Director's Blog
Gifts
It is the season for giving and receiving gifts. I hope that all of you are selecting some wonderful gifts to give for those you love and are receiving some in return.
Over the past few days I have been thinking of all the gifts we have already received as a school. You see, each activity, each bit of knowledge learned, skill acquired, game won (or lost), or play performed is really a gift.
It is a gift for the child who has accomplished these things, a gift that their teachers or coaches have given, and a gift to the parent who gets to witness their child grow and progress. Truly all of these moments are gifts to our school community bringing us joy as we watch our students experience and accomplish so much.
A list of all of these gifts - large and small - that have occurred at school since we began in August would be too long to compile, but below are just a few of the wonderful gifts that we have experienced so far this school year:
- First grade held their annual Opening Day for the new community that they created together: Cat City!
- Our middle school students worked hard to create the first ever "Museum Day" at CHIME. 7th and 8th grade presented to the community before winter break and 6th grade will present the week we return.
- 4th grade students started their own school newspaper!
- Ms. Kandler, Ms. O'Brien and Ms. Furnback traveled to New Orleans to present at the National TASH conference sharing information to a national audience of educators on co-teaching and inclusion!
- Third grade's reading instruction and intervention programs, involving the entire grade level, are innovative and engaging and are yielding positive results and equipping students to be effective readers!
- Field trips are back (in a big way!) with trips to Travel Town, Will Geer Theater, and to the beach for a clean up day just to name a few..with many more to come.
- Kindergarten ran a Hope the Mission diaper drive (and they filled the truck!), and they had a visit from the local fire station who showed off their uniform, gear, and fire truck!
- Run club kicked off and students are having fun running laps and earning stickers for their new run club water bottles. Thank you Mr. Will and Run Club volunteers!
- Second grade revived their Reader’s Theater tradition. Renditions of “Cheetah and the Sloth” were big hits!
- Fourth, fifth, and sixth grades visited the Audubon Society center in the Sepulveda basin to learn about local birds and their habitat. These visits helped kick off our year-long, school-wide project with the Audubon Society and a local artist, Miles Hochhalter Lewis, to learn about native California birds and public art.
- We launched our student robotics program in partnership with mentors from local high school HTLA. Both our middle school and elementary school teams experienced great success in their first season. Thank you Ms. Goodman and Mr. Thomas for all of your efforts in launching this program!
- The middle school band (40+ members) and the fifth grade band gave wonderful concert performances to close out the winter concerts filling the auditorium with beautiful music.
With all of these gifts plus scores more from success on the courts to the soccer field to the classroom, we have truly witnessed so many gifts this Fall.
I hope that you are spending this holiday season with friends and family resting, relaxing, enjoying your time away…and preparing for what is sure to be a wonderful spring at CHIME!
Just A Few Days Away
I was a student in college the first time I voted for president. The way the election years fell, I was 20 when I first got to vote for the highest office in the land. I remember that day vividly. Myself and several friends went to the Quad (a residence hall on campus) to the polling place that had been set up in the basement of the building. The line was surprisingly long, and we had to wait for what seemed to us like an eternity to cast our ballots. We were anxious as we waited in the long line of eager voters (many of them first timers like ourselves). It probably didn’t help that we were on our way to the dining hall and all of us were hungry for dinner and all of us likely had studying to procrastinate about afterward. But I remember feeling like I was participating in something important, something much larger than myself, and that it was a privilege to exercise this right to vote as a United States citizen.
Many election cycles later I still feel that way…just ask my family. They will tell you there are very few days that get me as excited as election day, particularly when we are electing the president. I spring out of bed and look forward to wearing my “I voted” sticker throughout the day. I have never missed voting in a presidential election and though the votes don’t always go like I would have preferred, I am undeterred in my love and appreciation of this privilege to have my say in who will lead this country. As a former social studies teacher, it is never lost on me that hundreds of millions of people throughout the world do not enjoy this privilege of democracy and will never live in a country in which public participation in choosing their country’s leadership is allowed.
