I hope you are having a wonderful summer. We are working hard preparing for your return and the excitement is building as we look ahead to standing strong in partnership with your family in 2011-12. We look forward to welcoming our students and parents on campus at our Meet Your Teacher/Back to School Cookout on Friday, August 19. Join us from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. to meet your teacher(s) and for dinner under the Angel Wing from 5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

I am writing to provide you with a few updates.

Welcome, Susan Chisari

On July 5, Susan Chisari began serving in her role as Interim TCS Principal.  Susan's desire to serve in this capacity is a blessing to our school and will help ensure that we begin the school year building on last year's momentum.  Susan and I have been working closely together and we had a great planning meeting with several of our teachers this week. Susan will be working with our teachers over the next few weeks as we prepare for the start of the school year.

Welcome, Bill Herlong

Bill Herlong also began on July 5 in his new role of Director of Business Operations. Three of Bill's initial areas of focus involve managing the RenWeb School Management System (SMS) conversion project, becoming familiar with leading the office support staff team and familiarizing himself with our school's financial management processes. We have patiently waited several years to staff this critical role and I am so grateful for God's provision of Bill. 

RenWeb School Management System

We will begin the new school year with a new and improved school management system: RenWeb.  We heard clearly in our parent survey that there is a desire for improvement with our use of school to home communication systems. This important feedback, combined with our knowledge that we needed a more integrated system for grades, parent communications and business systems, led us to accelerate the selection and implementation of a new system for 2011-12. This is a substantial upgrade for TCS and we are confident you will find it easy to use and full of good information.

There will be a gap of time when the school will be without a SMS simply due to the expiration of our contract with Edline.  This change over is quite involved and requires large amounts of data to be uploaded and converted, including having personnel trained.  Edline will go offline on July 31, 2011.  During this down-time, please feel free to call the office to obtain any information you would normally seek on Edline. 

View a demonstration video and learn more about RenWeb.

2011-12 Technology Plan

Please join me in thanking Gayle Bosscher, Jeff Hague, Rich Magee and Teenie Reddeck for their work in developing a plan that casts a vision for our continued growth in the use of technology.

I am pleased to share that we have begun implementing the first priorities of the plan including:

• Substantially increasing the school's internet bandwidth to accommodate our growing use of the internet in our classrooms.       This will make things much smoother and faster when the internet is accessed for videos and other applications.
• Providing SMART Boards and projectors in our new 1^st grade and music classrooms.
• Replacing 19 of our oldest desktop classroom computers to provide for more efficient use of software applications and the SMART Board technology.
• Beginning a pilot program for the use of iPad2 individual user technology in our classrooms.
• Providing teachers and students with support through the development of an Instructional Technology Teacher position. Robin Mast has been selected for this position and will collaborate with our grade level teachers to support the use of instructional technology and lesson planning and will also provide technology instruction, in conjunction with our classroom teachers, to our Lower School students.

I will share more details of the plan at Open House in August and we will continue supporting the implementation of this plan throughout the school year.

Part-Time Vacancies  

All of our full-time positions have been filled for 2011-12 however, we still have a few part-time vacancies. You can learn more about these positions by visiting the careers page of our website. Please pass this information along to anyone who may be interested.

• Library and Media Center Coordinator (25 hours per week)
• Extended Care Coordinator (20 hours per week)
• Extended Care Teacher (5-15 hours per week)
• Extended Care Assistant (5-15 hours per week)
• First Floor Afternoon Receptionist (24 hours per week)

New School Year, New School Hours

As we shared in May, we are implementing an enhancement to our academic program that includes extending our school day. The new times for the 2011-12 school year are as follow:  

7:50 am   

Doors open to Allen/Yowell Halls

Morning Carpool Begins

Office Opens

8:10 am

Morning Carpool Ends

School Day Begins

3:15 pm

Lower School Carpool Begins

3:35 pm

Middle School Carpool Begins

3:50 pm   

Carpool Ends

4:00 pm

Teachers Depart for Day

4:15 pm

Office Closes

Here are a few additional announcements: