Dear ACS Families and Community,

At ACS, we try to follow the Douglas County School District calendar to make it easier on parents with children in other Douglas County schools. Many parents have expressed concern about the possible future school calendar with school starting August 6, 2008. The DCSD Board of Education will meet on September 18, 2007 at 5:30 in the Administration Building at 620 Wilcox St. During the Board meeting, the school start time will be decided upon. Please attend if you would like to voice your opinion and concerns.

DCSD also 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! If you have trouble with the below link, please cut and paste it into your internet address line!
http://www.dcsdk12.org/portal/page/portal/DCSD/District_Information/Calendars_and_Maps/Future_Calendars

“It is not so much what is poured into the student, but what is planted that really counts.” Author Unknown

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

Carpool 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!
• All carpool numbers must be visible on the right side of the front windshield throughout carpool. It may be taken down once all your passengers have entered the vehicle.
• If you are picking up your student in their classrooms, teachers will not be able to visit with you at this time as they are ensuring students are being attentive to their numbers being posted on the TV and/or are quiet and listening for their numbers. Feel free to schedule an appointment with the classroom teacher!

Dress Code Policy

• We are in the process of printing out new Dress Code Policy Violation Forms.
• Once we have these new forms printed, if a student receives 3 or more violations within a month, they will lose their dress down day privilege!

Important Dates

• Friday, September 7-Volunteer Training 9-10
• Monday, September 10-Governing Board Meeting 6-8
• Wednesday, September 12-SAC Meeting 6:30-7:30
• Friday, September 14-Movie Night at ACS 6-8

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.

Fun Facts

Six U.S. presidents had no children! But President John Tyler had 15 children!

Fun Websites

Word Builder
www.harcourtschool.com/menus/auto/18/49.html

Math Bingo
www.aplusmath.com/games/matho/AddMatho.html

Dear Families and Friends of ACS,

I hope you all enjoyed the three-day weekend with your families. I know it was nice to be with mine!

Next week on Friday, September 14th, we will be having a bullying assembly for all ACS students. Please see the calendar on the website for the specific times for grades K-2; 3-5 and 6-8. During this time we will be talking with students regarding what bullying is, what it is not, and what to do if it is happening to a student. We will be having these assemblies once per quarter.

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!

Last week I mentioned that the middle school teachers, Dean Brown and I met to discuss our detention policy as it applies to middle school. The teachers presented to us that they would prefer to have detention after school rather than at lunch time. Teachers will be rotating this duty in 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. Please remember, we will begin this new detention policy starting the week of September 10th. If you have any questions regarding this change, please feel free to contact me.

During our staff meeting yesterday, Dean Brown and I also spoke with the middle school team regarding Discipline Notices. Through our discussion with the team we have determined that some student behaviors require immediate attention. These behaviors would include but are not limited to-pushing or shoving, taking someone’s personal belongings, blatantly not following an adult’s directive, or throwing things from the upper floor to the lower floor of the building. In respect to these offenses as well as other serious issues, teachers will refer a student to the office with a discipline notice rather than utilize the regular classroom management of name on board, check-PSP, and second check-Discipline notice. We will be meeting with the middle school students on Friday to discuss these changes as they will become effective starting Monday, September 10th.

Reminders:

• Please be sure to check out the ACS website where you can find your student’s weekly homework assignments, upcoming projects and test dates. If your student is in elementary, click on the elementary tab and go to the corresponding grade level. If your student is in middle school, click on the middle school tab and go to the corresponding content area. Elementary teachers and core middle school teachers update this information each Monday by 4:00 p.m.
• For information regarding after school activities such as band and orchestra or sports, please see Mrs. Sowter’s and Mr. Ross’ schedules located under the “activities” page on the website. You will also find the current schedule for our fall ACS middle school sports- boys’ soccer, cross-country, and girls’ volleyball.
  

Thank you as always for your continuous support of ACS!

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

I hope everyone is planning to attend our volunteer training meeting tomorrow at 9:00! I am looking forward to seeing you there. Karen Palm, our reading specialist will be doing some training for those volunteers who would like to help students in reading groups. I will be talking to the classroom coordinators regarding their responsibilities and will be going over some general information regarding volunteering here at Academy Charter. Please plan to attend this important meeting.

