Family Notes: March 20, 2015

A sense of community is important to establish harmony and a sense of peace in our society. Establishing a healthy atmosphere of association, togetherness and cooperation comes from working together toward common goals.

We share our work on many levels and this division of work leads to our dependency on other people, doing their part, working in different roles. In every walk of our lives, we have to depend on others and we must be dependable too.

The very idea of community comes into being because people like to cooperate with each other. The sense of cooperation begins at home, enlarges during our school years and continues to grow as we become citizens of the larger community.

In a community people live by associating with one another. The feeling of association is a common human feeling. This sense of togetherness is built not only through family bonds, school and work associations but often from preparing or jointly sharing in any festival or social ritual together.

This helps in establishing peace, harmony and joy within a community.

Have a joyful weekend.

Warmly,

Diana Lam

Spring Fling! 2015 is Just Around the Corner!

Dear families,

Today is the first day of spring and the countdown to SpringFling! 2015 is on!

The intention of the event is to open the hearts minds of our community and inspire outstanding citizenship.

Parents gathered this fall and unanimously endorsed having a spring fling event that included all 400 students. This Herculean effort has surprised professionals in the performing arts community and they are impressed by our outstanding parent body.

Jenny Rosario has been knocking it out of the park using sales and customer service skills by calling and visiting folks.She has collected over $1,200 in sponsors for the event.

Jenny is sharing the valuable mission of the school for her own children and other Boston youth. This is not easy for jenny but she wants to gain new skills and she wants to be a role model for other parents and her children.

We don't know of another school that asks it's families to become more.

Classroom baskets have launched and we are striving for 15 amazing raffle baskets for each show.

What can you do this weekend:

1. Get a donation for the classroom baskets. (we can theme a basket around anything !! ) grade 5 is doing "gift cards- the gift that keeps on giving ". Get a gift card donated or purchase one. $5 minimum

2. Buy your tickets and encourage your family and friends to buy tickets too. Tickets are available online at bit.ly/springfling_2015 and also at school starting march 25, 2015 . See Ms. Martin in dorchester or Mr. Rodriguez in Brighton.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

- African proverb

Together we can be the ones to create the most powerful SpringFling! 2015 that will serve as an inspiration for years to come !

Happy spring !

Jenny Rosario and Beth Greene

Spring Fling! 2015 Fact Sheet

Where & When

This is our 5^th year and for the first time we are hosting the event in John Hancock Hall at the Back Bay Events Center on Berkeley Street. It is a beautiful venue with great acoustics. The El Sistema music staff has created a program of celebration and inspiration. To ensure a spectacular performance, we will have two shows:

April 11, 2015

11 am

grades K1-3

2:30 pm

grades 4-8.

Why

This event is a fundraiser.

Tickets

We sell tickets for the event and the proceeds from the event go back to the school to supplement school programming. We are hoping to PRE-SELL all tickets for both the 11:00 and 2:30 performance.

Tickets can be purchased online: bit.ly/springfling_2015

There will also be tickets available at the front desk of each school beginning on Tuesday, March 24. The contact people are Alexei Rodriguez at 320 Washington Street and Catherine Martin at 2120 Dorchester Avenue. These can be purchase using cash or checks ONLY.

Adult tickets are $15 for one concert, $20 for both. Children's tickets are $3 for one concert, $5 for both.

This is the only weekend performance for many of these students, so this is a chance for relatives and friends who don't often get to see the students perform.

For Whom

All family, friends, and community members are invited to attend!

Postcards and a letter for the event were sent home last week with each child so that this information about the event can shared with people in their community and can help drive ticket sales.

Logistics for Performers:

Every student in the school has been asked to perform at this event.

1. Look for the participation slip coming home:

a. please read and make note of what time your student musician is expected to arrive at the hall ahead of time for rehearsal. Note that the times may change slightly but we will give plenty of notice.

b. Sign and tear off the bottom half to return to the classroom teacher next week.

2. We expect students to eat either before or after their time in the hall. K1 - grade 3 students can eat lunch after the performance is over at 12:15 and grades 4 - 8 should eat before they arrive to rehearse.

We know it's complicated for families with more than one musician - different concert times, different rehearsal times etc. but we hope it is a super fun day for all. Hopefully the weather will be good and families can hang out in Copley Square while they wait.

Finally, this is a reminder that many people want to contribute and support the school but don't feel like they can make a significant donation. This day is a great way everyone can support the school. Together, we can make a big impact!

We appreciate you being part of this community and we look forward to sharing this special event with us.

Please contact Beth Greene or Jenny Rosario with any questions.

