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May,
2011
Superintendent/Principal
Year-end Message: As we near the end of our 2010-2011
school year we can take a lot of pride in the fact that despite
the severe budget cuts that we've had to endure for the last
three years, Castle Rock School had another great year! We
started out with a fantastic API score of 821 and we were
able to provide an art and music program, league sports, an
after-school program, field trips, and our usual selection
of student-friendly events from The Fall Festival and Santa's
Secret Shoppe to the Grand Prix and Read Across America and
Heritage Day. Our girls sports teams had their best seasons
in many years, and our 6-8 "Film Team" had amazing success
earning three film awards and $700 in
cash prizes! Our wonderful Hive Keepers parent club and our
library volunteers took on the library project and applied
for and received an Intel grant of $2,925 to do a major upgrade
of our library systems and to buy more books! However, please
understand that all of this occurred in spite of the staffing
cuts which placed an extra burden on our teachers and our
entire staff. We are truly lucky to have such a dedicated
staff, an energetic and creative parent club, and a supportive
school community. In these unprecedented times we can only
plan one year at a time, and this year, with sacrifices and
hard work we were able to once again put together a quality
educational experience for our kids and in the end that is
of course the most important thing and the one true reason
that we are here.
State
Budget update: In looking at next year, the news is
not good and is perhaps some of the worst news we could imagine.
As of now, the state is looking at another round of cuts to
K-12 education and this one could be as much as $825 per student
for next year! If this happens, Castle Rock will be losing
about $60,000 in annual funding and we will once again have
to find a way to make enough cuts to run the school and
to keep the district solvent. We will be getting information
out to you as we discuss what our options are for next year
and how you might help us to Stand up for Education!
6-8
Class to Sacramento to meet with our Assemblyman Jim Nielsen:
On May 25th our middle school students will travel to the
capitol in Sacramento to take a tour and to meet with our
local assemblyman. They will tell Mr. Nielsen how the budget
cuts are affecting Castle Rock and they will be asking some
tough questions about the state of education funding in California.
They plan to film the trip and the finished project will be
widely distributed. Now that's education!
Fundraiser:
"Music and Art Makes You Smart!" Please plan to join us on
Thursday May 12th from 5:00 to 9:00 pm at Gary's Pizza
Factory in Dunsmuir for our fundraiser for our art and
music program for next year. We really need your support in
order to make sure that our wonderful Debbie Blackwell will
be able to return to work with our kids next year.
Thank-you
Lakehead Lions!: We are very grateful for the on-going
support from our friends to the South, and we thank the Lakehead
Lions clubs for their generous donation in support of our
music and arts programs for next year. They recently donated
$500 for the music and art programs and we will be attending
one of their meetings in order to thank them personally.
Open
House-Book Fair May 18th: Our annual Open House will
be held on Wednesday May 18th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm and this
year we will be holding our Book Fair on the same evening.
We will be serving coffee, juice, and cookies from 6:00 to
6:30. Please see the flyer that will be coming home for details
about the Book Fair and the Book Drive and how your support
(Book Fair purchases) will really help our school library.
Awards
Assembly May 27th: This will be our last awards assembly
of the year and we will be honoring our May Students of the
Month as well as our athletes. We will be honoring our MVP's
and a number of other team categories. We hope to see you
there.
Memorial
Day: No School on Monday May 30th School will
resume on Tuesday June 1st. Please take a moment to talk with
your children about the sacrifices our brave men and women
in the armed forces have made.
End
of the Year activities: We have a least five field
trips planned and a week of fun activities the last week of
school. Please see the May calendar for details.
Castle
Rock "Hive Keepers" Parent Club: On May 13th the Hive
Keepers will be meeting in the school library at 1:00 pm.
Again, I can't say enough about our Hive Keepers and we are
very grateful that they are so active in the life of our school.
Life Skill/Character Trait for May-Sense of Humor:
Our Life Skill/Character Trait for May is a "Sense of Humor."
We all know that with a good sense of humor the ups and downs
of life are a little easier to handle and sometimes all you
can do is to find the humor in a situation. Children who can
find a way to make light of a tough circumstance tend to be
much more resilient as adults. Please take the opportunity
to point this out to your child and we'll do the same here
at school.
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