MS eNews – Friday, November 20th, 2015
Audio from the Principal’s Forum – Nov 2015
by Dennis Harter
On Thursday, November 12th, the MS Admin team hosted a Principal’s Forum. We thank the parents who attended and our MS PTA coordinators for helping gather the questions and organizing them into main themes.
At the forum we addressed the following topics:
- World Languages– consistency of learning program, expectations, learning experience, mother tongue program
- Flex Program– brief overview, wellness program, L2L/Advisory initiative, transitions program explained, overview of Sex Ed in MS
- Math– description of new program, clarity on time and curriculum, addressing “gaps” in learning and understanding
- PowerSchool– how it is being used, how it should be used, understanding what you see there, future parent training
We spent some time on these topics, which, combined with a sudden need to end the meeting, led to us not getting to the expected agenda items below.
- Involvement outside of school– what role does the school play outside the gates and outside the school hours?
- Other topics if time allows– Tutors, Home Learning policy, Haiku, Parent Conferences, carrying the laptops
To help those who were unable to attend, we share the following items:
- Presentation slides from the Forum(not much detail without the audio)
- Audio capture of the presentation and questions (open link and download the mp3 file within to listen to)
As many know, the meeting ended abruptly, which is why the audio does not end with a completed thought.
Answers to the other topics will be shared in other MS eNews articles this week and next.
Additional Topics from the Principal’s Forum
by Dennis Harter
Involvement in incidents out side of School
ISB partners with families on ensuring our students are safe. When parents send their children to school, we take seriously our responsibility to provide young people a safe environment to learn. Occasionally, we become aware of situations that might put a student at risk like a party serving alcohol or an illegal event. When we know these things, we will inform parents. Simply put, if something unfortunate happened and we knew about the potential for it ahead of time and didn’t inform parents, we would not be able to bear that on our conscience. We care about the children who attend our school and want to keep them safe, just like you. In some cases we are told that this is none of our business, but we will keep making those calls “unapologetically”. Every now and then we are called into help a child who may find themselves in trouble outside of school with authorities. Again, we help keep kids safe in whatever way we can help. We understand that some parents believe that our involvement ends at the gate and school day. We see it differently. We care about students and will always do what we can and should to keep them safe.
Haiku
We have put in place guidelines for teachers to ensure that any home learning assignments will be posted on the Haiku calendar before the end of the school day. Assignments will be posted on the day that they are assigned with information about when they are due. This will allow them to keep appearing on the calendar until that due date.
We will share more written answers to Principal’s Forum questions in next week’s eNews.
ISB Spirit Night on Friday, November 27th
Please click HERE to see a larger view of the poster.
Leaving ISB at the End of the First Semester?
If your child is not returning to ISB after semester 1, please complete the Notice of Withdrawal from ISB Form and email it to Khun Natt at natthapc@isb.ac.th in the MS Office as soon as possible so she can process your child’s school records for their next school.
(Repeat) MS & HS Choir Concert, Monday Nov. 30th
Come join us for an evening of joy, beautiful music and community! The Middle Choirs will be presenting a Thailand premiere of Sarah Quartel’s Snow Angel with string players from Mr. Weinhold’s classes. The High School classes will be performing a diverse selection of choral music weaving together stories of family, home and our connections to each other. The concert is at 6:30pm in the Chevron theatre. Admission is free. Click here to see the poster.
(Repeat) Boarding School and Summer School Applications
Dear Parents,
If you are considering applying for boarding and summer schools for 2016, please do contact our Counseling Secretary Khun Natt natthapc@isb.ac.th at your earliest convenience. It is important that we have sufficient time to prepare reports and recommendations and these are best attended to in November and early December. Applications for schools are normally made by early January but with Winter break, it is vital that these requests are made before the end of this semester.
Please contact Jackie Greenwood (jackieg@isb.ac.th) grade 8 Counselor if you have any queries or concerns about boarding and summer school applications.
(Repeat) eNewsletter Guidelines
by: Tony Arnold
anthonya@isb.ac.th
ISB eNewsletters provide a valuable avenue for communication within the ISB parent community. Please see our eNewsletter guidelines below.
Submitting an announcement for publication
ISB accepts announcements from ISB families and ISB staff for potential publication in our eNewsletters. The announcements are generally intended to highlight events that occur at ISB and/or highlight information about ISB.
What to include in the announcement
• A title for your announcement
• An email contact for further information
• An image or photo (optional)
Where to submit your announcement
4publish@isb.ac.th is for announcements of interest to the entire ISB community.
tinaratr@isb.ac.th is for Elementary School (ES) announcements of interest to ES families.
maurilib@isb.ac.th is for Middle School (MS) announcements of interest to MS families.
vijitl@isb.ac.th is for High School (HS) announcements of interest to HS families.
Your announcement will be submitted to the appropriate Principal and/or to our Marketing Director for review. ISB reserves the right to determine which announcements will and will not be published, and to edit announcements that are approved for publication.
Frequency of eNewsletter mailings
The ISB eNewsletter that is for the entire community is sent out on Thursdays. Announcements for potential publication in this newsletter must be received by noon on Thursdays.
The ES, MS, and HS eNewsletters are sent out on Fridays. Announcements for potential publication in these newsletters must be received by noon on Fridays.