We have just left a walk through of the land. It was so much fun to see the buildings all staked out. After four years of dreaming and planning we were able to stand in our new offices for the first time! What an exciting time.
This week: The sewer and water lines were installed. The footings are dug and we were told this morning that the concrete may be poured before Monday. The materials have begun to arrive and we are full force ahead.
At this point we have no new information about the timing of our opening. We will continue to update you as new information becomes available.
***WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE HAVE ARRANGED TO RENT TWO ADDITIONAL CLASSROOM SPACES FROM THE HILLSBOROUGH UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST (THE BUILDING IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT TO THE CURRENT LITTLE SCHOOL IN OUR PARKING LOT) TO BE USED TO OPEN OUR HALF-DAY PROGRAM. WE ARE AWAITING FINAL DETAILS AND THEN WE WILL GO AHEAD AND BEGIN TO DECORATE THE SPACES. THE TEACHERS HAVE BEEN HIRED AND THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE, WELL-QUALIFIED, WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO WE ARE VERY PROUD TO HAVE AS A PART OF OUR STAFF. WE WILL BE ANNOUNCING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OVER THE COMING WEEKS BUT PLAN ON A SEPTEMBER 1ST OPENING AT THIS TIME.
WE WILL BE TAKING AN INITIAL ENROLLMENT OF 12 CHILDREN (TOTAL) FOR THESE TWO CLASSROOMS. IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON STARTING WITH US ONCE WATERSTONE OPENS BUT WOULD LIKE TO GET STARTED EARLY IN THE HALF-DAY PROGRAM YOU CAN CONTACT MARY AT: mailto:MARY@THELITTLESCHOOL.net FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE VERY LIMITED REMAINING SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 OPENINGS IN THE HALF DAY PROGRAM.
Glimpse: The Little School has always been committed to embracing the diverse traditions of all of our children. The problem has been that we are a nearly homogeneous community and have been since our inception. We have been so pleased to have many families with diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds applying to join us in the coming year. We are so very excited to get to know these new families and to hear about their experiences while learning about their particular cultures. To date, families from eight countries and five continents have joined the
school. We are so pleased to be a school that is rich in community and culture.
Showing posts with label Enrollment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enrollment. Show all posts
Friday, July 10, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Week 8: Breaking Ground
If You Are Happy and You Know it...
Build a Building!
This week is all about joy. We received our permit, attended a pre-construction meeting with our whole team and the county, and...
and...
and...
WE BROKE GROUND!!! We are so very, very excited!
If you drive by this weekend you will likely see our trailer, lots of utility wire and pipe, and maybe even some heavy equipment. We have waited so long for this moment that there are just no words to describe our feeling.
Add to that the beautiful weather, sprouts in our gardens, butterfly caterpillars in our tanks, and lots and lots of singing throughout the school and really, life just doesn't get a whole lot better than this.
Glimpse: Enrollment
We are sure that most of you know that we are in the heat of fall enrollment. We have had new families coming into see us daily from all over the country and all over the world. Some of our visitors have been from India, and France, and Iceland and Germany. We have met families from at least a dozen states. It has been so much fun to meet all of these folks from so many different perspectives. As we move into the summer months we do so knowing that our community is going to be richly diverse. That is also a blessing for which we have no words to express our gratitude.
If you have been waiting to complete your application our advice to you is CALL NOW!!! We are quickly filling our classrooms and we would hate to miss out on the chance to get to know your family. Mary mailed out twenty-three more enrollment packets yesterday. It won't be long now until we are full.
Build a Building!
This week is all about joy. We received our permit, attended a pre-construction meeting with our whole team and the county, and...
and...
and...
WE BROKE GROUND!!! We are so very, very excited!
If you drive by this weekend you will likely see our trailer, lots of utility wire and pipe, and maybe even some heavy equipment. We have waited so long for this moment that there are just no words to describe our feeling.
Add to that the beautiful weather, sprouts in our gardens, butterfly caterpillars in our tanks, and lots and lots of singing throughout the school and really, life just doesn't get a whole lot better than this.
Glimpse: Enrollment
We are sure that most of you know that we are in the heat of fall enrollment. We have had new families coming into see us daily from all over the country and all over the world. Some of our visitors have been from India, and France, and Iceland and Germany. We have met families from at least a dozen states. It has been so much fun to meet all of these folks from so many different perspectives. As we move into the summer months we do so knowing that our community is going to be richly diverse. That is also a blessing for which we have no words to express our gratitude.
If you have been waiting to complete your application our advice to you is CALL NOW!!! We are quickly filling our classrooms and we would hate to miss out on the chance to get to know your family. Mary mailed out twenty-three more enrollment packets yesterday. It won't be long now until we are full.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Hello Everyone and Welcome Back to Our Blog!
We have had an incredibly busy week as we have finished up our first wave of enrollment. Most of our current families have returned their intention forms for their currently enrolled children as well as their enrollment forms for their other entering children. We are so excited about having all of the siblings join us. For some of our families we are welcoming their third children into the school. It is such a blessing to have that kind of history with a family. In case we haven't said so already, we really love our families and can't think of anything better than spending another four or five years together.
We have also invited a few former families to return to us with new children. In all we have three alumni families returning to the school. It has been so much fun visiting with our now grown-up former students as they have proudly introduced us to their new baby brother or sister.
Those of you on our Duke waiting list should have received an email from us by today. This first note was a test email. Some of you have been waiting quite some time so we wanted to be sure that we had up-to-date email addresses for all of you. If you did not receive a test email you should have received a phone call from Miss Mary letting you know that we were not able to reach you. If you are a Duke family and you did not receive an email or a phone call we need you to call the school at 644-1818 and ask to speak to Mary so that we can be sure that we get your invitation to enroll to you. We will send out our official invitations by email on Monday, March 16, 2009 for all Duke families.
You will have two weeks to respond letting us know who you are enrolling and what kind of care you need. Please be sure to get your responses turned into us by no later than Friday, March 27, 2009. Please call the school office if you have any questions at all about any of this.
For those of you who are on the waiting list but not a Duke family, we will begin your enrollment on Monday, March 30, 2009. Please look for future blog instructions as we get closer to March 30, 2009.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
We have begun a conversation with the Orange County transportation folks about a new program. We will be offering LIMITED after school opportunities for elementary school-aged children. The program will be run at the Waterstone campus and its focus will be Reggio-Emilia-inspired, cooperative, arts-focused and SO MUCH FUN! We intend to make this the MOST fun and engaging after school program ANYWHERE. Please let us know if you are interested in learning more about this offering. We will update this information as we gather more information.
GLIMPSE:
This weeks Glimpse was a toss-up for us. We have two things that we really want to tell you about. In the end we decided to break our own rules and give you two looks into the new school!
Glimpse 1: As we dreamed about the new building we had so many ideas about things that children would find whimsical and fanciful. Many of our ideas were focused on ways to manipulate our light to provide the children with multiple opportunities to experience and interact with natural light in the classroom environment and out. We want windows that invite interaction with the outdoors. In our first idea, we asked our design team to place the windows in the classrooms as child-heights.
If you think about most buildings it is clear that they are designed with adults only in mind. We wanted not only the adults to realize that they are in a child-centered building, but the children to also be clear that the building is for them.
Glimpse 2: Once we started thinking about the windows our minds went wild and we began to try to imagine the classrooms from the children's perspectives. We wanted an environment that had both large and small spaces and places where children could go to where there was minimal distraction, or interruption. We also envisioned a place where children could see outside of their environment. We raised the idea of having a window that looked from one classroom into another. Our architect, David, took that idea and pushed it a little further- literally. He actually pushed the rooms out so that there is small nook in each room that is only four feet tall. The nooks abut the nooks in the next room and the adjoining walls are made of glass so that children in one room can see children in the next through the window. Each nook also has a small window that looks out onto the courtyard. Our hope is that we will use these nooks to invite interaction between the children as well as with the outdoors while also giving them a comforting, safe space to just "be".
We have also invited a few former families to return to us with new children. In all we have three alumni families returning to the school. It has been so much fun visiting with our now grown-up former students as they have proudly introduced us to their new baby brother or sister.
Those of you on our Duke waiting list should have received an email from us by today. This first note was a test email. Some of you have been waiting quite some time so we wanted to be sure that we had up-to-date email addresses for all of you. If you did not receive a test email you should have received a phone call from Miss Mary letting you know that we were not able to reach you. If you are a Duke family and you did not receive an email or a phone call we need you to call the school at 644-1818 and ask to speak to Mary so that we can be sure that we get your invitation to enroll to you. We will send out our official invitations by email on Monday, March 16, 2009 for all Duke families.
You will have two weeks to respond letting us know who you are enrolling and what kind of care you need. Please be sure to get your responses turned into us by no later than Friday, March 27, 2009. Please call the school office if you have any questions at all about any of this.
For those of you who are on the waiting list but not a Duke family, we will begin your enrollment on Monday, March 30, 2009. Please look for future blog instructions as we get closer to March 30, 2009.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
We have begun a conversation with the Orange County transportation folks about a new program. We will be offering LIMITED after school opportunities for elementary school-aged children. The program will be run at the Waterstone campus and its focus will be Reggio-Emilia-inspired, cooperative, arts-focused and SO MUCH FUN! We intend to make this the MOST fun and engaging after school program ANYWHERE. Please let us know if you are interested in learning more about this offering. We will update this information as we gather more information.
GLIMPSE:
This weeks Glimpse was a toss-up for us. We have two things that we really want to tell you about. In the end we decided to break our own rules and give you two looks into the new school!
Glimpse 1: As we dreamed about the new building we had so many ideas about things that children would find whimsical and fanciful. Many of our ideas were focused on ways to manipulate our light to provide the children with multiple opportunities to experience and interact with natural light in the classroom environment and out. We want windows that invite interaction with the outdoors. In our first idea, we asked our design team to place the windows in the classrooms as child-heights.
If you think about most buildings it is clear that they are designed with adults only in mind. We wanted not only the adults to realize that they are in a child-centered building, but the children to also be clear that the building is for them.
Glimpse 2: Once we started thinking about the windows our minds went wild and we began to try to imagine the classrooms from the children's perspectives. We wanted an environment that had both large and small spaces and places where children could go to where there was minimal distraction, or interruption. We also envisioned a place where children could see outside of their environment. We raised the idea of having a window that looked from one classroom into another. Our architect, David, took that idea and pushed it a little further- literally. He actually pushed the rooms out so that there is small nook in each room that is only four feet tall. The nooks abut the nooks in the next room and the adjoining walls are made of glass so that children in one room can see children in the next through the window. Each nook also has a small window that looks out onto the courtyard. Our hope is that we will use these nooks to invite interaction between the children as well as with the outdoors while also giving them a comforting, safe space to just "be".
Friday, March 6, 2009
Week 2 A Busy Week Behind the Scenes
It has been a very busy week behind the scenes. We are meeting later on this afternoon with our complete team to discuss the upcoming construction schedule. We are meeting our grading contractor for the first time. It still surprises us to see so many faces sitting around the table at these meetings. We truly feel like the owners of a little school but our team implies that we have become much bigger. We have received many re-enrollment forms from our current families. It is amazing to us to look around and see all of the siblings coming into the school. We have seen the birth of fifteen future Little Schoolers this year ,and it is going to be so much fun to watch them grow with us.
