Dear Families:

As Robert Frost commented, “Good fences make good neighbors;” and so it is with the fences surrounding the tree pits in Little Red Square. Born of the hard work of middle schoolers during advisory period, lower and middle school students, parents and faculty who attended “It’s My Park” Day, and a dedicated group of middle schoolers who helped to build and paint before and after their Family Conferences, these fences are truly the product of a communal effort. As the fences went  up, it was as if the community suddenly rediscovered the tress that had always been there. Neighbors and passers-by commented on the much appreciated care that students were taking of this shared community space.

While seemingly simple in their appearance, the fences tell a story of students and their advisors thinking about ways to take care of our urban garden, of thoughtful planning and preparation, of physical labor and of committed work. A number of Middle Schoolers completed some of this work in the Lower School woodshop, a place they had not been for several years. As one student commented, “the saws used to seem so big,” and as Peggy commented on her former students, “it was amazing to watch them work; they worked with such energy and a sense of purpose.”  These fences also embody a core LREI value originally stated by Elisabeth Irwin, which is “to encourage children to respect the dignity of manual labor by working with our hands as well as with our heads.” And as Agnes De Lima observes in The Little Red School House:

This labor has a value of its own. The children hammer, saw, file. They lift heavy weights; they pound into wood; they enjoy their bodies. When they put their bodies to a definite task, like planning and sawing, the medium of the tool forces them to coordinated, economical, and rhythmical movement which is excellent physical education and which the children unconsciously enjoy.

So these fences are an extension of the classroom and as such they connect the work of students, families and teachers to the broader world of lived experience. Take a moment to enjoy the fruits of this labor.

 

This Week’s Attachments
General:
Eighth Grade:
DC Trip Registration Form
Seventh Grade:
Fifth and Sixth Grade:

Of General Interest . . .
1) From Phil Kassen, Director: While I am always happy to have people drop in to see me, I am not always in my office. I will be available for drop in conversations, in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria, from 8:45AM-9:30AM on November 21st, December 5th, December 12th and December 17th.

2) From the LREI Family Handbook: Vacations: We remind families to only take vacations during LREI breaks and that your child’s time away from school does not begin before the school break does or end afterwards. Teachers use each scheduled day to support their classroom program goals and the School’s mission. Students who miss days adjacent to breaks, or who take vacations outside of our break times, miss work and can disrupt planned activities. This affects the learning of the absent students and her/his classmates. In addition, divisional or all-school assemblies often precede our longer vacations. These gatherings are essential for creating the sort of community that drew you to LREI. Students sing, listen to speakers, applaud their schoolmates, meet students in other divisions and generally strengthen community ties.

We will not honor families’ requests to receive work their children will miss due to family vacation plans. Families that are presented with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to make an extended visit to another city, country, etc. should speak to their child’s principal. In general, we are focused on making sure that we are using each moment of each school day as effectively as possible. Part of being able to do this is to have each student in school each of these days. Thank you for your support of these efforts.

3) Some important dates:

• Monday, December 1, 2008: Sibling and Alumni/ae Admissions to the Fours, Kindergarten and First Grade Early Notification forms are due. LREI offers the option of Early Notification to siblings of current LREI students, and to the children and grandchildren of LREI alumni. Should you wish to participate in this program, please download the Early Notification form from our web site and submit by Monday, December 1, 2008. Please note that all Early Notification application files must also be completed by this date.
• December 15, 2008: Tuition Remission deadline for applying for Tuition Remission.
• January 15, 2009: Re-enrollment contracts will be mailed to all families no later than this date.
• February 1, 2009: Re-enrollment contracts are due.

4) Some important service opportunities:

• Attention all knitters! This month’s Knitting for the Sanctuary Blanket Project will take place this Friday, November 21st from 12-3PM at The Point on Bedford Street. No experience necessary!
• The LREI Community Service Committee is hosting it’s annual Thanksgiving Art project at Hudson Guild this Sunday November 23rd from 11:00AM-1:00PM at HG Elliot Center at 441 West 26th Street (Between 9th and 10th Avenues). LREI children and parents will join seniors from the HG Community Center to make centerpieces for their Thanksgiving Feast. The Hudson Guild is located in Chelsea and provides services and programs for young and old which help community members achieve stability and self-sufficiency. Please RSVP to Denise Adler 917-455-8302. For more information, visit http://hudsonguild.org.
• $1.00 For Thanks –  Nov. 24th-26th. A $1.00 donation allows allows LREI to provide money to a local soup kitchen for turkeys for their Thanksgiving Dinner. Look for the collection jar in the Sixth Avenue and Charlton Street lobbies. For more information Contact Tatjana Kalinin – 917-371-6591.
• The One Kid, One Can drive for the St. John’s Pantry is underway. We are hoping for 100% participation. Please note that your child is more than welcome to bring in one can. Please check all expiration dates on your donations!

5) From The LS and MS Parents of Children of Color Committees (POCOCs) Book Club: Last Spring the LS and MS POCOCs launched a very successful book club for the children of color in the lower and middle schools. We are excited to announce that we are now ready follow up with our Winter Book Club session! We would like to invite all families with children of color in the lower school to participate fully and again help us make this a wonderful, successful event. We look forward to another fun evening of books, camaraderie, community building and of course, food! Please click here for more information.

6) Click here to view the LREI Fall Newsletter, which is focused on the theme “Learning By Doing.” As part of our ongoing sustainability efforts, the newsletter is only available in PDF format at this time.

7) As a follow up to our very successful Family Book Night event Beyond Batman: Graphic Novels for Kids and Teens. Click here for a review of the event and pictures and click here to view the 2008 Family Book Night booklist.

8) From the Red is Green Committee: This week The Red is Green Committee launched LREI’s monthly recycling drive. Each month you will have an opportunity to recycle items that are not easily recycled at home. November’s recycling drive is dedicated to plastic bags, which currently cannot be recycled with regular plastics. You can find a box for collecting these bags by the reception desk at the Sixth Avenue campus as well as in the Charlton Street building. Our first day we collected over 150 bags! The monthly recycling drive is a fun and easy way for our kids to get involved in taking better care of our planet so please keep an eye out for the monthly drive in the lobby. Next month’s recycling drive will be old sneakers! Stay tuned for future recycling drives. Our next meeting is Monday November 24th at 8:45AM in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria. If you would like to receive updates please email Liselotte at lhommen@hotmail.com or Kim at kbeck2@nyc.rr.com.

9) From the Big Auction Committee: Since the auction is two months earlier this year (on Thursday, March 5th), we need you to get your donation forms in earlier. We would like to have as many of the forms in by the Thanksgiving break as possible, which is just around the corner. Click here to download the donation form. The deadline for forms is Friday, December 12th. Our goal this year is to have each parent donate/solicit one item, and we’re attaching a form here for your convenience. If you would like to run your ideas by someone, please contact one of us (Jenn Esposito at jenn_espo@msn.com or Mamie at mamie.mcindoe@gmail.com) or Pippa Gerard at 212-477-5316 x236 or pgerard@lrei.org or Sandra Song at 212-477-5316 x275 or ssong@lrei.org. Thank you and we hope to hear from you soon!

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

11) 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 2008-2009 calendar. You can also access their website at http://www.parentsinaction.org/.

For all grades . . .
1) Click here to read a summary of the eighth grades recent visit to the National Book Award Teen Press Conference which took place this past Tuesday.

For Eighth and Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) Boys and girls practice and basketball schedules are online:

• Boys: http://lrei.org/athletics/ms_boysbasketball.php
• Girls: http://lrei.org/athletics/ms_girlsbasketball.php

For Eighth Grade Families . . .
1) For students on Math X, please read the new unit letter from Michelle Boehm.

2) While the trip to DC is not until the spring, please use the attached form to register your child for the trip. If you have questions about payment, please do not hesitate to contact me.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) Please read the new math unit letter from Michelle Boehm.

For Fifth and Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) A follow-up on the school’s policy regarding fifth and sixth graders after school: There are times when school staff who monitor the library and lab after school may need to step out. In most, if not all cases, our older middle school students who are in these spaces during these times are respectful of the norms for these public places. If during one of these times, older students are not adhering to the appropriate norms, it is fine to ask them respectfully to quiet down or to not fool around. If you feel that these requests are not being listened to, please ask the recpetionist to get me or if I am not available to note the students in question so that I can follow up with them at a later time.

2) Signups for the fifth and sixth grade intramural basketball program will take place towards the  end of December. Practices are one morning a week and games are on Friday afternoons. The full practice and game schedule will be posted on-line within the next few weeks.

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

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

============= For additional information, follow these links: =============

• View important middle school dates here.
• View all events with the LREI On-line Calendar
• LREI Athletics. For general LREI Athletics news go to this link . This page will provide general announcements, game summaries, league standings and season recaps.
• Click here to view the Middle School Photo Gallery.

A reminder that the individual homework blog and the “feeds” for every class can be accessed from the Digital Classroom link on the sidebar (you may want to bookmark this page for easy access). These feeds provide an easy “one-click” solution to find out what has been assigned for homework. Keep in mind that a feed will only show what has been posted as of the time you check it.

Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and other interesting school-related information.

Be well,
Mark