This Presidential election cycle, perhaps more than others in the past, seems burdened with importance. The candidates and their surrogates all agree that this year’s election is indeed quite meaningful as we move forward into the future of our nation. Doubtless such a critical election will bring about strong feelings and reactions no matter who is the winner of the election next Tuesday. There is no doubt our children will want to understand as clearly as they are able the process and the impact of the outcomes of the vote. With this in mind I wanted to provide a few resources that I think could be helpful in preparing and talking to your children about elections and election results: Talking With Children About Voting from PBS Kids and Talking with Children and Teens About Elections from Psychology Today.
One of the key components in both of the resources above is for parents to model what it means to be a voter. Model for your children how you get informed about national and local candidates and however you vote (in person or by mail) share this process with your child. Have a conversation with them about your choices and if possible let them watch you vote, so they can feel included in the process as well.
To that end, remember this year we have many local issues on the ballot as well, not just the national elections. One race, as I have shared before, which has importance for CHIME and schools throughout LA is the local LAUSD Board District 3 election. If you live in “BD 3” like I do, you have received MANY fliers in the mail from both candidates (Scott Schmerelson and Dan Chang). Be sure to do your own homework on both candidates and be sure to vote in this important race as well. Here are a few BD3 resources that have been shared in Parent Square posts by staff and CHIME families previously. CCSA Voter Guide, LAist District 3 Guide, Daily News, LA Times, Medium.
Thanks CHIME families. And as our former president Barack Obama is fond of saying, “Don’t boo. Vote!”
The October Country
As I write this we are headed toward the heart of October. October is and has always been one of my favorite months. Ray Bradbury’s 1955 collection of spooky stories, was entitled The October Country. Ray Bradbury, an author whose stories I have long treasured, provided this evocative title for his collection and in doing so he captured something true; October truly does seem like a land unto itself.
This wonderful and wonderfully mysterious month contains so many festivals, gatherings, celebrations, sporting events, and opportunities to gather. CHIME is no different. From the wonderful Gala that we held just last Saturday night, to the amazing Hispanic Heritage Month activities on campus and in our classrooms, to the upcoming “first field trips” of the year for many grade levels, to our CHIME-a-ween celebration on Saturday the 19th, to our first round of parent teacher conferences on the 25th. And who can resist the charm of our annual Halloween parade!
Yes, October is full of wonder, joy, and thrill on campus and off. Don’t forget there are also opportunities to participate in off-campus CHIME CCA activities this month with the fundraising activities at Night of the Jack (through 10/31) and at Kindred Spirits Animal Care Farm (10/13 from 10-2).
October is also a month of serious learning! If you are a consistent reader of this blog you may begin to suspect I have an obsession with the school calendar…well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I do spend a fair amount of time thinking about our school calendar each year. And here's the truth about every October, every year - it is almost always the month with the most school days!
This year we will have 22 of our 180 school days in October which is 12% of the school year. Let’s make sure we make them count. Prioritize your child’s attendance at school and be sure to make your appointment for your child’s parent teacher conference (10/25 or 11/1). This is a great opportunity to hear from your child’s teachers and get a sense of how your child is doing this school year. Whatever grade your child is in, it’s an important one. They only get one chance at 2nd grade…or 3rd…or 6th…you get the idea! Every year is filled with so many things for our students to learn and opportunities for them to grow. And October is a great time to support your child in digging into the wonder, joy, magic, and important knowledge that awaits them this school year.
One last thought: I could make a case that October is also the birth month of American Literature. Hear me out. Washington Irving is often identified by literary scholars as the first truly “American” author writing about genuinely American places and ideas rather than imitating the literature and themes of European authors. And one of his most famous short stories, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (one of my very favorites!) is linked to this time of year - Fall, Halloween, October! So in celebration of our great cannon of American literature, I encourage you to make sure you and your children are reading books this month. I know, I know, we should all be reading books - yes, books not just the internet - in every month of the year, but take time now in this month of October as the weather starts to cool (hopefully) and our pace of life changes from the summer months - now in the rearview mirror - to ensure that your child is fully stocked with great books to read or listen to and that they see you, their parents, modeling the same. Go ahead, CHIME, find your favorite spooky story, pour a mug of apple cider, settle in for a good read, and enjoy October!
Back To School Night
Back To School Night is just around the corner - Tuesday September 17th for TK-3rd and Thursday September 19th for 4th-8th. This event is always an early signal that the school year is solidly underway, and we are moving past the “get to know ya” phase of the school year and getting down to the business of learning…even more than we already have been, that is.
Back to School night is a wonderful opportunity for parents to meet their children’s teachers, get a sneak peek at the curriculum for the year ahead, and establish a bit of a connection with their child’s classroom environment and teachers.
Speaking as someone who has been on the teacher end of these things before, I can share that sometimes it can be a bit nerve racking to be “on stage” in front of all the parent’s of your students. I have to smile thinking about the extra time I used to put in as a teacher prepping my bulletin boards for the night, so that they looked especially nice (I wasn’t very good at that kind of thing), getting my text books ready to display, spell checking and grammar checking my syllabus and presentation slides. I wanted, of course, to put my best foot forward.
As a parent, I wanted to be reassured. I wanted to be given the sense that my child was in an inviting and fun classroom with a thoughtful and kind teacher, and that what my daughter would be learning that year was going to help her grow in her knowledge and understanding.
The truth is, whether we are a parent or a teacher, we both want very similar things from Back to School Night:
- We want it to go well!
- We want to take a moment to make a connection with someone (parent or teacher) who is going to be in our lives in one way or another for the next school year.
- AND we want to leave the evening, even if a bit tired due to a late night after a day of working/teaching, excited about the school year ahead.
Next week will be my 14th year of Back to School night at CHIME. Nine of those back to school nights, I played the role of administrator and parent. Every one of those CHIME Back to School nights, I accomplished my goal of walking out with a sense of energy and excitement for the year ahead. Whether it was because of how amazing I thought my daughter’s teachers were or whether it was such a joy to share the evening with the wonderful families we would be working with that school year, I always walked away from the evening with a bit of spring in my step.
I hope the same will be true for all of us again next week, and I look forward to seeing you for these very important evenings.
August Is A School Month!
When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1998, school in LA started after Labor Day. Back to School “prep week” for teachers was always the last week of August, and then students would arrive the following Tuesday after the holiday weekend, and school would begin. My wedding day/anniversary (August 21st) used to be considered a late summer wedding. This school year we’d already had eight days of school by the time my wife and I celebrated our anniversary.
Now I am not necessarily pining away for the “good old days”, but August is hot in the San Fernando Valley which can make it challenging to run a school full of children who love to play outdoors…though we have been fairly lucky in that department this year.
But c’est la vie. The calendar was moved to an early start about ten years ago (largely to accommodate High Schools and their AP class schedule) and now August is a school month. In fact, August contained 15 school days this year which, if you can believe it, given school vacations and holidays, that will be the same number of school days as we have in December and more school days than we will have in the months of November, April, and June! (Find our 2024-25 calendar here). August will very soon have come and gone, and we will already have completed 8% of the school year.
Which brings me to my point: every day counts! Every day of school attendance that is. Regular school attendance is key to the success of our students. Ensuring that students get the proper instruction and skill development in the grade levels in which our students here at CHIME are enrolled is essential for long term high school and postsecondary achievement. American University School of Education notes that chronic absenteeism can have a negative effect on reading development, academic skill building, and social and emotional development. Simply put, regular attendance is the best thing for children to ensure a lifetime of learning and academic success.
Regular student attendance is also good for the school. Did you know that in California schools are funded per student, per day? That means when students are absent (even excused absences) CHIME does not receive funding for that student on that day. Illness and absences for appropriate reasons are bound to happen over the course of a school year, which is why sometimes having your child do an Independent Study Plan is a great idea. Independent study allows your child to stay on track with their work and learning, and it allows CHIME to count those students as “present” for the school day once their independent study work is returned. CHIME then retains the funding needed to ensure the high quality education program of the school. If you want to know more about Independent Study, contact your child’s teacher or division principal. You can also find our school’s independent study policy here. (hint: It’s on page 40.)
Now that August is about to be in the rearview mirror, it is on to September! (My daughter is learning to drive this Fall, so that may be the first of many driving metaphors you hear from me this year.), Mark your calendars for Back to School nights on September 17th and 19th, and prepare for the start of brisk Fall weather…or not; it is the San Fernando Valley after all.
Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone!