The Eagle's Nest

Liberty

Common

Elementary

School

Common Knowledge, Common Virtues, Common Sense
A National Charter School of the Year, A Nationally Recognized Blue Ribbon School,
A Certified Official Core Knowledge Site School, A John Irwin School of Excellence ,
A Gilder Lehrman Affliate School

Volume 18 Issue 28

March 23, 2015

Important Dates

March 23|Jr. High Track Practice Begins

March 25|LCS Grandparents Luncheon at C.B.&Potts, 11:30

March 26|BOD Mtg., 6:00 p.m.

March 27|Liberty T-Shirt Day

March 27|Liberty's Spring Lecture, Daniel T. Willingham, 6:30-8:00 p.m., Liberty Common School
***Tickets Still Available (see more info. below)***

March 30-April 2|Spirit Week (See schedule below)

March 30|Liberty Common Information Night,
6:30 p.m.

April 3|No School-Good Friday

Don't Miss Out on Hearing Daniel T. Willingham Speak. Buy Your Tickets Now.

ATTENTION PARENTS: Tickets are still for sale for the Daniel T. Willingham Liberty Lecture, Friday, March 27th., from 6:30-8:00 p.m.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS or at the door for $30.00.

Recently on National Public Radio, Dr. Willingham participated in a Q and A. CLICK HERE and learn more about Raising Kids Who Want to Read.

Very Important Information: 2015 Liberty Common CMAS Testing Schedules

Liberty's participation in the State of Colorado's standardized testing begins soon.

Only 3rd-6th graders will be taking the tests. Attending school during these days is of utmost importance and we greatly appreciate your support. Please do not plan any vacations or medical/dental appointments on testing days. CLICK HERE to view the schedules. Be sure to scroll thru the entire document to know when your student will be testing. Thank you.

Grandparents Luncheon, Wednesday, March 25th

Spring is here and that means...... Time for the Liberty Common Spring Grandparents Luncheon, Wednesday, March 25th, at 11:30. Reserve your seat by emailing gpc@libertycommon.org by Friday, March 20th.

We're excited to be meeting again at C.B. & Potts (1441 East Horsetooth at Collindale Golf Course). We will have a new select menu and special prices. Choose from five different entrees and pay only $10, including tea or soft drinks. Please bring cash or a check for your meal(s). Our special guests will be 6th graders from LCS, and 8th graders and seniors from LCHS.

These exceptional young people will share their perspectives on their education and their plans for the future. If you need inspiration, this is where to get it. RSVP today, and mark your calendar.

Join In The Fun. Spirit Week :
March 30- April 2, 2015

Mustache Monday

Students may sport their best "mustache" (must be able to be removed by Tuesday Morning). Mustaches can be made out of paper, felt, etc. They can also be painted on with face paint or makeup. Mustache accessories (necklaces, earrings, scarves, ties etc.) are also welcome. Students should be in dress code clothing.

Tuesday- Theme Day (Class)

Students will be encouraged to join with their home room classmates in choosing a class theme for this day. Each classroom teacher will communicate to students and parents the theme of dress for this day. Look for more information in your child's classroom Monday Note after Spring Break!

Wednesday- Pajama Day

Students may wear pajamas to school. Slippers are acceptable, but students should bring alternative shoes for P.E. and recess. Students should not be in spaghetti straps or sleeveless shirts. Pajama pants should be full length or past the knee. NO pajama shorts.

Thursday- Super Hero Day

Students may wear any super-hero themed dress for this day. Students should not be in spaghetti straps or sleeveless shirts. Pants should be full length or to the knee. No weapons or depictions of violence, please. "We use our powers for good....not evil"J

*** Spirit week activities are optional but encouraged. Dress code on any of the above days is acceptable. ***

Volunteer Webpage

Check out Liberty's new and improved volunteer webpage. This is your all access page to the many ways you can get involved and volunteer at Liberty. The page will be kept up to date with immediate needs in the school as well as links to information about ways to get involved in...

- The Classroom

- At School

- Specials Help

- Fundraising and Special Events

- Extra Curricular Activities

CLICK HERE to access this great new addition to our website.

Summer Math and Reading Camps and Individualized Tutoring Coming to Liberty. Plan and Register Now

Research at Liberty Common School has shown that a whole summer without regular math and reading practice can cause a HUGE drop in reading levels and fluency and a drop in math testing and grades.

