Dear ACS Families and Community,

We have had a fun week of learning at ACS! Testing was completed last Friday. Teachers are using that data to align their teaching practices with your children’s learning needs. This school year, we will focus on data driven instruction. One way we want to incorporate parent involvement with academics will be through the School Advisory Committee (SAC). Please join the SAC on September 12 in the cafeteria from 6:30-7:30 to learn more about ACS.

Volunteers are vital to the success of ACS. We will have Volunteer Training on Friday, September 7, at 9:00 a.m. If you are interested in working with students, please join us. We will train parents at this time on educational practices for small reading group learning and explain our policies and procedures for parent volunteers. Hope to see you there!

Also this week, we had our first Fire Drill. All students got out of the school and onto our field in two minutes and thirty seconds. Great job! We will continue to practice this drill and improve our time. We want to ensure the safety of our students!

At ACS, we try to follow the Douglas County School District calendar to make it easier for parents with children in other Douglas County schools. Many parents have expressed concerns with the possible future school calendar starting August 6, 2008. DCSD has on their website a link to a survey. I have copied the link to the district’s website below. Please take a few minutes to review the future calendar and fill out the survey. Your input can make a difference!
http://www.dcsdk12.org/portal/page/portal/DCSD/District_Information/Calendars_and_Maps/Future_Calendars

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.” Plutarch

Sincerely,
Yvette Brown
Academy Charter School Dean
browny@academycharter.org

Policy Reminders

• Afternoon carpool will not be changed until the parking lot expansion is complete.
• Please remember to refrain from talking on your cell phone as you pick up or drop off your children at school!
• We will continue with Lockdown and Emergency Drills throughout the school year.

Important Dates

• Friday, August 31- Dress Down Day
• Monday, September 3- Labor Day- School Closed!
• Friday, September 7-Volunteer Training 9-10

Miscellaneous Items

Castle Rock Fire and Rescue Department
Annual Fire and Safety Poster Contest
Draw a picture with a fire safety message!
Students in Castle Rock schools in 3rd through 5th grade are eligible. Entry must be submitted on a white 8 ½” by 11” paper. Do not submit on lined paper. Use plenty of colors and be creative. Print your name, school, and grade on the back of your drawing. Entries are due to your teacher no later than Friday, September 14, 2007.

The winner of the contest will have their poster made into a decal that will be displayed on the sides of CR fire trucks! If you have questions, contact Officer Paul Russell at 303-660-1066 X 114.

Dear Families and Friends of ACS,

Can you believe that August is almost over? These past 3 weeks of school have just flown by. I’d like to provide some information regarding our grading guidelines here at ACS since we have quite a few new families to ACS this year.

To begin, students in K-2 receive grades in the form of a minus (-) = below grade level, check ( ) = at grade level or plus + = above grade level. If you have a student in these grades, you should have received these grading guidelines from your classroom teacher.

For students in grades 3-8 we use the following grading scale which is listed below for your reference:

A+ 99.5, 100, 100+
A 98-92
A- 91-90
B+ 89
B 88-82
B- 81-80
C+ 79
C 78-72
C- 71-70
D+ 69
D 68-62
D- 61-60
F 59 and below

Our middle school teachers and specials’ teachers who teach grades 6-8, will be using Infinite Campus for inputting student grades this year. We are very excited to be using this web-based program and our goal is have the “Parent Portal” open by 2nd quarter. What this means is that parents will be given a password and logon ID to access the portal. After logging in, you will have the ability to check your middle school student’s grades for all of their classes via the internet. For those families who do not have internet access, we will, of course, continue to provide hard copies of student’s progress reports during our regular progress report period. We will be providing more information as 2nd quarter gets closer!

The middle school teachers, Dean Brown and I met to discuss our detention policy as it applies to middle school. The teachers would prefer to have detention after school rather than at lunch time. Teachers will be rotating this duty within the middle school team. Detentions will be held on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 4:10-4:40. Dean Brown and I will be assigning the dates for detention to the middle school students and the teachers will be monitoring the detentions. We will begin this new detention policy starting the week of September 10th. If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to contact Dean Peters.

Reminders:

• Every Friday, students in grades K-5 will receive a physical folder which contains your student’s papers. Middle School students will receive a “packet” of their papers which will be distributed during homeroom at the end of the day. Please note that information from PTO, etc., which used to come home in “paper” form, will now be included in our weekly newsletter as a way of reducing our copying costs. If you do not have email, you will continue to receive a “hard” copy of these items!
• Mrs. Sowter and Mr. Ross will begin after school band and orchestra for students in grades 4-5 on Tuesday, September 4th. Music Rental night is this Thursday from 6:30-8:30 in the Cafeteria.
• 8th Grade Middle School Boys- If you are planning on attending DC High School next year and are interested in playing Baseball there was an informational meeting this past Monday. If you need more information, please stop by the office as extra packets were left by Coach Fellers.

I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing Labor Day weekend and I thank you for your support of Academy Charter School, its staff and our students!

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

I would like to thank the folks who helped us out with Registration this year: Jill Cramm, Lisa Douglas, Ron and Lettie Lee and Colleen Page. We also had PTO representatives, Kassie Smith, Elizabeth Zarada, Bonnie Buckley and Governing Board members, Ellen Eakin and Cynthia Heikes helped out during registration. Thanks to these kind volunteers and many of our ACS staff members, we accomplished this gigantic task!

We now have our volunteer name badges for you to wear when you come in to volunteer. If you were unable to come in and have your picture taken by our school photographer, we will be glad to take your picture anytime you are in the school and we will get a name badge made for you. I believe our new clip name badge system will be much easier to manage than the lanyard mess we have had in the past.

I am still looking for folks who can help set up the preschool playground on Saturday, September 29th. We need 20 people—10 people to work in the morning and 10 to work in the afternoon. Please let me know if you can work on this important project!

There will be a volunteer training for classroom coordinators and others who volunteer here at the school on a regular basis on Friday, September 7th, at 9:00. We will meet in the school Cafeteria for a quick meeting. Please put this important date on your calendar.

I hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend to enjoy family and friends. Thanks again for volunteering at ACS! Remember, ONE person makes a difference.

Anne Belfrage
belfragea@academycharter.org
Volunteer Coordinator

Schedule Items

September 19 – PTO Executive Mtg. 6-7PM; 7-8PM General Mtg. – ACS Cafeteria

Special Messages

We wish to welcome everyone, new and returning, to Academy Charter School for the 2007-08 school year. The PTO is very excited about its role in providing a valuable service to the parents, teachers, and students this year.
We encourage your involvement and participation in meetings and activities.
Please refer to the weekly PTO Corner as part of the ACS weekly newsletter and the PTO Newsletter, which will be provided on a monthly basis.

Enrichment

PTO Enrichment is responsible for providing supplementary, enriching cultural experiences. This year we are hoping to provide a variety of programs. These programs include, Mad Science, Abrakadoodle, Tae Kwon Do, and golf! Stay tuned for more, later in the year! Please pay close attention to the monthly PTO newsletter. This is how we will be communicating to you parents of coming events and the need for volunteers, if necessary. If you have any suggestions or special talents that you would like to share with the students please feel free to let us know! Thank you for all of your support!

Emily Ragan: ceragan1@msn.com
Julie Harkin: toddpaco@aol.com

Restaurant Nights

The PTO has decided to discontinue Restaurant Nights for the time being. In the past, this has seen a decline in interest.