Aid for Japanese Schools in Ishinomaki, Japan

I want to post a big 'thank you' to Erica and Grover Naito-Campbell and the Nickerson family for providing opportunities for our students to contribute to the rebuilding efforts in Japan.

Erica left this weekend with thousands of origami hearts created by RGS students, designed to lift the spirits of Japanese students!


And the Nickersons are hosting a wonderful event, the details of which are shared below:

Aid for Japanese Schools in Ishinomaki, Japan

Experience the exciting Japanese Takohachi Drummers

&

Listen as Sanae Ito shares pictures & stories from her recent trip back to her devastated hometown of Ishinomaki, Japan.

Join us for a very special fundraiser

to aid in the rebuilding of

Inshinomaki schools damaged or destroyed by the recent earthquake and tsunami

in Japan.

June 5, 2011

4-6 pm

The Nickersons, 11175 SW Riverwood Road

Portland, OR 97219

Learn Japanese origami folding, discover your Asian zodiac sign, make and eat sushi and bid on wonderful silent auction items!

Please let us know you’re coming by emailing: chsnickerson@aol.com

This event was organized because a friend of ours is from Ishinomaki and recently returned to care for her parents who were injured in the Earthquake. They are quite elderly and were without electricity, heat, water and telephone reception for five days in the second story of their home before someone rescued them.

When Sanae returned to Japan she was shocked by the condition of the schools. Fifty-six of the 61 schools in her city were either destroyed or heavily damaged. Sanae took many photos and will share them with us on June 5th.

We are not professional party planners but couldn’t sit back and hear Sanae’s stories without being moved to action.

At this point we have the wonderful entertainment mentioned above and silent auction items such as a signed Blazer Basketball, McCormick and Schmick’s gift certificate, custom-made jewelry, to name a few. We welcome any items for the auction and donations large or small for the Ishinomaki schools.

Most importantly, we want all of our neighbors to join us on June 5th for a fun event for the whole family.

The Takohachi Drum group will play their drums plus do dances from the Ishinomaki area. They promise a fun program and will be bringing educational materials for school age kids.

Principal's Newsletter 5/22/11

Last Thursday evening a dozen or so parents and their kids gathered in the commons to find out more about Destination Imagination, a competitive/creative design-focused program. We were blessed to have the State Champion team present a q&a accompanied by a demonstration of the program. They put our kids (and their parents) through the paces of a design challenge.

The picture above shows a team of Riverdale parents attempting to use the scant materials available to raise an apple as high off a table as possible. And, by 'attempting' I mean 'failing miserably.'

I strongly encourage families looking for after school activities for their children to check it out. Michelle Janke is happy to talk you through the steps necessary to start a team (painless), the costs associated (not much -- THANK YOU PTC!), and the benefits (many).

I am personally thrilled that this is taking off just now. Everything I read about the next twenty years in education suggests that what we need most of all is a sense of redirection in terms of allowing children access to creative outlets. To that end I believe Destination Imagination, LEGO Robotics, and the ilk, are precisely the kind of activity we need more of down the road.
____

Speaking of creativity...

Mrs. Molly Scholz will be presenting the Spring K-4 Music Concert in the gym this Thursday evening, and I encourage you attend! Molly's work with the entire scope of our student body is incredible, and I always leave the concerts knowing something new about the developmental process of music education.
____

It seems we are facing economic challenges the likes of which have rarely been seen here. The fact is, the world has been dealing with these challenges for three full years now. We have been buttressed by the more stable platform this community chooses to implement to support its children -- generous giving to the Foundation and PTC, a local option levy whose support never seems to waver, increasing numbers of families realizing the differences of the program and coming to us on a tuition basis. I appreciate your patience as we work through the finer points of the reduction in force that was announced in the last school board meeting and discussed at length in the budget process.

You can expect a great deal of forthcoming information about some programmatic changes, especially as it relates to the combination of "singleton" and "multi-age classrooms" in primary, and the adjustments of moving from four to three positions at the 5-6 level. I'd like to invite you to reply here with any and all questions you may have, in order that I might post responses to as many as possible in the short term. I realize there may be additional questions which come to mind once the reduction is formalized, and will post subsequent requests down the road.
_____

I would like to close by acknowledging the grace and poise our faculty continues to show through this process. I lead tours through the school at unprecedented levels and am constantly reminded of the professional dignity and capacity of this staff. I am blessed to work with them, and for your children. Looking forward to a dynamic and fun-filled last three weeks!