To combat this trend, Liberty Common School is offering summer Reading and Math Camps and individual tutoring of students entering grades 1st-6th. Space is limited, so register now!

Click Here for Reading Camp Information and Registration Form.
Click Here for Math Camp Information and Registration Form.
Click Here for Individualized Tutoring Information and Registration Form.

In This Issue

Important Dates

Don't Miss Out

Important CMAS Testing Schedules

Grandparents Luncheon

Spirit Week

Volunteer Webpage

Summer Enrichment Camps

Summer Math and Reading Camps

News from the Athletic Director, Dan Knab

Contact Us

Liberty Common School

1725 Sharp Point Drive

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Phone: 970-482-9800

Fax: 970-482-8007

Office Hours:
7:50 a.m.- 4:00 p.m.

In an effort to keep students safe during drop-off and pick-up times, please refrain from using cell phones. The front, middle and back drop-off and pick-up areas are designated NO CELL PHONE AREAS.

Please call our attendance line

by 8:30 a.m. if your child will not be attending school due to illness, appointment or is out of town. 482-9800, option 2, please call by 8:30 a.m.

If you need to take your child to an appointment during school hours, please come to the Front Office, sign them out and we will call them out of class.

All students who arrive after 8:00 a.m. must be signed in at the Front Office. It is important that a reason be included on the sign-in sheet.

If your student is ill and you want any/all homework, please contact the teacher by email as early as possible and homework will be available after 3:00 p.m. in the office.

Healthcare Reminder

If your student is sick with a fever of 100 degrees or higher or is throwing up or has diarrhea, he or she is NOT ALLOWED to attend school. Your child may return to school if they are not throwing up or fever-free (WITHOUT FEVER REDUCING MEDICINE) for 24 hours.

Essential oils growing in popularity

Currently essential oils fall in line with the all other topical medications and cannot be administered at school without a doctors release form and are to be stored in the health office. If you have questions please feel free to contact the health office @ ext. 3113.

Board of Directors

Sarvjit Gill 227-4202

Joel Goeltl 593-8556
Paulette Hansen 282-8455

Jeff Webb 545-9636

Bill Werst 631-8379

Denise Benz 420-4184

John Rohrbaugh 225-2259
You may contact all members of our Board of Directors at

BOD@libertycommon.org

Board of Directors Meeting

March 26, 2015
6:00 p.m.

Teacher's Lounge
Liberty Common School
1725 Sharp Point Dr.

Quiet Zone

Please remember that the front office is an office of business and the use of cell phones is prohibited. We also ask that conversations be kept to a minimum so that front office staff can provide quality customer service to students, staff members and other parents.
Thank you.

Job Openings at LCS

Dear Parents,

Liberty will begin hiring for upcoming 2015-2016 positions starting in April. We could use your help. Please spread the word to anyone you know that would be a good fit for Liberty. Here is a link to our website listing all available positions.

http://www.libertycommon.org/k-6-school/staff/job-openings/

Sincerely,

Liberty Administration

Clothes Closet Needs Boy's Pants

The Liberty Clothes Closet is in desperate need of boy's pants, all sizes. Please spring clean your student's closets and bring in gently used boy's pants. We will not be able to use pants that have holes, or stains.

7th Grade Summer English Program: Get on Track and Get Ahead.

Did your student struggle to manage the various, demanding language arts this year: grammar, vocabulary, writing, etc.? Are you worried that waiting until next school year to revisit these areas will only result in a deeper hole at the next level? Is your student going to be new at Liberty next year, and are you worried whether he/she will be ready for the cumulative nature of Liberty's English curriculum-especially the rigorous grammar training? Maybe you just want your child to refine and bolster his/her language skills, guided by close instruction and support. Regardless of the reason, this summer's four week English "booster" is the perfect, economical opportunity. The cost is much less than typical tutoring, the tutor-to-student ratio is small, and the instructor is

Mr. Dybzinski, head of Liberty's English department. Regardless of whether your student is ahead or behind, he will set your child up for more English success. Furthermore, he plans to have much fun in the process! CLICK HERE for the flyer.

Why Singapore Math?

By: Bob Schaffer, Principal LCHS

Years ago, when Liberty wanted to build a second-to-none math program,

the school's Board of Directors didn't ask which school, which school district, or which state teaches math the best. No; it pursued the best math program on the entire planet.

This quest acquainted Liberty with the research and conclusions of Liping Ma about why Chinese students consistently outperform American ones. Ultimately, this led us to Singapore Math.

Liberty Founder Dr. Randy Everett spoke about Liberty's attraction to Singapore Math at his recent Liberty Lecture entitled, "A Classical Framework for Teaching Thinking." CLICK HERE to see it on video - every Liberty parent should watch this lecture.

The conceptual strategies of Singapore Math align perfectly with Liberty's philosophy wherein we declare as school policy "it is not enough to assert something is true, instead teachers (and students) must be able to prove why something is true every step of the way, based on concepts the students already know and understand."

Singapore Math has given our students, in the earliest grades, the firmest advantages of a strong mathematics footing. The curricular strategy takes children through five process priorities which nicely track Liberty's "Thinking Framework:" Skills, processes (problem-solving strategies), metacognition (monitoring one's own thinking, assessment, and multiple approaches to problem solving, etc.), concepts, and attitudes (appreciation, confidence, perseverance).

At Liberty, repetition, memorization, math facts, homework and frequent assessment are embraced. We see great benefits in developing math automaticity.

We reject the common American public-school practice of "math discovery." Rather, we favor direct instruction.

Singapore Math is used at Liberty through the 7th grade. This sets a sturdy foundation for junior-high and high-school math.

Liberty differs from most junior-high and high schools in that we seek to maintain a conceptual and skill-based approach to Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II.

With the introduction of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards in 1989 and the proliferation of the new nationalized Common Core Standards, more and more American schools are taking an "integrated" and discovery-based approach that attempts to introduce concepts by prompting a student's natural curiosity.

The approach tends to deemphasize the rigor of assigning students homework on a nightly or even regular basis. While the integrated approach can be sound, the actual implementation in America has more often regrettably defeated its own purpose.

For example, math education in the U.S. tends to become suffused with various non-math objectives in an attempt to relate prevailing math-free dogma to math. As a more reliable approach, Liberty believes arming the student with algorithm-based math (which is indeed more difficult to learn) better prepares her and him for the college-level work they'll be expected to undertake after moving on from high school.

Stringing together a conceptual approach inherent with Singapore Math, plus skill-based

automaticity, plus mastery of the traditional algorithms gives our students a relevant and powerful advantage for college - and for living the good life. Moreover, we find this strategy actually equips the student with multiple approaches to solving problems.

It broadens one's reasoning capacity. We believe Liberty's policy makes sense - especially in the broader sequence of Core Knowledge followed by a focused college-preparatory high school - regardless of whether the student pursues a math-dependent major in college.

Mathematicians Alice Crary and W. Stephen Wilson lay out an excellent argument and justification for this philosophy in a Wall Street Journal article they jointly penned on the topic. Their findings are offered within the context of understanding how new nationalized Common-Core standards are warping public-school strategies for mathematical education, and suggesting what serious schools ought to do to maintain more prudent math objectives.

As parents committed to directing the education and upbringing of our children, we are naturally drawn to higher, research-based, internationally benchmarked goals for our math students. It is important for everyone associated with Liberty to understand and support the school's math policy, especially now as Colorado and most other states are swept by faddish experimentation.

Liberty Common was among the first schools in America to discover and import Singapore Math. We have played a leadership role in perfecting its implementation in the U.S., and empowering our students with a truly world-class and internationally benchmarked math strategy.

Singapore Math works for Liberty students. The results speak for themselves.

Latin: Don't Leave Home Without It

By: Tristan Van Maren, LCHS English Teacher

Why we have Latin at Liberty:

1. VOCABULARY: 8th grade Latin supports the 8th Grade English Word Within the Word program (our Vocabulary curriculum). The cross-curricular connections between English and Latin help provide a coherent and unified curriculum for Liberty's 8th graders.

2. GRAMMAR: A solid understanding of Latin Grammar does wonders when it comes to understanding English Grammar. Once a student has established the crucial (and regularly neglected) habit of mind to examine the form and context of words in order to discern their meaning, the riddle of English Grammar actually becomes solvable. This is not a habit of mind that fluency-oriented languages tend to cultivate. Spoken languages lead the mind towards automatic comprehension; dead languages lead the mind towards deliberate comprehension.

