions:

  • In what areas do the two reports seem to be telling a similar story?

  • Are there areas where they seem to be telling different stories?

We administer the ERB for a number of reasons: (1) it provides useful information that we can use to inform discussions and decisions about the Middle School curriculum, (2) it provides information that can be useful in better understanding the learning needs of individual students, and (3) it provides a context for us to teach students important standardized test taking skills. That said, it is important to remember that the ERB is not a test of absolute ability and the scores in a given year are not necessarily an indication of future levels of accomplishment. However, these results do provide a sense of children’s relative strengths and weaknesses, areas in which your child is solidly competent and those where greater effort is indicated.

 

I also think that it is important to say a word or two about the kind of work that our students are asked to do on a daily basis and how it is assessed. In addition to the more traditional forms of assessment, like tests and quizzes, as a progressive school, we are also committed to the use of meaningful authentic assessments. Authentic assessments ask students to read real texts and use real materials, to write for authentic purposes about meaningful topics, to confront meaningful problems that may have multiple solutions, and to participate in authentic tasks such as discussions, presentations, experiments, journal and letter writing, and regular revision of their work. Most importantly, authentic assessment values the thinking behind work, the process, as much as the finished product. As you review the progress report and ERB scores, I encourage you to ask your child about the kinds of authentic work that s/he has been doing. This conversation is as important as the information contained in the two reports you will be receiving.

This Week’s Attachments
(Click on the links below to open the attachments. If you are having trouble opening the links, go to http://www.lrei.org/weekly/ms/ to access the files.

General:

2007-2008 Calendar
Parents in Action Flyer
LGSA Cinco de Mayo Event
Eighth Grade:

Seventh Grade:
Sixth Grade:
Fifth Grade:

Of General Interest . . .

1) To all families who have children participating in the LREI extracurricular sports program: In order to make sure that you receive timely notifications about changes to the practice or game schedules, we have created an email list that we will be using to provide these updates. If you child participates on an LREI sports team, we ask that you go to http://lists.lrei.org/mailman/listinfo/lrei-sports where you will be able to subscribe to the list. The instructions are posted on this page. After you subscribe, you will receive a confirmation email and instructions for how to reply. This email will be followed by a welcome email that will give you additional information about the list. Please note that subscribers to the list will not be able to post to the list. The list is for information distribution from the school. If you need to respond to an update, please respond directly to Marcus (mchang@lrei.org) or Larry (lkaplan@lrei.org). These updates will also go to coaches who will include this revised information in subsequent emails to their team lists. When you receive an email from this list , the subject line will indicate the group for which it is intended (e.g., “[LREI-Sports] HS Baseball”). If your child is not a member of the indicated team, you can delete the email without reading it. We do not expect the volume of this list to be so high that this will be a problem. As we pilot this list, please send Marcus and Larry any feedback that you think would help us to refine this process.

2) From Middle School librarian Jennifer Hubert: The library will be converting to a new computer catalog towards the end of June. You may have noticed that the library catalog can no longer be accessed through your computers, or any computer in the school. This is because the software (Winnebago) we currently have is incompatible with the newer Macs. The new system (Follett) is far superior to the product we have now, and will enable parents, faculty, students and staff to view our holdings via the Internet and link directly to websites from subject headings. We are extremely excited about the conversion upgrade because it will provide the entire LREI community with much improved library services that will greatly enhance all aspects of the reading and research process. While we hope to make this transition as painless as possible for everyone involved, it will require some level of cooperation from the whole school community. Because of the upcoming conversion, it is more important than ever that all LREI library books be returned to both libraries by Friday, June 1st. Like past years, we will be closing to circulation on this day, which means that while we will continue to check materials in, we will no longer check any more materials out. Please look through your child’s bookshelves at home, through closets and under beds for any stray LREI library books. We will be sending home overdue slips as usual, and please let me know if there are any errors on your child’s slip. Thanks for your patience, and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this process.

3) You are invited to the LREI Lesbian Gay Straight Alliance Cinco de Mayo party, which will take place this Saturday. It will be a fun event for kids, especially those who want to help decorate our float for the Gay Pride parade. Please read the attached invitation for more information.

4) Glass Menagerie, LREI’s resident adult chorus, conducted by former LREI music teacher and current LREI parent Susan Glass, will perform its annual Spring Concert UPTOWN on
Friday May 11th, 8:00PM, at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew located at 86th Street and West End Avenue. For more information: www.glassmenagerie.org

5) Save the date: A reminder that the spring Book Sale wil take place on Thursday, May 24th. this is a great opportunity to buy titles from our summer reading lists.

