Dear Family and Friends of ACS,

The Academy Charter School staff would like to thank our PTO and all the wonderful parent volunteers who brought us lunch during Parent/Teacher conferences. It was fantastic and we really appreciate it!

I can’t believe Spring Break is already here! I hope you all have a safe and fun time with your family over our break. Thanks for all you do for ACS!

Kids Safe 911 is offering a Free Child Safety Seminar on Saturday, March 25. This seminar will focus on teaching your children valuable safety skills. Please see our front office for more information.

The week of April 3 -7 is Educational Assistant Week! This year our theme is ‘The Ladies Club’. Please give our wonderful assistants a ‘thank-you’ as you drive through carpool or when you come into the building for all they do for our kids!

Our Eighth Grade Graduation Committee has already started planning this special event and we are actually in the process of raising funds to buy the essential items for graduation, like graduation presents, refreshments, decorations, etc…We are usually able to accomplish a lot on our little budget; however, we still do need to raise some money. This is hard to do because we don’t want to compete with our PTO or the parents who are raising funds for the Eighth Grade Washington trip, so I have approved a Dress Down Day fundraiser. We did this last year and it was very successful for the Graduation Committee, but also fun for our students and it didn’t feel like a competition with our other fundraisers. The way this works is that all staff and students get to dress down in appropriate Dress Down Day attire on Thursday, April 27; now our regular April Dress Down Day is on Thursday, April 13, but on the extra Dress Down Day are asking for a $2.00 donation. Now, all staff and students can dress down, of course, with no penalty whether they donate or not, but if you or your student(s) would like to donate the $2.00 that will go directly toward the Eighth Grade Graduation, we would appreciate it! Please mark this day on your calendar and send your student with their donation. Thank you for your support!

A Look Ahead:

• Friday, March 24- Dress Down Day
• Friday, March 24- Elementary Virtue Assembly, 8:50, Cafeteria
• Friday, March 24- MS Virtue Assembly, 2:50, Cafeteria
• Friday, March 24- MS and Specials Newsletter goes home
• Friday, March 24- MS Movie Night!
• Monday, March 27-March 31- Spring Break- School Closed
• Week of April 3-7- Educational Assistants Appreciation Week!

Have a wonderful Spring Break!

Kindra Whitmyre-Nelson
Dean of Academy Charter School
email: nelsonk@academycharter.org
web: http://www.academycharter.org/deannelson

Dear ACS Families and Friends,

I’d like to begin by thanking everyone for bringing their very best to CSAP testing these past two weeks. Parents, thank you for making sure your students were here on time, well rested, and had a nutritious breakfast each morning of CSAP! Students, thank you for giving your very best when taking these tests the past two weeks. To our dedicated ACS teachers and staff, thank you for making sure we had the very best testing environment for our students and for encouraging them to do their very best! I’d also like to thank all the families who donated snacks for our ACS students. We appreciate your assistance with this and I know our students enjoyed your generosity very much!

Don’t forget, our next Middle School “Movie Night" will be held this Friday, March 24th, from 4:00-8:00 in the gym. The movies that will be shown are: The Corpse Bride-PG and Star Wars Episode III-PG13. Details regarding movie night will be listed under the “Movie Night” banner later in the newsletter.

Parents and Students in grades 3-5: Please mark your calendars as Mrs. Runyan will be hosting a Talent Show for grades 3-5 on Thursday, April 27th, from 5:30-7:30 in the ACS gym. A sign-up sheet for auditions will be posted outside Mrs. Runyan’s room when we return from spring break. These auditions will be held the week of April 13th in Mrs. Runyan's classroom after carpool.

Parents of 8th Graders: We need your help! Mr. Hall is preparing the 8th grade graduation video and he needs some “baby” pictures of each of our 8th grade students. These pictures can be anywhere from infant to 3-4 years of age! Please send the pictures in a marked, sealed envelope and turn them into the office. We want to be sure ALL of our 8th graders are included, so please send those photos in! Your pictures will be returned once the video is completed! Thank you to those who have already sent your photos in and we’re anxiously awaiting to see the rest of our 8th grade graduates!

The Middle School Student Council is preparing for an upcoming fundraising campaign which will help support the battle against Leukemia and Lymphoma. Each ACS classroom will be having a special container where students will be collecting their loose ‘”change.” The class with the most money collected will be honored with a special luncheon sponsored by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. More information regarding this will be included in your student’s Friday folder or MS Friday Packet as well as under the “Student Council” banner later in the newsletter.

Please mark your calendars as our last testing day for the school year will be held on Friday, April 28th.

• Elementary Parents: The elementary teachers will be having sign up sheets outside their classrooms the week after we return from spring break, so be sure to stop by and reserve your testing spot.
• Middle School parents: Middle School testing will be similar to the testing at the beginning of this year. Some of our students will be individually tested, while others will be tested in a group. Please call our office to schedule a time for your student to come in for testing. The office will let you know if your student will be tested individually or in a group, the times available and how long the testing will take.

I hope you all have a safe and relaxing Spring Break!

Kendra Peters
Assistant Dean of Academy Charter School
email: petersk@academycharter.org

Happy Spring!! I hope you are looking forward to some lovely spring weather, especially when we will be out of school next week.

