SCHOOL YEAR CALENDAR
2009-2010
JUNE
4th-
Field Day
7th-
Move-up Day
8th-
LSRT Nominations (and biographies) are due
11th-
Parent Appreciation Breakfast
LSRT Elections
Intermediate Campus
Drama Club Performance
13th-
Carole Whelan Retirement Party 3-5
15th-
OCC Board meeting 6:00 Adams Campus
16th-
OA LSRT mtg.
6:00 Oyster campus
17th-
8th Grade Promotion
18th-
6th Grade Play
21st-
Talent Show
Intermediate Campus
22nd -
Talent Show
Primary Campus
Last day of school
for students End of fourth term |
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A Message from
Principal Liang-Aguirre
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June 7, 2010
Dear Oyster-Adams
Community:
A few weeks ago, I
described a teacher of mine who had a profound impact on my professional path.
This week, I'd like to devote my weekly memo to a teacher who has dedicated 36
years to inspiring generations of students to imagine and create here at
Oyster.
Not many schools can boast an educator who has nearly the
number of professional accomplishments that Carole has. From professional collaborations, rigorous
students projects, to presentations and publications, Carole has worked with
the city's finest art institutions, including: The National Building Museum, the Phillips Collection, National Portrait
Gallery, National Gallery of Art, National Museum for Women in the Arts, and the
Textile Museum.
This year, Carole decided to take her excellent and rigorous
teaching to an even higher level by developing a year-long integrated project
on DC Communities that culminated in portraits created by Oyster Adams third
graders. Their sophisticated-beyond-their-years portraits of influential DC
residents, past and present, were exhibited on May 22, 2010 at the National
Portrait Gallery. And in the very last week's of her very last year of
teaching, Carole is engaging our Kinder and 1st grade students in a
project revolving around the use of animal fibers and how we make cloth from
them with textile
designer and artist, Renate Maile-Moskovitch.
I have only known Carole for two years but one thing that
stood out from the beginning was her continuous desire to learn. Despite all of Carole's great achievements,
she continues to attend national conferences on art education and learning and
the brain and is anxious to bring new strategies to her classroom. Last
year, when we introduced the ECC class to Oyster-Adams, our specialists were
presented with a new opportunity to work with students with significant special
needs. Carole faced this new challenge head on, looked for resources, did
research, talked with colleagues and was able to develop meaningful lessons for
our youngest children.
Finally, how much importance do you think a veteran teacher
in her last year before retirement would give to a new rigorous district-wide
teacher evaluation system? When IMPACT rolled out this year, Carole was
invested in it just as much as the rest of the teachers, questioning it and
adjusting her practice to meet the criteria of the rubric. Naturally,
through the process, she has been recognized by the district as an outstanding
resource and a film crew will be capturing one of her lessons in the next few
weeks for future art teachers to learn.
Carole's daily presence will be greatly missed next August
but her legacy continues to live within the walls of Oyster and within the
thousands of students that were touched by her magic over the many years.
Please join us in honoring her service to
children and celebrating the next exciting chapter of her life this Sunday, June 13 from 3:00-5:00PM at the
Josephine Butler Center.
Have a splendid week!
Monica Liang-Aguirre
Principal
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Week of June 7-13
8th graders will be camping June 6-9!
Monday:
- Move Up
Day (all current 3rd graders begin the day at Adams)
Friday:
- Parent
Appreciation Breakfast, 9AM at Oyster Cafeteria (all parents invited!)
- LSRT Elections (both campuses)
Sunday:
- Carole Whelan's Retirement Party (3-5 PM at
Josephine Butler Center)
UPCOMING EVENTS
June 17: 8th grade promotion (Josephine
Butler Center)
June 21: Intermediate Campus Talent Show
June 22: LAST DAY OF SCHOOL and Primary Campus
Talent Show
LSRT Parent
Representatives needed! The LSRT is
looking for three new parents for next year's LSRT. The LSRT is a team of
Oyster-Adams parents and teachers that meets monthly to advise the Principal on
strategic and budgetary matters. To
ensure language and campus representation, we need1 English speaker with a
child at Adams, 1 Spanish speaker with a child at Oyster and 1 English-speaker
with a child at Adams. If you're interested in being a candidate,
please submit your name, contact information and a brief bio to LSRT
Chairperson, Susan Stevenson, at skstevenson@gmail.com
by Tuesday, June 8th.
LSRT ELECTIONS!
Don't forget to vote on Friday, June 11! Please vote at either campus for next year's
new LSRT parent representatives. Ballots will be available at morning drop off,
after school and at the close of After-Care at both campuses .
Tennis at the
Intermediate Campus! Thanks to the
collaboration between the US Tennis Association (USTA) and Department of Parks
and Recreation (DPR), all intermediate campus students will be participating in
a special tennis clinic during their PE classes this week. The purpose of the tennis clinics is to
expose students to tennis skills and talk to them about more tennis
opportunities for the summer and fall. Oyster-Adams will be piloting a tennis program next school year-stay
tuned for more information in August!
Parent Appreciation
Breakfast! All Primary and
Intermediate parents are invited to come to special breakfast in honor of
YOU! Our parents are a vital element in
the Oyster-Adams community and we don't want to end the year without honoring
all you do everyday for all of our students. Please join us for a brief
celebration on Friday, June 11 from 9-10AM.
OYSTER-ADAMS SUMMER READING PROGRAM: The summer
reading program is going to be a little different this year. Librarians
Ms. Smith and Ms. Kleinmann, in collaboration with classroom teachers, have
come up with specific titles in English and Spanish that will be required
reading for each grade level. These books will be considered "community
reads" that reflect the values of our bilingual program. On the elementary
campus we will be selling the K-3 books the week of June 14th. The middle
school campus will offer some copies of the 4-8 titles for check out at the
school library and provide information about accessing the books through the
public library or purchasing copies online. We will continue with our
yearly public library summer book club promotion. All information will be
provided to students in hard copy during the following few weeks.
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June 7, 2010
Hello Oyster-Adams
Community!
Job Opening: OCC is in search of a dynamic, organized
and enthusiastic Business Manager. The Business Manager is to manage the
day-to-day operations of the organization. This is a part-time position only
and pay is $20/hour. We are looking for someone who will cultivate a strong
partnership with the school community and board. Will work closely with all standing
and ad hoc committees of the Board.
http://oysterbilingual.devis.com/Programs/OCC/
Our next meeting is June 15 at the
Intermediate campus, 6-8 p.m.Just a reminder that our monthly board meetings are always open to the
community.
If you need to be
in touch with me: email - alvaradojay@gmail.com
or home phone: 202-582-1142.
Thanks!
Jackie Alvarado
OCC Co-President
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June 7, 2010
LSRT Parent
Representatives needed! The LSRT is
looking for three new parents for next year's LSRT. The LSRT is a team of
Oyster-Adams parents and teachers that meets monthly to advise the Principal on
strategic and budgetary matters. To
ensure language and campus representation, we need1 English speaker with a
child at Adams, 1 Spanish speaker with a child at Oyster and 1 English-speaker
with a child at Adams. If you're interested in being a candidate,
please submit your name, contact information and a brief bio to LSRT
Chairperson, Susan Stevenson, at skstevenson@gmail.com
by Tuesday, June 8th.
LSRT ELECTIONS!
Don't forget to vote on Friday, June 11! Please vote at either campus for next year's
new LSRT parent representatives. Ballots will be available at morning drop off,
after school and at the close of After-Care at both campuses .
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Postings for this space are limited to free or very low-cost events,
services or products that support the mission of our school. Please send your notice IN ENGLISH AND IN
SPANISH to wendy.jacobson@verizon.net
by 4:00 p.m. on Thursdays.
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June 7, 2010
OCA parents wish to thank the OCC for continued support of
our scholarship program. Scholarships permit nearly 30 Oyster-Adams students to
participate in OCA, our highly regarded after-school program. OCA parents
strive to make our program available to all Oyster-Adams students, regardless
of means. Parents who pay the full tuition of $280 a month per child subsidize
students from families who are unable to pay the full amount. We also hold two
fund raisers a year. Still, that is not enough, and we count on the greater community
to help us out, particularly in these economic times.
During the 2009-10 school year, OCA has provided
after-school care to 150 students - 23 percent of Oyster-Adams children. Few programs supported by OCC reach that many
students on a regular basis. More than
18 percent of our students receive financial assistance from the OCA
Scholarship Fund, at different levels based on a family's capacity to pay. The average scholarship amount this year is
50 percent of tuition; the scholarship range is from 20 percent to 80
percent. The total amount dedicated to
scholarships in 2009-10 is $39,700. Because of the recession, this is a huge
increase from what we provided in recent years. By way of comparison, in 2007-08,
OCA granted scholarships totaling $25,250;
in 2008-09, when the recession began, that figure rose to $32,000. In 2009-10,
OCA was delighted that OCC funded $15,000 of the scholarships; OCA paid the
remaining $24,700. We raised about $11,500 at our fund raisers and paid the
rest through tuition subsidies and with money from our operating budget
(something we cannot afford to continue doing).
Some OCC members have asked for more transparency about who
receives the scholarships. Even OCA officers and board members don't know the
identities of scholarship recipients. We guard their privacy carefully, which
is the right thing to do. The recipients are selected through an independent
process, by people who are not part of the O-A community, based solely on need.
Their financial information, but not their names, is included in reports to OCA
parents at public meetings.
Here is some information about OCA:
OCA provides a safe, creative, learning environment to
Oyster-Adams students from 3:15 to 6 p.m. after school and all day when there
are no classes and the buildings are open (e.g. parent-teacher conference days,
teacher training days). Our bilingual program staff provides students fun and
educational activities and homework assistance. This is especially helpful for families in which parents have limited
ability in either English or Spanish. OCA also offers a program of enrichment
classes, including instruction in sports and the arts, to OCA students and
others in the wider O-A community. Students in the DCPS after-school program
have especially taken advantage of this opportunity.
OCA parents are proud that our program is open to our entire
O-A community, regardless of ability to pay. We have worked hard to ensure
equal access and to prevent a two-tiered after-school system. We very much
appreciate OCC's support in this endeavor.
The OCA Board
Jodi Enda and Talita Ribera, co-chairs
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OYSTER-ADAMS BILINGUAL SCHOOL
Monica Liang Aguirre, Principal
Ibis Villegas, Assistant Principal
Karen Lesmez, Assistant Principal
Pablo Girón, Acting Intermediate
Campus Coordinator
Oyster Campus (PreK - 3rd Grade)
2801 Calvert Street, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202/671-6130
Fax: 202/671-3087
Adams Campus (4th - 8th Grades)
2020 19th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
Tel. 202/673-7311
Fax. 202/673-6500
__________________________Email: contactus@oysterbilingualschool.org
Website:
http://oysterbilingual.devis.com/AboutUs/
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