From the Director`s Desk: 1/30/2009

I hope you all enjoyed the snow this week.

Elementary Talk: Alef Bet Montessori and Kemp Mill Montessori School ~ Kehillat Montessori are pleased to announce a new date for their Elementary Montessori presentation with esteemed educator Lila Carusillo. It is Wednesday, February 18 at 7:30 p.m. The talk will be at 519 Lamberton Dr. in Silver Spring. All parents are invited to attend. 

Annual Giving Campaign: We are still tallying all our pledges and collecting the money from our Phone-a-thon in December and we will post an updated total next week. However, the PTO reports they weren't able to get a hold of every family, so we will be holding a follow-up phone drive soon. Check the Annual Giving section on our website for soon-to-be posted updates. Our goal is to get 100% parent participation. Right now the Gefen class is in the lead with nearly 90% participation!

Purim Fundraiser: The PTO will be making Mishloach Manot "baskets" for parents to order and give out to family and friends for Purim. Details and the order forms will be distributed Monday.

Weekly Bulletins: Because of the short week we do not have class bulletins to post. Next week, we will begin sending the bulletins on Thursdays in order to give parents time to read them before the weekend.

School Survey: We have received 17 reponses to our school survey but would love to hear from more of you. Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey on our website and help us better understand what you think works and what we can improve.

Shabbot Shalom,

Ayelet, "Ellie" Lichtash

From the Director`s Desk: 1/23/2009

This week the children were able to play in the snow, which produced lots of excitement, squealing voices and laughter during outdoor play. Please make sure to send a set of boots, mittens and hats with your children. We want all the children to be able to go outside and enjoy the snow and fresh air together.

 AMI Primary Consultant: On January 20, AMI consultant Janet McDonell observed the Alef Bet Montessori School's two Primary classes. The Toddler community hosted a consultant in November 2008. The consultations are in pursuit of accreditation with AMI (Association Montessori Internationale), the most stringent of the Montessori organizations.

Consultations include observation of materials used, structure of class, curriculum, teachers' qualifications and demonstrations. The consultant was delighted to see the school and the children. She will follow up with a report in the next few months.

Change in Noon Dismissal: The date for the teachers' March Professional Day has been switched to March 3rd. Classes will be dismissed at 12 p.m. that day. The website calendars have been updated, please make sure you mark the change on your personal calendars. A printable 2008-2009 school year calendar can be found in Parents Place/School Forms.

 Special Need: For those of you who showed an interest there is an intensive seminar on Special Need Advocacy see info: http://specialneedsadvocacyinstitute.com/advocacy-training.html.

From the Director`s Desk: 1/16/2009

Written on behalf of the Director by Amanda Boltax

Dear Parents,

We welcome back our wonderful Executive Director, Ayelet "Ellie" Lichtash. Ellie is back in the office and would like to convey her appreciation to all who contributed to the meals for her family and all the calls and emails. Obviously she has a a lot of work to catch up on, so please continue to contact teachers and the office staff for general inquiries and requests.

Priority registration: Don't miss out on reserving your child's spot for next year. We expect to have full classes next year, so if you are planning on sending your child to Alef Bet next year, you must fill out the Priority Registration form that was sent home before the break and submit a check for $250 for each child you are registering. If you don't have the form click here to print one out.

Safety first: We can't emphasize enough how important it is to be cautious when entering and exiting our parking lot. Please drive slowly and heed the one-way signs in our school's parking lot.

Pick up: Afternoon pickup time is 2:45 p.m. with a 15-minute grace period. Last week we had several children picked up well beyond the 3 p.m. grace period. Please aim to pick up your children at 2:45 p.m. Our teachers put in a full day and deserve to go home as scheduled at 3. School policy does state that parents will be charged $1 per minute for pickups after 3 p.m.

Survey says: We received 17 responses to our survey, which is around 50% of the school's families. All the responses said communication is improved from last
year and overall parents are satisfied with the tools we have in place. There were some requests for more details about their child's day, which we plan to address with a few tweaks to the weekly bulletins. If you haven't taken the survey, we strongly urge you to do so by clicking here. It can be anonymous and should only take a few minutes.

Annual Giving Campaign: We are off to a great start with $4,000 collected so far. Please keep those pledges coming and check out new Annual Giving Campaign page on our website to monitor our progress to our goal of $10,000 and 100% parent participation.

Technical Difficulties: We had some problems with our Parents Place section on the website last Friday, so if you didn't check out the weekly bulletins from last week they are still posted along with the Chanukah Party photos.

Important reminders:

• We will have a regular school day on Monday Jan. 19, Martin Luther King Day. 
• The Family Shabbaton for Jan. 30 has been postponed.

From the Director`s Desk: 1/9/2009

Dear Parents,

Ayelet is away on personal leave. She is expected to return home Jan. 13th or 14th. If you would like to participate in providing meals for the Lichtash family when they return, please contact Janel Herman. In Ayelet's absence, if you have any administrative questions, you should address them to Janel Herman ext. 18.  Any questions regarding the classroom that cannot be resolved by your child`s teacher can be directed to Miriam Singer ext. 20.

Annual Giving Campaign Update

Thanks to the generosity of our parents, we have received $4,000 total from our initial push in fundraising for our school`s classrooms and have more pledges coming in from our December Phone-a-thon. This is an excellent start towards our goal of $10,000. Our campaign drive is open until March, so if you haven't made a pledge yet or were only able to give a small donation at the end of the year, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us reach our goal.

Family Shabbaton:

The Shabbaton scheduled for Jan. 30 has been postponed. We will announce a new date soon.

Communications Survey:

We've had 12 responses to our communications survey. If you haven`t had a chance to fill it out, please do so as the feedback is important so we can continue to improve. Click here to go to the survey or you can find a link on our website in the left navigation menu. We will post the survey results at the end of the month.

Martin Luther King Day: 

The School will be open for regular session on Jan. 19.

The Alef Bet Staff