Just as a reminder... The current families have until March 13th to return their re-enrollment forms. We will then send out the invitation to enroll to our Duke waiting list on March 16th. If you are a Duke family waiting, and you do not receive an email from us on that day please call the school in the afternoon and speak to Mary. Alternately,you can also send an email to: christaniven@thelittleschool.net and we will be sure to get you your invitation. We will begin our general enrollment on April 6th.
This was a very busy week for outside enrollment also. We gave several tours and took many phone calls from families hoping to enroll for the fall. It is so nice for us to be able to tell families that we can enroll them. It was always our goal to serve the unmet childcare need in our corner of Orange County. The truth is that we had no idea how great that need truly is. It is so hard to have to tell families who have been waiting to enter the school that we STILL don't have a spot. Please know that we are loving every minute of this time of saying "Yes, please join us!"
As we look to next week we will be waiting for our final approvals from the town. Once those have been received we will begin the site work. Our plan is to have a ground breaking party just after the grading is completed but before the foundation work begins. Please continue to read for updates on that.We want to start something new this week. We are going to call it a "Glimpse" and we will add one every week.
This week's Glimpse is: At the new school we will host community events one Friday per month from May-October. We are calling these get togethers "Family Fridays." We will hold these events on the courtyard of the Waterstone Campus. Current families from both campuses as well as prospective families and friends will be invited to join us. Our first Family Friday will be scheduled as soon as it is safe for us to be at the Waterstone campus this summer. We are planning to have live music and dancing at this first event. Chef Nate will prepare basket dinners in advance for families to pick up when they arrive.We see these events as opportunities for our families to get to know each other, and to continue our small school atmosphere even though our community is growing.
We get so excited even thinking about these events! Please send us any suggestions that you have for other Family Friday's. Some of our other ideas include: movies on the lawn, stories and shadow play, and our ever popular and favorite event of the year: the Fall Bonfire!
Thanks so much for all of your support and encouragement. We truly are the greatest school community ever. We can't wait until we are all together in the fall.
Christa & Jennifer
Just as a reminder... The current families have until March 13th to return their re-enrollment forms. We will then send out the invitation to enroll to our Duke waiting list on March 16th. If you are a Duke family waiting, and you do not receive an email from us on that day please call the school in the afternoon and speak to Mary. Alternately,you can also send an email to: christaniven@thelittleschool.net and we will be sure to get you your invitation. We will begin our general enrollment on April 6th.
This was a very busy week for outside enrollment also. We gave several tours and took many phone calls from families hoping to enroll for the fall. It is so nice for us to be able to tell families that we can enroll them. It was always our goal to serve the unmet childcare need in our corner of Orange County. The truth is that we had no idea how great that need truly is. It is so hard to have to tell families who have been waiting to enter the school that we STILL don't have a spot. Please know that we are loving every minute of this time of saying "Yes, please join us!"
As we look to next week we will be waiting for our final approvals from the town. Once those have been received we will begin the site work. Our plan is to have a ground breaking party just after the grading is completed but before the foundation work begins. Please continue to read for updates on that.We want to start something new this week. We are going to call it a "Glimpse" and we will add one every week.
This week's Glimpse is: At the new school we will host community events one Friday per month from May-October. We are calling these get togethers "Family Fridays." We will hold these events on the courtyard of the Waterstone Campus. Current families from both campuses as well as prospective families and friends will be invited to join us. Our first Family Friday will be scheduled as soon as it is safe for us to be at the Waterstone campus this summer. We are planning to have live music and dancing at this first event. Chef Nate will prepare basket dinners in advance for families to pick up when they arrive.We see these events as opportunities for our families to get to know each other, and to continue our small school atmosphere even though our community is growing.
We get so excited even thinking about these events! Please send us any suggestions that you have for other Family Friday's. Some of our other ideas include: movies on the lawn, stories and shadow play, and our ever popular and favorite event of the year: the Fall Bonfire!
Thanks so much for all of your support and encouragement. We truly are the greatest school community ever. We can't wait until we are all together in the fall.
Christa & Jennifer
