October 19, 2012

Dear Parents,

Please join us for UN Day which will be held next week. The elementary school is going to kick-off UN Day with a short assembly on October 23^rd at 2:45. UN Day celebrations will continue on Wednesday, October 24^th. This year, all students will participate in the Parade of Flags. Students are encouraged to wear national dress/colors of their home nation. Shortly after arriving to school, all elementary school students will assemble in the cafeteria and will be grouped according to the country each will represent. The Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students will lead the procession, waving their home country’s flag as they make their way along the parade route.  We believe our youngest students will be more comfortable walking with their classmates, teachers and teacher assistants. While teachers are organizing students for the parade, we ask that parents make their way to the gym, where they will have the opportunity to view the parade and to take pictures. When the parade is over, students will return to their classrooms for a snack break. At this point, the PTA will be setting up country pavilions in the gym which all students will visit at various times during the day. Since we have many students from across the school to move through the pavilions, we ask that only those parents who are volunteering their time to work at a pavilion be in the gym. We do thank you for your cooperation.

Vision and Hearing Screening

From November 6^th to November 9^th, medical professionals from Chennai will be at the school to conduct vision and hearing screening of children. The school health office will inform you if your child has been identified with a hearing or vision impairment and you will be referred to intervention services in the community should you decide to follow-up. Doctors from the Madras ENT Research Foundation (P) Ltd. 1 Cross Street, 2nd Main Road, Raja Annamalaipuram, Chennai 600028 and from Dr. Agarwal's Eye Hospital, 19, Cathedral Road, Chennai 600086 will be conducting the screenings.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held after-school on November 1^st and all day November 2^nd. Last spring, we launched online parent sign-ups and I am pleased to announce that parents will have the opportunity to sign-up online effective immediately. To sign-up, please follow the steps below. I have also included a You-Tube video which will walk you through the process. Please click here to access this video.

Step 1: Log on to the link below:

Conference Sign-up

Step 2:

Click on your child's teacher's name. A page will open that looks like below. Fill in the details required.

Step 3:

You will receive an email to your registered email address within a few minutes which looks like the one below:

From: admin@ptcfast.com [mailto:admin@ptcfast.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 9:50 AM
To: bhazel@aisch.org
Subject: Select Date/Time for Teacher Conference Now

Step 4:

Please click on the line highlighted line on your email.

It will open up the conference page and you can choose the time. Once you finish selecting the time for 1 teacher a prompt will appear to ask you if you would like to schedule another conference. Follow the same procedure for all the teachers you wish to sign up for.

If you need use a computer in our library, please feel free to do.

Reading with the Authors

Grade 5 C and 5 D began the week on Monday, October 15 with a celebration of reading. Parents were invited to read stories written by their children. There was excitement and pride as the children shared their personal narratives based on - A Small Moment.

Have a great weekend,

Kevin Hall

Elementary School Principal