I would like to thank all the parents and the classroom coordinators for supplying snacks for our CSAP testing. This is a really large assignment, but when everyone pitches in, it is so much easier. I am pleased to report that all classes had great snacks through the last two weeks of CSAP testing. Thanks again, to all who helped donate snack items for our students.

Also, I want to thank all the fine cooks who contributed to our staff lunches last week during parent-teacher conferences—it was wonderful! We have collected a lot of dishes and serving ware that I am sure you will be missing. Please look for all these items on a table in the lobby area and see if you are missing something. Thanks again, for contributing to a great lunch for all of us. Don’t forget to log your volunteer time for the food preparation you did.

We are still looking for a parent to help Leo Lech with the girls’ soccer team. Leo is a great coach and knows the game; you wouldn’t have to have a great knowledge of the game in order to assist him. Please contact Lisa Arnell or me if you would like to help out.

8th grade graduation is just around the corner and we need volunteers to help with the decorations for graduation night, May 25th. If you would like to help, please contact Angela McCombs at abovetherock@msn.com or let me know here at the school.

Diane Bodiford does a tremendous job of keeping our Lost and Found clothing items under control. She takes the unclaimed clothing to her home, launders it, looks for student names and tries to get the clothing back to the owners. Anything left over after this process is passed on to a charity. Thanks, Diane, for faithfully keeping our “Lost and Found” manageable.

Congratulations to all the volunteers who helped with the classroom baskets that were auctioned off this past week. You all did a great job making up these inviting baskets and bidding on them!

Let’s all take a week away from school to refresh and get ready to finish out the school year. Enjoy your break and thanks again for “Making a Difference” at ACS!

Anne Belfrage
Volunteer Coordinator
belfragea@academycharter.org

GOOD NEWS ABOUT AN ACS GRADUATE:

Recently, the parent of a former ACS student sent an unsolicited letter to Dean Nelson. Reprinted below, with both mother and son’s permission, is that letter.

Dear Ms. Nelson:

I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know about my son, John White. As you may recall, John attended Academy Charter School for two years and this year started at Rock Canyon High School. Academy Charter did a great job at preparing him for the challenges that high school often presents to our children.

Recently, John was given the Valedictorian Award from Rock Canyon, meaning that he has pulled a 4.0 GPA for three of his four quarters in High School.

I am sure I don’t need to tell you how very proud and excited I am about this honor. I wanted to take the time to share this with you.

I hope you are doing well. Have a great day and keep up the great job. You are making a difference as well as all of your administrators, teachers, aides and all of the staff at ACS. Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Elizabeth White

GOVERNING BOARD MEMBERS NEEDED FOR 2006-2007 SCHOOL YEAR

We need you! Don’t miss your opportunity to make a difference at ACS as a member of the school’s Governing Board. There are two open positions for three year terms and applications can be obtained from GB president Kirk Huffstater, or office manager, Anne Belfrage. Completed applications are due by April 12 and may be turned in at the front office. Voting for new members will take place from April 18 through April 21, and terms will begin on July 1, 2006.

THANK YOU PARENTS!!!!

A gigantic-sized “thanks” to the parents who contributed toward the classroom auction baskets. Thanks to your generous and exciting contributions, you made this event very successful. Thank you to the coordinators who put it all together into wonderful and eye-catching presentations.

To the parents who bid and won the baskets, you raised approximately $4,700 for your school………YEAH!!!!!! If any winners were not at the PTO Meeting on Tuesday, you will be notified, if you haven’t already, to claim your basket. Julie Harkin will be calling you soon!!!

Thanks to the volunteers who “manned” the baskets during the 4-day event:

• Robin Grue
• Rachel Benson
• Kristi Cal
• Kristen Williams
• Sherry Hill
• Julia Connor
• Janis Dirks
• Julie Benzel
• Victoria Arnett
• Cori Ruth
• Amy Santoro
• Jennifer Greenwald
• Barry Haneke

A sincere thank you to Katherine Titus who got the baskets underway back in January, by working with the coordinators and teachers. Thank you to Julie Harkin who took on the role of Basket Coordinator and brought the event to fruition. Julie, you did an amazing job coordinating and displaying all the baskets, and organizing all the volunteers. Thank you for making this event such a success!

Of course, none of this could have happened without the help and support of the office staff. Thank you for living with baskets in your way for a few weeks and putting up with all the extra foot-traffic because of the auction. Thank you to Anne Belfrage who helped us organize the tables and worked with us on setting up. A big thank you to Anne and Robert Fortelka for helping the PTO advertise this event, in the form of ACS newsletters and email broadcasts.

It was a great group effort that turned into a very successful event for ACS!

THANK YOU!
ACS/PTO

Just a reminder, please check the lost and found! We will be gathering all items left at Spring Break and donating it to a charity. The Lost and Found is located in the school cafeteria.

• March 24th- 4-8 p.m. Middle School Movie night showing Corpse Bride and Star Wars Episode III
• April 10th- April 28th- Pennies for Patients- ACS fundraiser to support The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s effort to find cures for blood cancers. We will be raising funds in honor of local, school-aged patients who are battling these diseases. Students should bring in spare change they have collected to their classrooms. A special lunch will be provided for the winning classroom (that raises over $350), as well as weekly contests and prizes. Look for more information on the drive in upcoming Friday Folders!
• April 21st- Middle School Fundraiser Dance for 8th Grade Graduation- Back to the Eighties theme
• May 19th- Middle School End of the Year Formal Dance