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Corporate and Foundation Sponsors
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 It's been a long winter, but Spring is finally here! On March 20th our food service decorated the cafeteria and celebrated the first day of spring with a 'picnic' of fried chicken, corn on the cob and ice-cream! Thanks to the members of our Student Food & Nutrition Committee for a great lunch menu idea! Thanks to Maria Banol and her after-school artists for the sun, the flowers and checkered picnic cloths at the tables. It was a glimpse of spring we all needed.
With the better weather comes a spate of community service projects getting our students out into the world and making a difference in our communities. We didn't quite plan it this way, but article after article this month highlights students and staff members giving of themselves to help others--raising money and awareness for school and for charity.
Read on to see the great things our students are doing! |
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Community Service
|  7th-10th Grade Advisories have been engaging in community service activities this spring. Below you will hear about two of those advisories, and next month we will find out what the rest have been doing. 
For their Community Service Project, Ali and Pat took Ali's 11th grade Girls' Advisory to volunteer at the Holy Apostles Soup kitchen in Chelsea. Holy Apostles serves 1,000 free lunches a day and their food is organic. Holy Apostles also provides counseling, referrals, and distributes clothing and toiletries. The Renaissance girls bussed tables, gave out toiletries, and served food. On Saturday, April 4th, Erin's 9th grade advisory group was out to do community service in Flushing Meadows/Corona Park. They cleaned up the park and met with Matt Symons, the Deputy Administrator of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The students had a great opportunity to speak with him and ask some questions about the park and his work there. 
Our school-aide Marlen pitched in and helped as well! We are proud of our community minded students! |
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Raising Money Through Fitness
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Christina's 4th grade class hosted Family Yoga Night on Thursday, April 3rd. The yoga classes started off with a staff class at 4:00 PM and continued with three more classes, one for each cluster.
Carla Ricciardone, a friend of Christina's and owner of Om Lala Yoga, donated her time. The kids also sold water and snacks before & after the classes. Through these efforts they raised a total of $741.00, $300 will go to the Angel Fund for the 4th grade class trip to Nature's Classroom, $331 will be for class activities and $110 will go to Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is an advocacy organization that sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach.
Check out more of the yoga action, including a video, at Christina's website at www.christinabhoward.org
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Teachers Get "Pied" to Help Raise Funds!
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 Only at Renaissance! On Thursday, April 10th, Danielle and her advisory led a fundraiser to support the National Down Syndrome Society. The teachers who braved getting hit with a whipped cream pie were Raymond, Victor, Vincent, Ram, Daniel, Emily, Megan and Ana. Check out the before and after photos:  B E F O R E  A F T E R They raised $250 for the National Down Syndrome Society. Thanks to everyone who participated, especially those who braved the pies!
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New City Council Speaker Visits Renaissance
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 Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito visited Renaissance on Friday April 4th, joined by our district Council Member Danny Dromm, (shown above with Middle School Student Government President Andres Aguirre.) They visited classrooms, catching a few minutes of final presentations from the Global Humanities projects, hearing from our third graders about their knowledge of New York's city and state leaders, and enjoying some samples from our school lunch program! (They especially liked the sandwich wrap created by 5th grader Blake Tunstull.) Ms. Mark-Viverito had compliments for the student artwork and projects displayed around the school and left with a very positive opinion of our students, teachers and school leaders.  Councilman Dromm is the chair of the city council Education Committee this year, and, as a former teacher, has always been supportive of Renaissance and our humanistic program. Councilman Dromm has supported our neighborhood teen discussion group, TREA with council discretionary funding, and calls Renaissance "a model school, not just a model charter school" for its emphasis on collaboration and distributed leadership. We welcome visitors from our legislative representatives, and hope we can continue the positive dialogue about how best to support our public school students! |
Renaissance & YAI: A Successful Partnership
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This school year, Renaissance has had a great partnership with YAI. YAI is a network of agencies offering people with intellectual and developmental disabilities a comprehensive range of services across the lifespan. Their mission is to help others achieve the fullest life possible by creating new opportunities for living, loving and working. Our YAI interns help to prepare our lunches and snacks, cutting and pre-packaging food. We had a YAI graduate Patricia McGee as an intern for 2 months working with Mohammad and Miguel in the kitchen learning valuable kitchen skills. We recently received good news that Patty got a job, and we are so happy for her. This is a great example of how Renaissance helps not just our students, but our community. Congratulations to Patty!
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Emblem Health & Fitness Classes a Big Success
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The Tuesday evening and Saturday morning fitness classes sponsored by Emblem Health's Live Healthy campaign have been very popular since starting up at Renaissance on the 18th of March. Tuesday is exercise with Kiki and Saturday is yoga with Mimi for Me Yoga. There are also nutritional & cooking classes offered at Queens Community House on 37th Street and occasional Zumba classes here on some Thursday evenings.
Each class has had 40-50 community members participating, including some of our staff, parents and students. Join in by signing up at www.EmblemHealthLiveHealthy.com .
Classes are free, just bring a yoga mat!
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HS Drama Club Performs Vanya, Sonia, Masha & Spike
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Under the direction of Curtis Anderson, the High School Drama Club presented a production of this Tony Award winning play for three performances from April 8th-10th.
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From left-standing: Tabassum Alam, Alexandria Marston, Sam Baez, Marissa Bobbin. Seated - Humza Mahmoud and Davin Garcia.
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What's On Your Mind? - College Access for Immigrant and First Generation American Students
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The goal for America's educational system is clear: Every student should graduate from high school ready for college or a career. All too often, these opportunities are not available to students most in need. We invite you to join a community-based panel to:
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Discuss community-based programs that support 1st generation and immigrant students and their families
- Learn policies that will help support the college and career aspirations of all students
- Ensure you know your educational rights and how to protect them
Panelists and speakers include Councilman Daniel Dromm, representatives from Queens Legal Services, and educators from Renaissance and Central Queens Academy Charter Schools, and International High School at LaGuardia Community College.
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Renaissance Rocks!
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A big Shout Out to Amanda and the MS Student Council for coordinating the MS Penny War fundraiser. And she adds her own list of Shout Outs:
- Emily B - for lending us water jugs to use in the Penny War
- Emily O & Dan - for giving up a lunch period to help supervise the Penny War in the cafeteria
- MS Advisers - for giving daily Penny War score updates and promoting the event
- Megan, Vincent, Emily O./Pierre, Dan, Raymond/Danielle, Ram, and Helen - for donating homework passes to the winning classes
- Dan and Danielle - for helping count coins
- Pierre & Victor - for helping transport heavy loads of coins to the bank
- Victor - for letting us use his TD bank access to use their coin machine
The middle school student council has been busy this year, coming up with lots of ideas for fun, fundraisers and service.
We applaud them!
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Spotlight On... Advisories
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As we wrote above, our advisories have been busy fund raising and participating in special volunteer work. The entire Middle School was involved in a Penny War, raising over $500 towards their Spring Fling Dance! The 8th grade were the winners with -10,263 points and the 7th grade had -16,125 points.
Aside from the wonderful work done during Community Service Days and the Pie Fling for Charity written about above, advisories are an important part of our 7th-10th grade students lives. Starting the day off in small mentored groups allows the students to have a chance to reflect and bond with others before heading off to class. The small group size allows each child to step up and really feel they can make a difference, and it is obvious they are!
The goal of the middle and high school Advisory program is to support students in their academic, as well as their emotional development. During the Fall and the Spring semester, the program focused on topics including decision-making, peer pressure, leadership, goal-setting, and friendships/relationships, allowing the students the opportunity to grow socially, as well as academically. In May, the Advisory program culminates in a yearly community service fair. We are excited to see the inspiring service learning experiences that the various groups are embarking upon.
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TRCS Sports Desk
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Spring Season is finally here!
TRCS Sports will like to welcome Miguel from the kitchen staff to the coaching staff. He will be the head coach of the Middle School Co- Ed Soccer Team. He has previous experience coaching soccer and will be a great addition to the TRCS sports community. We are very excited to have a MS Co-Ed Soccer team for the first time. Thir first game will be on 4/29 vs. Promise Academy 2 at Wagner park .
On April 10th, selected members from the HS Softball team attended Small School Athletic League Power of Sports Award Ceremony. The leagues honor 50 Student- Athletes from the league . Junior Stephanie Montalvo was honored from our school. Also, the League honored Yankee Legend Mariano Rivera . He was also the key note speaker .
Recent Box Scores HSG Softball 19 -3 L Vs Maleska Campus HSB Baseball 10 - 9 L Vs Martin Van Buren MS Baseball L Vs IS 10 4-6 Girls Basketball L to Promise Academy 1
Upcoming Games :
HSG Softball Vs City College Academy @ Randalls 23 @ 4pm 4/23 HSG Softball vs International Community HS @ Rainey Park @ 4pm 4/25 HSB Baseball vs Hillcrest @ Flushing Meadow 12 @ 4pm 4/23 HSB Baseball vs Arts & Business @ Flushing Meadow 10 @ 4pm 4/24 MSB Baseball vs IS 61 W@TBD 4/23
 High School Girls Software
 Stephanie Montalvo
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Alumni Corner - Pierre and Chelsea and the next generation of leaders!
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On March 10 through 12th, two of our intrepid alums, Chelsea Reid (class of 2008) and Pierre Dizon (class of 2005), led a group of students to the 25th Annual National Service-Learning ConferenceŽ and 26th Annual Global Youth Service Day sponsored by the National Youth Leadership Conference. Pierre is a Social Studies teacher here at Renaissance, and Chelsea volunteers her time to the "Students Care" Leadership group at Renaissance, in an effort to instill the service learning culture into students at the beginning of their high school career. The group believes that through planning and implementing community service projects, students have the chance to gain skills in community organization, community outreach, fundraising, and leadership development on all levels.
Chelsea and Pierre, along with ninth graders Ahashan Amin, Joeshin Septh, Mikayla Griffin, Sakib Ahmed, Tenzin Phelgye, and Vivian Batista participated in various workshops on Friday, and in a community service project at the Washington Mall on Saturday.
I'm sure you will agree when you read the articles above, that we are well on our way to making sure that culture stays strong in our school. It's a wonderful thing to be able to talk about how our students past and present make their mark on the world!
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PTA News - A Message from your PTA Exec Board
|  We need your help! At our April PTA meeting, we will be accepting nominations for the positions on the PTA Executive Board and CSG as well as nominations for the parent representative position for the Board of Trustees. We have received nominations already for some of the positions but will accept any additional nominations at the April PTA meeting on Wednesday, April 30 at 6:30pm. We especially need representation in the High School. We will also hold an open forum to discuss restructuring of the PTA. If you want your voice to be heard, please attend this meeting.
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Upcoming Events:
Monday 4/14-Tuesday 4/22 - Spring Break - No School
Wednesday, 4/23 - Queens Immigration Education Panel
@ New Life Fellowship, Queens Blvd.
Friday, 4/25 - National Honor Society Induction Ceremony
Wednesday 4/30 - PEP HS Dance class to "After Midnight"
on BroadwayWednesday 4/30, 6:30PM - PTA Meeting Wed. 4/30 - Fri. 5/2 - NYS 3rd-8th Grade Math Test Friday 5/2 - MS Bowling Trip Mon. 5/5 - Fri. 5/9 - Scholastic BOGO Book Fair Wednesday 5/7 - BOT Meeting
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Helpful Hints and Cool Links
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Check out the new link on the Parents page of our website called "Supporting Your Child."
(http://www.renaissancecharter.org/parents.html/support_child.com)
This page includes many helpful documents and resources to support your child both academically and emotionally, from experts in the field and our own staff. Currently, there are several documents that will help you help your child, by understanding our discipline code, our commitment to an anti-bullying culture, and by understanding what our communication protocols and our philosophy of student counseling. Here are some additional resources:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/people-skills/201008/cyber-bullying-defenses
http://eyeguardian.com/
Read the following document for tips on internet safety:
Internet Safety
Elementary Math:
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Make an investment in children, education and the future of our world. Safer, better-educated communities are great for business; they improve the quality of life for everyone. Renaissance's hard-working, high-achieving students strive to make that happen and with your help that goal is closer to being a reality: Please visit our website for more information, and lick on the red DONATE button on the bottom of each page: http://www.renaissancecharter.org/. Thank you!
Sincerely,
The Renaissance Charter School
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