January 8, 2011

Ways to Support Encinal School 

• Participate in MPAEF Foundation 500 drive click here

Report Your Absent or Tardy Student click here 

Welcome back to school, Encinal Eagles! Happy 2012!

Dennis Hatfield, Director of Maintenance and Operations for the Menlo Park City School District, and Lieutenant Joe Wade of the Atherton Police Department met recently to discuss how the City of Atherton and Encinal School can team up to provide additional safety support structures during our high traffic times at Encinal, specifically morning drop off and afternoon dismissal.  Beginning the week of January 9th, the Atherton Police Department will assign a traffic officer to Encinal School two mornings and two afternoons per week to help support our ongoing commitment to traffic safety around Encinal during the drop off and pick up hours.  We are hopeful this presence will help maintain proper safety practices of drivers, bikers and pedestrians utilizing the roads adjacent to campus. 

Along with our collaboration with the Town of Atherton, Encinal School and the Menlo Park City School District are eager to continue to review and improve traffic safety for Encinal as well as all sites. Superintendent Ghysels, Ahmad Sheikholeslami, Dennis Hatfield and I have formed a traffic safety committee and a team of us will be meeting with the City of Menlo Park this week to discuss opportunities for continued improvement. Stay tuned for more information surrounding this.

What Can We Do?

The Encinal Community continuously impresses me with our commitment to traffic safety. Great examples of this commitment include our well developed carpool system designed by the PTO, bike and traffic safety education for students including the Safe Moves Assembly and Fall Bike Rodeo, monthly raffles for students who walk, bike, bus or carpool to school, and the implementation of professional crossing guards before and after school. Great strides have been made, and as we continue to work to improve safety, please strongly consider the following requests to help assist with traffic reduction: 

• As the weather begins to change and walking and biking are not always options, consider setting up carpools with families in your neighborhood. Currently, we have an average of 270 cars pulling up to Encinal each morning and each afternoon for a total of 540 car trips. 
• Please drop off/pick up your child(ren) in the designated drop off/pick up zone located in front of the school. Drop off and pick up outside this zone is not deemed safe for students and can cause traffic congestion and possible accidents. For example, dropping off students on Middlefield Road both north and south of the school in the morning is not safe due to the amount of school and morning rush time traffic.
• Consider having your child(ren) ride the SamTrans or District school buses to and from school. Information for both of these programs can be found on our District website. Go to http://district.mpcsd.org and scroll down to Encinal School and then go to School Information on the left hand menu. The information will be under Transportation. There are currently spaces available on the K-2 and K-3 District routes as well as the Sam Trans routes.

As we continue to work to improve safety for our school community, we all must do our part. Thank you for making the safety of our students a priority.

Reunión informativa acerca del programa de inmersión

jueves 19 de enero, 8:30-9:30 am 

Salón multiusos - Escuela Laurel

Aprenderemos acerca de:

• La historia del programa de inmersión al español en Menlo Park
• Posibilidades de agrupamiento para estudiantes de 4˚ y 5˚ grados
• Oportunidades de lenguaje en la escuela intermedia
• Evaluaciones y exámenes

Para más información favor de llamar a Tami Girsky al  tgirsky@mpcsd.org o al teléfono 321-7140 extensión 5601

The Menlo Park-Atherton Education Foundation is thrilled to announce a great opportunity for donors to double their money in support of our schools. To inspire new donors and increased donations, a group of generous families are funding the Foundation 500 Challenge, a $250,000 matching grant. 

Donate now through January 31, and the Foundation 500 Challenge Grant will match dollar for dollar: 

• Donations from new donors 
• Increased donations over last school year

Let's work together and meet the challenge to keep our schools strong. With your donation and the dollar for dollar matching grant, we can raise an additional $500,000 for our children's education. Are you IN?  

It's not too late to support our schools. Please donate today. Click here. For families who have already contributed, thank you! 

Questions? Please contact Lynne Van Tilburg, MPAEF Executive Director, at lynnev@mpaef.org.  

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This year, Encinal's Cultural Arts Day will explore some of the rich and diverse cultures of the region of East Africa. What can we learn about the people, crafts, dance music and food of the maintains and savannas surrounding Africa's Lake Victoria?  

There are lots of ways for parents to help the PTO make this a wonderful experience:  

• Have some East African artifacts we can borrow for the day?
• Want to help on event day 1/30/2012?
• Want to help get everything ready?

Click here for more details on how you can get involved. 

• Have some East African artifacts we can borrow for the day?  
• Want to pick out some Kenyan coffee for staff and volunteers?  
• Or figure out where to get plantains?  
• Or help our children dancers on event day?  
• Or eat a roasted grasshopper in front of Encinal students?  

Click here to volunteer.