We are still needing more volunteers to help with the preschool playground on Saturday, September 29th. We need 20 people—10 to work in the morning and 10 to work in the afternoon. Please let me know if you can help on this important project.

If you have not had your picture taken for your name badge, please let us know when you are in the school and we will take your picture so you can have your volunteer name badge. As I mentioned earlier, this system should be much more user friendly than the lanyard system we had last year. Your name badges are kept in holders on the volunteer table.

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

PTO Meeting

Attend the September 19th PTO meeting and enjoy a pizza dinner with your family and FREE babysitting for the meeting following dinner! In lieu of our restaurant nights this school year, we are providing dinner for our busy ACS families at each PTO General Meeting.

Dinner will start at 6:15 pm and run until 6:55 pm at which time you can drop your kiddos off downstairs for FREE babysitting by the 8th graders! The General Meeting will last approximately 1 hour. Little Caesar’s Pizza is the featured restaurant for this meeting. Please look in your Friday folder for your pre-order form so we know how much to order!

Please come support our school. Your input is needed at our PTO general meeting on September 19th (Remember each family is required to attend one meeting a year and it also counts towards volunteer time!).
Family special: Box of pizza with 4 drinks, $10
Slice of pizza and drink, $3
All proceeds go to ACS.

Special Messages

Sport and Skate on 5th and Jerry St. is selling ACS hoodies for $23 each ($7 will go to the school for each sold.) Help support ACS and show your spirit at the same time!

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 regarding 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

Social

A big thanks to the following who helped bring food in for our teacher breakfast:
Darla Brooks, Kelly Brown, Julia Connor, Shel Dammann, Susan DiBartolomeo, Kim Gentry, Adele Harbick, Carrie Herren, Mary Keller, Ayako Krum, Kendra Lane, Kathleen Montgomery, Kate Powell, Patty Sansom, Staci Searle, Niki Schauerhamer, Amy Tenn.
Our next breakfast will be September 28th. The students are off that day but the teachers still have to come in. To help, please contact:

Allyson Ford allyson4d@hotmail.com
Gina Ordunez rchincha88@aol.com

Fundraising

The PTO has decided, based upon last school year’s survey results, to move more to a direct-donation style of fundraising as opposed to the traditional sales-based fundraising methods of the past. The PTO is focusing on two very worthy endeavors for this school year. The PTO seeks to fund a new Math Curriculum for the school as well as new FM headsets. The anticipated total costs for these two acquisitions will be in the neighborhood of $85,000! The PTO cannot fund these items without your financial support. Direct Donations have started coming in! Thank you to those of you that have already participated! This is an ongoing process so it is never too late to send it in! Just print out the form that was e-mailed to you recently and hand it in to the front office! If you have trouble printing or have lost the form, there are hard copies available at the front office! An update will be coming soon! If you need assistance, please contact BEssegian@aol.com to find out how you can submit your donation.

Save the Date! Family Movie Night will be here on September 14th and the vote is in! Students voted for Shrek 3 by a HUGE margin! Unfortunately, due to an unforseen licensing snag at the movie studio, we are unable to get Shrek 3 until our Spring movie night! Instead we will be featuring Shrek 2! So bring your friends and families, lawn chairs and blankets for a night under the stars.
The festivities will begin 6:30 p.m. with an inflatable obstacle course, giant slide and a special "youngin's only bounce house! Come hungry because there will be MANY delectable treats available for purchase. Admission to the movie is free so please bring your friends and neighbors!
A very SPECIAL thank you to the GUNS FAMILY for donating the inflatable's and the movie equipment for Family Movie Night!

Entertainment Book news! Please remember that Entertainment Books WILL NOT be sent home this year. If you love the discounts you get, please stop by the front office to pick your copy! They are $25.00 per book! For those of you that pre-ordered, your books are in. Please stop by the front office between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to pick them up!
To order online go to www.entertainment.com/support and enter account number 229026.
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO ACS!
See you at the movies!

Your Fundraising VP's,
Brandi Essegian & Elizabeth Zarada