3. ANALYSIS: Particularly because of the deliberate approach to language Latin tends to cultivate, deeper studies of it in 8th grade prepare LCHS students very effectively for a High School English education at Liberty, especially when it comes to writing. In 9th grade an essay on a text like the Odyssey or Dante's Inferno requires the close, analytic look at language that Latin cultivates. The ability to read critically goes hand in hand with the ability to carefully parse and interpret language. This Latin provides.

Even considering the language on its own terms, the practice of Latin translation works differently from the interpretation of Spanish or French. When fluency is the goal (as it is in modern languages), interpretation aims towards communicating a similar sentiment or idea. Latin translation, disregarding fluency, teaches almost nothing but such linguistic structure: the student's attention remains sharply focused upon using literary context to accurately discern both the structures of the language itself and the English word choices appropriate to it.

In short, Latin translation teaches one to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of one's own native tongue. Because our brains need not focus on speaking a rudimentary form of Latin, our minds instead use Latin to learn to read, write, and speak a more intelligent form of English.

4. CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS: All English teachers want their students to be able to appreciate the beauty and power of great writing. In order to do so, however, students must be able to think critically. At its heart, "critical thinking" is not a matter of skill so much as it is the natural effort of a well-structured mind, the cultivation of which is, if not the primary goal, at least one of the primary goals of education. The tradition goes back to the medieval Trivium: to structure concepts, one learns logic; to structure language, one learns Latin.

While some might object that the English-speaking world has its own Grammar, any reasonable student will complain (and any reasonable instructor will admit) that English Grammar is an absurdly messy affair. It mixes traditions from both Romance and Germanic languages with sloppy disregard. While instruction in English Grammar will aid the student in interpreting complicated English sentences, such skills rarely translate into the ability to produce sentences of comparable intelligence and complexity. This is to say that English Grammar does not train the minds of its students to become well-ordered. It keeps them from common mistakes and so elevates their language, but it does not train them in structured, clear, sophisticated expression.

From an English perspective, Latin offers our 8th graders an opportunity to appreciate their native English language much more profoundly.

A second year of Latin will build up what Liberty's 8th graders learned in 7th grade. The initial conjugations and declensions don't really provide them with all that the Latin language has to offer: they need the deeper practice, the more nuanced translation skills that can only come from a more detailed study of the ablative absolute, the subjunctive mood, or the various workings of different clauses. Such an appreciation for structured language will help them greatly in their High School careers. Of course, I don't think that 8th graders without Latin are doomed to never think clearly. I simply and honestly believe that, wherever they choose to go to High School, 8th graders with two years of Latin training will have been prepared to think more clearly, to express themselves more deftly, and to read literature more deeply than their peers.

Liberty's Spring Gala Just Around the Corner

Liberty's Annual Spring Gala!

Friday, April 10^th from 6-11pm at the Embassy Suites in Loveland

Tickets are still available, but must be purchased by Wednesday, April 1.

Silent Auction--adventures, children's art, dinners, tickets and tours!

Dessert Auction-fabulous treats at fantastic prices!

Teacher Treasures-pizza parties, bike rides, art lessons, hikes!

Live Auction-dinner parties, Costa Rican travel, braces...the list goes on!

Too many great auction items to list here!

Check out the Liberty Spring Gala Website to see all the terrific items you could win!

There is something for everyone!

Look for this Dastardly Duo at the Paddle Call!

They are wanted for crimes against Liberty! Watch to see if Captain Security can defeat them as we raise funds for security systems for our schools!

Spring Gala questions? Please contact Qeryldine Hofinger: qerylieq@gmail.com

To Volunteer for the Gala Click HERE

News from the Athletic Director, Dan Knab

Jr.-High Track

The team's first practice is on March 23rd at 3:30pm starting in the gym and then moving on to the track.

CLICK HERE to download the Athletic Packet. Fill out and turn in with a copy of a Physical and a check for $80.00 The Athletic Packet and Physical needs to be turned in only once per year. After the Athletic Packet is turned in to Mrs. Ronen, in the Front Office, a Blue Card will be issued. The student will give the Blue Card to the respective coach on the first day of practice.