Beth.greene@comcast.net - Jennyrosario@comcast.net

Darnell Williams Visits Conservatory Lab

This Thursday, our school in Dorchester had the pleasure of hosting Darnell Williams for a site visit. Mr. Williams is president and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, which is based in Dudley Square, where we plan to build our new school building! The Conservatory Lab community has been reaching out to Mr. Williams personally, in an effort to introduce our school and forge a partnership with our future neighbors. We were delighted when Mr. Williams reached out to us in kind, and came to visit our school.

As part of his visit, Mr. Williams observed Ms. Tyndall's 3rd grade classroom as they played a lively game of "Scoot Your Toot." In teams of two, the students went around to different stations in the classroom and solved the word problems at each station. The students were timed, and had to beat the clock to complete their math problems, which focused on fractions. Even Mr. Williams was stumped at some of the problems, but very impressed with the 3rd graders, who worked hard to solve them.

Big thanks to Mr. Williams and the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts! We look forward to working with you.

Visitors from Indiana are Wildly Impressed

Thursday and today, leaders from Elkhart, IN. Community Schools and educators from their Roosevelt STEAM Academy visited each of our school campuses. They hoped to gain a strong sense of how our music program functions within the school day, and apply the practices that they observe at our school to their own music program, which is now in it's second year in the Elkhart school.

By all accounts, these welcome educators gained a very strong sense of how our music program is integrated into the curriculum at Conservatory Lab. They were very pleased with the music practices they observed, and are excited to implement what they learned from our school in their own programs back home.

The Scholastic Book Fair Wants You!

Dear Conservatory Lab Families,

The Scholastic Book Fair, one of the biggest fundraisers for the Parent Advisory Council (PAC), is coming up soon, and we need your help!

The Brighton campus fair will run Monday, April 6, through Friday, April 10, at the 320 Washington Street building. The fair is open all day, and we need volunteers to staff the fair, helping students to choose books and ringing up sales. It's a fun way to volunteer at the school and get to know other members of the school community!

Join us for a shift at one of the following times each day the fair is open:

8:00am - 10:30am
11:00 a.m. - 1:30pm
2:00pm - 4:30pm

If you can only volunteer for part of a shift, that's fine-any help is tremendously appreciated.

We also need assistance with:

1. On Saturday, April 4 at 9:00 a.m. book fair set-up assistance

2. On Friday April 10 at 4:30pm. breaking down the displays and packing everything up for return to Scholastic.

To volunteer to help with the book fair, please follow the 3 easy steps below to sign up using VolunteerSpot (the leading online signup and reminder tool).

1. Click this link to go to our invitation page on VolunteerSpot or copy it in to your browser: http://vols.pt/by6KzZ

2. Enter your email address: (You will NOT need to register an account on VolunteerSpot.)

3. Sign up! Choose your time slot(s) - VolunteerSpot will then send you an automated confirmation and reminders as the date of your time slot approaches. (Note: VolunteerSpot does not share your email address with anyone)

If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me at feliceandspence@yahoo.com and I can sign you up for a shift at the book fair manually.

The Dorchester campus fair starts Monday April 13 through Friday April 17. We will need assistance all days including Sunday April 12 for set-up and closing the fair Friday April 17 at 4:30pm.

To sign up for a shift at the Dorchester fair, follow the same instructions as above but the link is: http://vols.pt/KLcVui

Many thanks in advance for any volunteer time you can offer for this very important PAC fundraiser! Your participation makes all the difference in the success of this event. We are lucky to have such a fantastic parent community!

I look forward to seeing you at the fair!

Best,
Felice Rutstein-Lee
PAC Fundraising Chair
Mom of Oliver, 4th grade

From the Top and Music for Food Present: A Benefit Concert for the Worcester County Food Bank

From the Top teams up with Music for Food, a musician-led initiative to fight hunger, for a concert to benefit the Worcester County Food Bank, one of the region's leading anti-hunger organizations. Enjoy beautiful music performed by From the Top's Boston-based alumni who are working to create positive change!

Wednesday, April 15

7:00 PM

New England Conservatory's Williams Hall

Boston, MA

Suggested donation at the door: $10

Learn more here

Take Note:

It has been confirmed that we will have school on March 17, June 17, and no school on April 3. School will be in session through at least June 26. Depending on weather and make-up days, the last day of school could be as late as Tuesday, June 30.

Our first day of school next year will be August 24th. There will be family orientations beforehand and all families will be informed of those dates.

Thank you to all who have written letters of support for our building plans in Roxbury. Many more letters are requested. Please give us your signed letters of support ASAP, and we'll mail them for you!