Orange Vests

A new fashion trend has found its way to the GAIS campus.  Teachers on yard duty are now wearing orange vests.  This has nothing to do with the famous San Francisco fog, but rather to help students easily identify the teachers on yard duty.  The supervision of students during recess is an important task and in the event of an accident it is critical to immediately identify who can help.     

News from the Head of School

After many months of work the WASC Accreditation Self Study Report, entitled Focus on Learning, was submitted to team leader, Dr Barbara Nemko, this week.  The self study looks at the school's profile, reviews progress since the last accreditation, describes the GAIS mission and expected learner results and outcomes, and gives committee findings in the categories of:

Organization for Student Learning

Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment
Support for Student Personal and Academic Growth
Resource Management and Development
 

The last section of the report deals with the action plan for the upcoming years.  Many thanks to all of the staff, parents and Board members that help in the putting together of this report. The report is available for all parents to read on our website when you sign in.  Click on the button for Accreditation and you will see the download. The next step will be a team visit on March 28-30 by Dr. Nemko and her team.  We look forward to showing her what a fantastic school we have.

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The school will be closed during Winter Break from February 21 to 25. We do offer Hort from February 22 to 25. We have sent out the sign-up forms for Hort. The deadline to reserve a spot is February 11. We do not offer Hort on President's Day, February 21.

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Our thanks to all the parents who got in their enrollment forms for next year and as such will be granted a 5% discount on the tuition.  This does not mean that you cannot enroll in the future, and indeed we hope that parents will continue to enroll their children.  The re-enrollment numbers for next year are very good with a total of 238 students getting in their forms.  This is compared to 224 at the same time last year.  Our open enrollment will start on Monday and we have a sizable list of applicants for all levels.  In particular, we have applicants for our new International Middle School Program and anticipate that this section of the school will grow from 30 to 40 plus. Please remember that we are offering a referral fee this year of $1500 for each new Middle School student.   

We are pleased to welcome Judith Schroeder to the GAIS Staff. Judith started this week replacing Nancy Urbach lwho left us at the end of January for personal reasons. She will work as the assistant teacher with Carol Ferrieri in the Puma five day group and also for a few hours in the Hort program each day. Judith is a trained Preschool teacher from Eisenach, Thuringia. She has worked both in Germany in Preschools and in the USA as an Au-pair.
 

Vorschule Visit Local Artist's Studio 

The Vorschule children visited a Menlo Park artist Tim Christensen, a former teacher from New Zealand. He offered to show our students his paintings and paint a large acrylic painting with the participation of all children. The children showed great interest in Tim's work and they admired the big and colorful paintings. They were also very impressed with the outcome of their own class painting. Please check out Tim's website: www.kiwipainter.com
 

Please note that there will be no Board Meeting this evening. The next Open Session of the Board is scheduled for March.