6) The LREI Camping Trip is a decade-old, parent-organized tradition that will take place this year during the weekend of June 1-3. You can signup for the trip in the Sixth Avenue Lobby on Friday, May 4th, and Wednesday, May 16. Typically, 50 to 80 campers head to a beautiful site near the Delaware Water Gap for one or two nights of camping, hiking, fishing, swimming, and games. For more information, visit the LREI website and/or click here to view the event poster.

7) For updates on faculty performances, openings, presentations, and publications visit the Faculty in the News page on the school web site.

8) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA). NYC-PIA provides parenting education, information and a communications network to help parents prepare their children and teenagers to cope with social pressures and to make sound choices towards a future free of alcohol and drug abuse. Please read the attached flyer to view their 2006-2007 calendar. You can also access their on-line calendar of events at http://www.parentsinaction.org/.

For Eighth Grade Families . . . .
No updates this week.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .
No updates this week.

For Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) On Wednesday, May 23, the Sixth Grade will visit Carnegie Hall for a LinkUP! concert. The concert is scheduled for 10:15AM. From music teacher Henry Chapin: On Monday, April 30th music classes began preparing for a field trip to Carnegie Hall, to participate in a LinkUp! Concert. The concert will include music of Tchaikovsky (1812 Overture) Benjamin Britten (excerpts from “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”), Antonin Dvorak (Largo from Symphony #2, “From the New World”), and Giacomo Rossini (“William Tell” Overture). The class will also play their recorder on two pieces we are preparing, “Simple Song,” and “LinkUp! Concerto.” Carnegie Hall provides a workbook, with 2 CDs, for each student. I gave these out today, and assigned each student a chapter to study and to “teach” to the class on an assigned day. I will co-teach with each student. Your child’s workbook has a label on the front cover that lists what chapter they are to prepare, and what day they will present. If you or your child has any questions, or needs support to prepare, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thanks for your support.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .
No updates this week

Middle School Sports
Schedules, permission forms and general information about Middle School sports programs can be found at http://www.lrei.org/athletics/index.html. Information is also available through the LREI Sports Hotline at 212.477.5316 x 494.

Looking Ahead . . .
On the LREI web site additional information about upcoming events can be found at http://www.lrei.org/caleven/index.html (the Middle School events page can be found at http://www.lrei.org/midschool/Events.html)

  • Friday, May 11, 2007, 7:00PM — MS Musical
  • Saturday, May 12, 2007, 2:00PM and 7:00PM — MS Musical
  • Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 8:00AM — Eighth Grade to DC (return on Friday, May 18, 2006)
  • Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 8:15AM — MS Parent Rep. Mtg.
  • Thursday, May 17, 2007, 6:00PM — MS POCOC Mtg.
  • Friday, May 18, 2007 — Seventh Grade HS Visiting Day
  • Saturday, May 19, 2007, 7:00PM — Literary Magazine Coffeehouse
  • Sunday, May 20, 2007 – AIDS Walk New York
  • Monday, May 21, 2007, 6:00PM — MS Awards Night
  • Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 1:00PM — Middle School Chorus to Hudson Guild
  • Wednesday, May 23, 2007 — Sixth Grade to Carnegie Hall
  • Thursday, May 24, 2007 — Spring Book Sale
  • Thursday, May 24, 2007 — Spring Concert
  • Friday, May 25, 2007 — Field Day
  • Friday, May 25, 2007 — Memorial Day Weekend-School closes at 1:00PM (school reopens on Tuesday, May 29, 2006)
  • Tuesday, June 5, 2007, 8:00AM — Sixth Grade Potluck & Poetry Breakfast
  • Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 6:00PM — Fifth Grade Grecian Festival & Potluck
  • Thursday, June 7, 2007, 8:00AM — Seventh Grade Potluck Breakfast and Constitution Works
  • Friday, June 8, 2007 — High School Graduation (regular dismissal for MS)
  • Friday, June 8, 2007 — MS End of 4th Quarter
  • Friday, June 8, 2007, 6:00PM — Eighth Grade Pre-Moving Up Party
  • Monday, June 11, 2007, 6:00PM — MS Dance
  • Tuesday, June 12, 2007, 9:00AM — Eighth Grade Moving Up
  • Tuesday, June 12, 2007 — Last Day of School, School closes at 12:00PM for all Divisions

Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and interesting information – http://www.lrei.org/.

Be well,

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