July 2008
Dear Parents,
We hope you and your family are enjoying a restful and rewarding summer season. Life has not been particularly restful this summer on campus, but it has thus far been very productive with many physical plant improvements underway referenced later in this letter.
If you are reading this letter you are aware that, for the first time, we are using the Park City website as the repository for all necessary information concerning the new school year. Rather than a large mailing of paper, all the forms that parents must complete before then and bring with them on the first day of school to Parent Orientations are available on our website. Although we are still far from being a “Green” school, we are moving in that direction.
As our summer days fly by, our website will, we hope, begin preparing you and your family—with as much lead time as possible—for a dynamic and successful academic year. With your continued involvement and support, we are confident 2008-2009 will be Park City Academy’s very best year ever.
All parents should follow the links indicated on the web site home page to access “Back to School Forms” that should be printed, signed, and returned on August 25, and “School Opening Information.” In particular, our decision concerning morning van service depends upon securing a sufficient number of riders to justify the expense. Therefore, please communicate your interest in van service so that we can make that decision by August 25.
The “Back to School Forms” accessible through the web-site link include:
- Medical Treatment Authorization Form that must be signed by all parents for each of their enrolled children. Supplementary forms are also available as necessary for children with asthma, allergies, and for the administration of medication at school.
- Outdoor Education Medical Form for grades 5 through 8
- Technology use Agreement that must be signed by all students (1-8) and parents
- Parent Volunteer Agreement
- PCA Driver and Chaperone Guidelines and Agreement
- PFA volunteer opportunities sign-up form
- Morning school transportation sign-up
- Grandparents’ information request
The “School Opening” Information link includes Important Up-coming Dates.
The “School Uniforms” link includes the 2008-2009 Dress Code and ordering information. Please note that the version distributed previously was incomplete regarding the greater latitude of shoe selection for this coming year.
In addition to the revised web-site, we are warming up for a number of additional strides forward in our technological progress. Although my August letter will contain more specific information from Melanie Pickens, our new Academic Technology Coordinator, we are currently planning for all students in Grade 1 through 8 to receive school email addresses and USB drives to facilitate communication and to reduce paper use. Presuming another successful year with our Annual Fund we anticipate the purchase of a second laptop cart during the first trimester so that we have one for each corridor.
The 2008-2009 Parent Handbook will be available for your consideration on the website next month. As usual we wait until late August to update the Family Directory in order to incorporate any late enrolling families; however, we expect to have the Directory ready for distribution to families at Back-to-School Night on Monday, September 15. Although the Directory will not be posted on the website this year and will remain in hardcopy, in the future we hope to establish a password-accessible secure area of our website for parents through which we can maintain the most up-to-date contact information available.
Although we spent much time during the last academic year reviewing and revising our curriculum, our teachers have always been and will always be the true key to Park City Academy’s success. We will miss some teachers who will not be returning to our school this fall; however, we are pleased to welcome in August several outstanding new teachers to the Academy community.
Mentioned before, Melanie Pickens comes to Park City Academy from Memphis, where she served as the Middle School Dean of Students, Technology Curriculum Coordinator, and a social studies teacher. Melanie will teach two sections of Middle School social studies and support our teachers and advance our curriculum as Director of Academic Technology. Melanie has a BA in History and Education and an MA in Administration and Supervision. Melanie will be joined at PCA by her daughter Allie who will join the First Grade class. Arturo Munoz, parent of Micah, Lesly, and Damaris, has already made the transition from Treasure Mountain Middle School to serve as our new Director of Facilities and Maintenance. Art is overseeing the many physical plant projects currently underway this summer and is renovating the four classrooms in the main building for Middle School. Accompanying the Summer Reading Lists, you received a letter from Charlotte Culberson introducing herself as our new Middle School English teacher. Charlotte joins PCA from The Oakley School where she has served on the academic staff since 2002. Charlotte has a BA in English Literature and an MA in Curriculum Development. Casey McCormick will assume lead teacher duties in our Jr. Kindergarten program. Casey earned a BS in Early Childhood Education and an MA in Elementary Education. Supporting Sarah Britton in Pre-School will be Lyndsey Stewart, with a BA in English, who served as an Assistant Teacher at Reagan Academy in Springville. I am pleased to announce several new trustees who will be joining our Board for the first meeting of the new year on August 18: Nancy Tallman, who served the school last year so well as PFA President and Dayna Kenniston, who chaired the Ad-hoc Philosophy/Vision Committee which created our current Vision Statement and Community Values to complement our Mission Statement. As PFA President Katrina Fornof serves as an ex-officio member of the Board and Sheri Ellison Page, has assumed responsibilities as Secretary of the Corporation.
For better and for worse, Park City Academy is not a rich school. Greater use of our website and reducing our costs for paper save money that can be redirected towards educational improvements and increasing compensation levels for our teachers. Similarly, in the past we have annually spent about $2,500 for bottled water in the classrooms. Besides replacing sinks and toilets this summer, we have installed new water fountains in each corridor to provide cold, untreated, filtered water for drinking. If parents feel it is crucial for their children to have bottled water, they should include it with their snacks and lunches from home. Please note as well that while some limited food is available and charged to their parents’ accounts for those students who have forgotten or lost theirs, additional food for snacks will not be available this year for bottomless Middle School student stomachs.
If parents shop at Quarry Village they have no doubt noticed that the modular classrooms that previously housed the Middle School have been sold and removed to make way for the new playground this summer and in the future for additional recreational space behind the school. We expect the new playground to be installed in early August. To save money on that project, we hope to spread the wood chips beneath the playground ourselves. If there is a wheelbarrow, or a rake or a shovel in your garage, a strong back in your household and an hour or two available on the morning of Saturday, August 23rd, we would appreciate whatever help we can get.
This year Jill Cramer, a former PCA Lower School teacher, will be available for an additional charge to work with Lower School students experiencing academic difficulties two mornings a week in the classrooms. This option for addressing academic weaknesses avoids removing the student from the classroom. Additional information concerning this service will be provided in next month’s parent communication.
We are all affected by the weak economy, but remain hopeful that--based on preliminary numbers—our opening of school enrollment will be greater than last year’s. We are very pleased by the many great new families joining our school community this year. However, we continue to expect open seats in most of our grades. Word-of-mouth from enthusiastic parents is undoubtedly the best marketing possible for any school. Therefore, if you are aware of any families who would be good additions to the Park City Academy community, please encourage them to call us for more information, or let us know and we will be happy to follow-up accordingly. And as always, if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions please share them with me.
Don’t let your children forget to do their Summer Reading. Lower School students are reminded of the PCTV Summer Reading Challenge with which we hope again to secure 100% participation.
If we don’t meet before then, I look forward to welcoming everyone back to school for a Parent Orientation (8:30-9:30 a.m. for families with children in 1-5 and 12:30 to 1:30 for Middle School parents) on Monday, August 27.