7:00pm, West Cliff Room

Join Percy and other Gateway parents to discuss Brain Rules by New York Times best-selling author Dr. John Medina. Dr. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist, who will be coming to Santa Cruz on March 3rd for a Gateway School-sponsored "Brain Rules" presentation at Cabrillo College.  For more information on his book, visit www.brainrules.net.

On behalf of the GPA I would like to thank Family Science Night Chair Chris Woldemar for putting together a terrific program for our students last week.  A big THANK YOU as well to all of our Project Leaders and support personnel for lending us their inspiration, talents, effort, and resources towards presenting an outstanding array of interesting, thoughtful, and just plain fun experiences for all to enjoy.  Congratulations to all of our Science Fair participants for putting in the hard work and time needed to explore their curiosity of the world around us using scientific principles and methods and good luck to those moving on to the County Science Fair competition.  Gateway's Family Science Night is a long-standing tradition that keeps getting better every year!

Sincerely, 

George Delli-Santi, GPA President

40 Acts of Kindness Updates

7th Grade Pet Supply Drive:  The 7th grade advisory group's "Hearts of Gold" Pet Supplies Drive is running from Valentines Day to St. Patrick's Day. 7th grade advisory members will be placing decorated supply boxes in each classroom on Thursday morning, 2/17, and will give a brief rundown of what they are looking to gather during the drive. They really want to encourage students to bring in gently used items if possible, so that families do not need to go out shopping.  Examples of items that could be donated are gently used blankets, pet toys, pet carriers, etc. New (unopened) food is accepted also. And, checks will be accepted, if that is a preferred way to help out.

Valentine's cards for seniors were made by 2^nd graders, including some made in Spanish with Ana, and taken by 2^nd grader Noéand his Mom Gabriela to Meals on Wheels for distribution to home bound seniors last Friday. When they delivered them some seniors were actually at the Center having a meal so Noé got to give some of them in person!

Cookies for Community: As a way to show appreciation to our local community, the first grade classes delivered cookies to local business people.  Deliveries went to City Hall, the Fire Department, Library, Post Office, and Police Station as well as downtown businesses such as Cruzio, New Leaf, Toadal Fitness, and Santa Cruz Optometrics. Thank you first graders!

Human Race Walk-a-thon: Gateway will have a team in the Human Race in May. If any parents and/or students are interested in participating, please contact Virginia Ganley at virginiag@cruzio.com. 

Auction News

Online Auction 3/19-3/27

Auction Gala 4/2

If you have or know of a business that might like to receive promotion in our auction program as well as our online auction website, we have several business sponsorship opportunities:  Business Friend  ($100), and Business Patron ($200).  Please contact kristin.smith@gatewaysc.org for more information. 

Wouldn't it be great if Gateway were the one of the first schools to become a Certified Green School in the Monterey Bay Area?  Come to the next EAP meeting to hear from Gateway parent Jo Flemming who works with the Green Business Program.  She will share what we might need to do to become certified and become a beacon of environmental stewardship in our community.  We'll need parent and teacher involvement to make this happen, so come and get involved if you're interested!

A  session of after-school  classes will begin soon! We have a new Clay class, in addition to a second session of  Lego Movie Maker, Lego Robotics and Ukulele.

For specific information and to register for classes select the  after school class flier  on the website.

Financial Aid for the 2011-2012 School Year  
If you would like to apply for aid for the 2011-2012 school year, please click on this link for the complete packet of forms and instructions.  In order to apply, you must file a Parents' Financial Statement (PFS) with School and Student Service for Financial Aid (SSS) and you must submit a copy of your complete 2010 tax return to SSS.  In order to be considered in the first round of financial aid awards, parents needed to file their PFS by February 1^st and to submit their 2010 tax return copy to SSS no later than February 25^th.  After the first round of awards, Gateway will continue to award financial aid on a rolling basis to families who complete their applications after these deadlines, until our financial aid budget is exhausted.  We recommend that parents file the PFS online, rather than filing the paper form, and that they upload their tax returns to SSS, rather than mailing them, if they want their request for aid to be processed by Gateway School as soon as possible. Please contact Rima in the Business Office at x 308 if you have any questions.